The Naked Gun (1988)

In 1982, the creators of Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) and Airplane! (1980), Jerry Zucker, David Zucker and Jim Abrahams, created a television show, "Police Squad!" It was a half-hour comedy, a spoof of cop shows, totally deadpan and without a laugh track. It lasted six episodes, presumably because people thought they were watching an actual bad cop show rather than a comedy. read more...

Search for streaming:

• Funny ▶ Yes please
• Optimistic ▶ Yes please
• Romantic Love ▶ Happily ever after
• Boldness ▶ Bold, aggressive, unrepressed, cathartic or expressive actions
• Rules ▶ Escapable or can be transformed
• Comfort Level ▶ Settled, reassured, comforted or resolved
• Takes itself Seriously ▶ No thanks

The Time of Their Lives (1946)

One of Universal's most lucrative properties in the 1940s was the comedy team Abbott and Costello, the epitome of the straight man/funny man team-up. To many, they were just a poor man's version of Laurel and Hardy, who had come from the silent screen as well as the stage, and knew to put artistic pauses in their work. Abbott and Costello merely charged ahead though, hammering away and looking for the next laugh. read more...

Search for streaming:

• Funny ▶ Yes please
• Brainy ▶ Don't make me think
• Optimistic ▶ Yes please
• Sympathetic ▶ I want to know or care about the characters
• Moralistic ▶ Yes please
• Rules ▶ Escapable or can be transformed
• Comfort Level ▶ Settled, reassured, comforted or resolved
• Takes itself Seriously ▶ No thanks
• Originality ▶ Stories I know and love

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Mel Brooks's 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles gets away with murder -- more so than any of today's flatulence-obsessed comedies do. As liberal as we think we are in 2004, we still have just as many taboo subjects now as there were then, sex and race chief among them. read more...

Search for streaming:

• Funny ▶ Yes please
• Rules ▶ Escapable or can be transformed
• Originality ▶ Stories I know and love

The Three Stooges Collection Volume 3: 1940-1942 (2008)

Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard did not exactly represent the apex of American comedy. Their short films were crude and obvious and rarely showed any hint of cinematic excellence. And yet they have exuberance and a bald-faced joy that makes them irresistible. Even intellectuals can find themselves laughing at their overblown antics. read more...

Search for streaming:

• Funny ▶ Yes please
• Brainy ▶ Don't make me think
• Boldness ▶ Bold, aggressive, unrepressed, cathartic or expressive actions
• Rules ▶ Escapable or can be transformed
• Comfort Level ▶ Settled, reassured, comforted or resolved
• Overall Depth ▶ Surface
• Takes itself Seriously ▶ No thanks
• Originality ▶ Stories I know and love

Johnny Dangerously (1984)

I love this oddball period gangster spoof, directed by Amy Heckerling, with Michael Keaton at his cockiest, snappiest, and coolest as the title gangster who tries to support his ma (Maureen Stapleton) and tries to keep his kid brother (Griffin Dunne) on the straight and narrow. The setting is decidedly non-realistic -- it doesn't take place in any kind of reality, or in any kind of gangster film you've ever seen before -- and the jokes range from deadpan visuals to clever wordplay to irreverently dumb, repeated jokes that escalate with each telling. Joe Piscopo is also funny as the snide gun nut Vermin. But the villain Roman Troy Moronie, played by Richard Dimitri, gets the biggest laughs with his fractured curses, like "you fargin bastages!" The movie did not perform well either with audiences or critics, but it has its passionate fans today. "Weird Al" Yankovic provided a ragtime-style theme song, "This Is the Life," that fit perfectly, but was eventually deleted from home video releases for legal reasons. read more...

Search for streaming:

• Funny ▶ Yes please
• Rules ▶ Escapable or can be transformed