Excel Saga was brilliant, I have the whole series on DVD. :D They just wanted to mess around, have fun, and parody various tropes. (The first Menchi episode never mocked the "heartwarming animal journey" trope, for example.)

Project A-ko is another parody anime that did what it did out of love for the genres. Same with Dragon Half. They don't spell it out that Mink's not your typical half-dragon heroine, they just have her do silly things.