I did not know this:
I grew up watching Monty Python on Channel 8 (GPTV) and really got a kick out of it. I wasn’t allowed to watch much Benny Hill, but here was plenty o good comedy movies in my early years that shaped by funny bone today. Some of my favorites:
- Vacation
- Young Frankenstein
- History of the World Part I
- Sixteen Candles
- Animal House
- The Jerk
- Bananas
- Kentucky Fried Movie
- Airplane
- Better Off Dead
They don’t make them like they used to, as they say.
So what say you…what’s your favorite comedy movies and what makes them so good compared to anything we see today?
I can’t believe you, as a guy, would admit to watching 16 Candles, and actually putting it in print. You forgot Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Dude, if you can’t laugh at the Donger, you just don’t have a pulse. I really related with the Anthony Michael Hall character, to be fair.
Sixteen Candles is a classic. I still laugh every time I see Farmer Ted trapped under the glass table.
No mo yankee on my wankee! Donger need food!!
I’m not really a farmer, I’m a freshman.
https://youtu.be/w4OVBolXQRc?si=vNld8p3nmtA7JkPQ
Blazing Saddles has to be on that list
Tru dat^^^^^^^^^^
Add Mash to that list…..Deadpool…..Ted….maybe Inglorious Bastards….My cousin Vinny
Theses are all great choices.
Animal House
Airplane
The Return of the Pink Panther
The Big Lebowski
Young Frankenstein
The Princess Bride
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Kelly’s Heroes
Best movie with comedic acting:
Smokey and the Bandit
Best silly/slapstick comedy:
Dumb and Dumber
Best farce:
Tropic Thunder
Best black comedy:
Observe and Report
Favorite comedic scene:
https://youtu.be/n97MVhboBus?si=pyMdG9sP7Zz-R-Sr
Favorite comedic touch:
The subtitles in Airplane
I saw “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” when it came out. Went back to see it again the next day. My dad used to fall asleep on the couch watching the 11:00 news and would sometimes stay up to watch late movie at 11:30. One night, he woke up just as the sound of hooves in the fog appeared on the screen. Next thing he knew, some page comes over the hill clopping two coconut halves. He’d obviously never seen anything like it, but I think he sort of enjoyed it.
“Animal House”, “Blues Brothers”, “Caddy Shack”, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”, “Blazing Saddles”, “Young Frankenstein”, “Raising Arizona”, “A Fish Called Wanda”, “The Naked Gun (all of them)”, “Spinal Tap (both of them)”.
“Groove Tube” really got me as a kid in high school. I’m sure there are plenty more that I’m forgetting.
The movie that literally made my ribs hurt was American Pie.
I have a military bent and and old timer’s bent, but there’s Dr. Strangelove then far behind is Kelly’s Heroes.
Dr. Strangelove is so well made, acted, and old (although timeless) its hard to remember it as belonging to this genre.
Definitely the best comedy movie ever made.
“Fighting in the War Room? There’s no fighting in the War Room!”
Also in contemplating whether we should start WW3 and fully commit to nuclear war:
General Turgidson: I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed. 10 to 20 million (Americans) killed tops. Depending on the breeze.
President: I don’t intend to go down in history as the world’s greatest mass murderer!
General Turgidson: Perhaps if you were more interested in the American people than your place in history!
Its dark but right on point.
Plus the Gen Jack Ripper sending his bomber wing into Russia because he can’t perform sexually and blames fluoridation in the water for it…. Which is itself a commie plot of course.
Fucking timeless expose on the danger of stupidity, recklessness, and conspiracy theory at the highest levels.
I didn’t list Kelly’s Heroes but a great flick!
I’ve seen and enjoyed every movie mentioned except Observe and Report and Groove Tube. I’ll have to check them out.
Can’t I have just a little peril?
Last year the wife and I went to the 50th anniversary showing. It’s still an outrageously funny movie.
All the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies.
Blazing Saddles
Kelly’s Hero’s
Life of Brian
Do you have a license for your minkey?
That still makes me laugh. Thanks
Does your dog bite?
That’s not my dog
But that’s a priceless Steinway!… Not any more.
Animal House, Caddyshack, Kingpin, Office Space and Bad Santa.
The entire Earnest movie franchise.
Raising Arizona – I need a baby Hi!
O Brother Where Art Thou – And stay out of the Woolworths!
“A rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.”
Recidivism, Hi! RE-PEAT O-FFENDER.
TBS versions of all the aforementioned movies too, right? Putting on the uncensored “The Blue Brothers” for your kids starts things off on a rather different note….
And who knew there there were so many “Kelly’s Hero’s” fans out there, an all-timer for sure!
I didn’t find Python as funny as some of my friends did growing up which I guess is ironic because I love a lot of British humor (give me a British panel show today over most any US produced sitcom) today. For that matter, I think the British gangster and crime shows are way better as well.
I can still recite virtually every line from Animal House when it is on the screen. So much of that movie would not be made today which says something (probably positive and negative.) Same with Caddyshack as well.
Count me in on Sixteen Candles too. Also one that if you made it today they would take out the bits that are the glue to the humor. To me what made the movie funny is the Samantha Baker is “better” than virtually everyone in the movie except perhaps her father (the great Paul Dooley.) Yet even though she is smarter, attractive, nicer, more caring etc but invisible/taken for granted. Everyone else is terrible in their own way yet she still shows them grace and love when she has no reason too.
Here is my list for some of my favorites from my youth: Animal House, Caddyshack, Stripes, Blues Brothers, Tootsie, Airplane, Police Academy, 48 Hours, Trading Places, Raw, Slapshot, The Sting, Spinal Tap, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Top Secret, Raising Arizona, Blazing Saddles, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Bad News Bears, MASH, Stir Crazy
Quick notes – The Sting (along with Goodfellas) is probably my favorite movie of all time (non-drama). The interplay between Newman and Redford is great. I find Slapshot so humorous not just because the scenes with the Hansons are slapsticky and funny but because it was made in the 1970’s during the sexual revolution but was a commentary about our country’s repression which still is relevant fifty-ish years later. Also, Gene Siskel gave it 1/2 stars in his initial review then went back, watched it again, got the joke and considered it one of the best comedies and sports movies of all-time.
As for movies beyond after HS but when I still young (I am old): Back to School, Broadcast News, Bull Durham, Coming to America, The Naked Gun Movies, The Austin Powers Movies, The Farrelly’s trio of Kingpin, Dumb & Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, The Big Lebowski, Super Troopers (Shenanigans!), Tommy Boy, Office Space, The Hangover, Superbad, A Fish Called Wanda, I’m Gonna Get You Sucka, Clerks, Anchorman, Wet Hot American Summer, Elf, Billy Madison (its the only Sandler comedy I can still watch), and Borat. I am not going to list them all but I have liked all of the Wes Anderson movies – Rushmore, Moonrise Kingdom, and Grand Budapest are my favorites. Plus the Chris Guest mockumentaries are great – A Mighty Wind is my favorite.
I’m with you on Monty Python. Sometimes it was just overly silly and I didn’t get it. I did like Black Adder, Mr. Bean, Absolutely Fabulous, and Chef. Good British humor.
Life of Brian is amazing and not quite as silly as they could be at times.
Incredible commentary on people’s various foibles.
Debating the meaning of Brian’s sandal falling off as the crowd chases him. The cured leper who resents being healed as he lost his trade as a beggar. The man who asked to be cured of his bald patch. The various feuding anti-Roman groups who hate each other more. The list of things the Romans have made better. The correcting of Brian’s Latin. Biggus Dickus. The crowd making up prisoner names so they can hear Pilate’s lisp. “Wa-weese Wodewick!”
That movie just keeps delivering.
Just what have the Roman’s ever done for us?
Along the lines of musicians funding “Grail,” George Harrison provided the funding that got “Life of Brian” made in the first place.
Slapshot with Paul Newman. Probably not worth watching if not for the Hanson Brothers, who stole the show.
M*A*S*H
Stripes and Caddyshack hold up. We watched Porky’s and laughed that we had been so domesticated that it was more shocking (regarding language) now than when it came out lol
Stripes…yes.
A lot of mine have already been mentioned … I have to say The Naked Gun. Still one of the funniest lines delivered totally deadpan.
https://youtu.be/ulDgOfeWPYs?si=pWklpYHP31pJ3dDa
One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Comedy/Drama
Jack Nicholson was hilarious.
Loved many of those mentioned. Two of my favorite comedies that i think are really clever and well made are: (1) Midnight Run with Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin, and; (2) Nobody’s Fool with Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Jessica Tandy, and Phillip Seymour-Hoffman.
Nobody’s Fool is one of my favorite movies. Really good actors not taking themselves too seriously.
Napoleon Dynomite!