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2000’s Comedies, The new golden age of comedy

2000’s comedies are the best bro, THE BEST!

  • Doi bro, obvi. THE BEST

    Votes: 14 41.2%
  • Nah brah, I molest collies

    Votes: 1 2.9%
  • I has the olds, I miss Mork and Mindy

    Votes: 1 2.9%
  • Op, GFY

    Votes: 18 52.9%

  • Total voters
    34
From the makers of Airplane!


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Good comedy stands the test of time, regardless of when it was released. My list an homage to that.

Step Brothers
Groundhog Day
Dumb and Dumber
Blazing Saddles
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Planes Trains and Automobiles
Animal House
Let it Ride
Stripes
PCU
Friday
Something About Mary
The Jerk
Young Frankenstein
Three Amigos
Back to School
Trading Places
Airplane
Naked Gun
Blues Brothers
16 Candles
MP and the Holy Grail
Christmas Vacation
Kingpin
Caddyshack
Old School
 
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80s drag their nuts all over those. Just off the top of my head

Fast Times
Airplane
Police Academy
Revenge of the Nerds
Better off Dead
Caddyshack
Spaceballs
Porkys
Ferris Bueller
Back to the Future
Goonies
Breakfast Club
Beverly Hills Cop
Spies Like Us
Naked Gun
Ghostbusters

I could keep going...
Revenge of the Nerds is very average
 
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I'm not the biggest fan of comedies, I think many of these listed from every era are just so-so, and even ones I enjoyed, few of them are something I cared to see again.

But the reason I don't rate the 2000s era the OP likes so much is that the comedy of this era really broke pretty hard against jokes. Jokes are my favorite part of comedies. And it amazes me how few jokes are actually in those 00's "classics". They are largely made of funny situations, people saying funny or ridiculous things, or just generally acting in a funny way.

I mean, I find that stuff funny, but I don't have the same level of appreciation. It's like the Sex Panther line in Anchorman, "60% of the time it works every time." That is undeniably funny, it just is. But it's not a joke (well, the name Sex Panther is a bit of a joke). There are plenty of ways to be funny, plenty of things that can make me laugh, but jokes reign supreme to me, and they're very slim in that era.

There are exceptions...Walk Hard is full of great jokes. It's probably the only one I can think of that is chock full of great jokes. Team America isn't really my thing, but can't deny it is mostly jokes. Zoolander is joke-heavy. There are some jokes in Idiocracy, Tropic Thunder and others. But overall, the comedies of that era are just really more reliant on funny ideas, and funny people acting funny. Totally nothing wrong with that.

But a lot more of my favorite comedies come from the 80s...

Airplane
Naked Gun
Top Secret
Real Genius
Spinal Tap
Back to School

There were still plenty of 80s comedies light on jokes...I think Ghostbusters has like four jokes.
 
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Because Anchorman isn’t a good movie.

Why doesn’t Elf have a sequel? Why does Anchorman have a sequel?
Why doesn’t Elf have a sequel? Because Will turned down 25 million because he didn’t want to put out a POS movie and ruin Elf. The studio certainly wanted a Elf 2. Will recognized it was a special film

plus supposedly Will and Favreau didn’t get along that well filming the first
 
Why doesn’t Elf have a sequel? Because Will turned down 25 million because he didn’t want to put out a POS movie and ruin Elf. The studio certainly wanted a Elf 2. Will recognized it was a special film

plus supposedly Will and Favreau didn’t get along that well filming the first
Will thought Elf was a good movie and didn’t want to ruin it with a shitty sequel. He had no problem taking the Anchorman 2 money.
 
I'm not the biggest fan of comedies, I think many of these listed from every era are just so-so, and even ones I enjoyed, few of them are something I cared to see again.

But the reason I don't rate the 2000s era the OP likes so much is that the comedy of this era really broke pretty hard against jokes. Jokes are my favorite part of comedies. And it amazes me how few jokes are actually in those 00's "classics". They are largely made of funny situations, people saying funny or ridiculous things, or just generally acting in a funny way.

I mean, I find that stuff funny, but I don't have the same level of appreciation. It's like the Sex Panther line in Anchorman, "60% of the time it works every time." That is undeniably funny, it just is. But it's not a joke (well, the name Sex Panther is a bit of a joke). There are plenty of ways to be funny, plenty of things that can make me laugh, but jokes reign supreme to me, and they're very slim in that era.

There are exceptions...Walk Hard is full of great jokes. It's probably the only one I can think of that is chock full of great jokes. Team America isn't really my thing, but can't deny it is mostly jokes. Zoolander is joke-heavy. There are some jokes in Idiocracy, Tropic Thunder and others. But overall, the comedies of that era are just really more reliant on funny ideas, and funny people acting funny. Totally nothing wrong with that.

But a lot more of my favorite comedies come from the 80s...

Airplane
Naked Gun
Top Secret
Real Genius
Spinal Tap
Back to School

There were still plenty of 80s comedies light on jokes...I think Ghostbusters has like four jokes.
What is your definition of a joke?
 
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What is your definition of a joke?

There's no really clean definition of a joke, there obviously some subjective "know it when I see it" aspect to it. But I usually think of it as something that if you read it written out, or repeated to somebody, it might get a laugh, or a chuckle, or at least would be recognized as a joke. Usually there's a twist to it, it takes an unexpected turn based on either the initial setup to it, or in comparison to other scenes/situations we've seen before. There's a journey in a joke.

Things can still be funny, sometimes really funny, and not really be a joke. For a lot of different reasons.

In Tommy Boy, "Fat Guy in a Little Coat" is funny, but it's not a joke. "R.T. I lost my virginity to your daughter for crying out loud..........Rob, you were there" is a joke.

In Ghostbusters, this is a GREAT joke:

“Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here.”

"Is this true?"

“Yes, sir, it’s true...this man has no dick.”

I mean, you could read that, or have someone reenact it, and it's just funny on the face of it.

But "I've been slimed!" is not a joke, its a bit.

Jokes can be visual, or just a concept, but they do that thing where they invert expectations. In 40 Year Old Virgin, how much chest hair he has is a joke. Waxing him and him screaming in pain is not really a joke, that's a bit.

To be clear again, something doesn't have to be a joke to be funny, and just because it is a joke doesn't mean its funny. I mean Robin Hood Men in Tights is nothing but jokes, but I don't think they are that funny and I don't really like the movie. Something like Midnight Run has a lot of laughs by contrast of their two personalities being inherently funny, but it doesn't have a lot of joke jokes.

But to me, something with jokes has a lot of repeated enjoyment. It's like going on an roller coaster. The first time is the best because you don't know exactly what to expect, but it is still fun on additional runs because you can still enjoy the ride it takes you on even if you know where its going. To me, jokes have that element. And really great jokes have an element of great art that I just flat out appreciate being exposed to again.

Other kinds of laughs that are based on how someone looks or how they say something or a cringe or a shock element, they don't have as much of a shelf life to me in most cases. I might enjoy it in the first viewing, but I don't usually think about them much and they have a lot more diminished returns.

And obviously, there are lots of movies that are a mix of different kinds of laughs, and even a lot of individual laughs are a mix, like something is barely a joke but delivered in a way that enhances it. Anchorman is like that, a bunch of things that are kind of jokes or almost jokes, that are sold super well. I think you could read them or have them described to you and you would say, yeah, I get there's a joke there, but there's no way you would appreciate that is was as funny as it is. By contrast, I don't think Old School has nearly as many jokes in it, and I don't think its anywhere near as funny overall.

So that's why (with plenty of exceptions) I strongly favor things that are joke heavy - the repeated enjoyment plus the appreciation. And that 2000s era of comedy that everyone loves is a lot less joke-heavy than earlier eras.
 
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There's no really clean definition of a joke, there obviously some subjective "know it when I see it" aspect to it. But I usually think of it as something that if you read it written out, or repeated to somebody, it might get a laugh, or a chuckle, or at least would be recognized as a joke. Usually there's a twist to it, it takes an unexpected turn based on either the initial setup to it, or in comparison to other scenes/situations we've seen before. There's a journey in a joke.

Things can still be funny, sometimes really funny, and not really be a joke. For a lot of different reasons.

In Tommy Boy, "Fat Guy in a Little Coat" is funny, but it's not a joke. "R.T. I lost my virginity to your daughter for crying out loud..........Rob, you were there" is a joke.

In Ghostbusters, this is a GREAT joke:

“Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here.”

"Is this true?"

“Yes, sir, it’s true...this man has no dick.”

I mean, you could read that, or have someone reenact it, and it's just funny on the face of it.

But "I've been slimed!" is not a joke, its a bit.

Jokes can be visual, or just a concept, but they do that thing where they invert expectations. In 40 Year Old Virgin, how much chest hair he has is a joke. Waxing him and him screaming in pain is not really a joke, that's a bit.

To be clear again, something doesn't have to be a joke to be funny, and just because it is a joke doesn't mean its funny. I mean Robin Hood Men in Tights is nothing but jokes, but I don't think they are that funny and I don't really like the movie. Something like Midnight Run has a lot of laughs by contrast of their two personalities being inherently funny, but it doesn't have a lot of joke jokes.

But to me, something with jokes has a lot of repeated enjoyment. It's like going on an roller coaster. The first time is the best because you don't know exactly what to expect, but it is still fun on additional runs because you can still enjoy the ride it takes you on even if you know where its going. To me, jokes have that element. And really great jokes have an element of great art that I just flat out appreciate being exposed to again.

Other kinds of laughs that are based on how someone looks or how they say something or a cringe or a shock element, they don't have as much of a shelf life to me in most cases. I might enjoy it in the first viewing, but I don't usually think about them much and they have a lot more diminished returns.

And obviously, there are lots of movies that are a mix of different kinds of laughs, and even a lot of individual laughs are a mix, like something is barely a joke but delivered in a way that enhances it. Anchorman is like that, a bunch of things that are kind of jokes or almost jokes, that are sold super well. I think you could read them or have them described to you and you would say, yeah, I get there's a joke there, but there's no way you would appreciate that is was as funny as it is. By contrast, I don't think Old School has nearly as many jokes in it, and I don't think its anywhere near as funny overall.

So that's why (with plenty of exceptions) I strongly favor things that are joke heavy - the repeated enjoyment plus the appreciation. And that 2000s era of comedy that everyone loves is a lot less joke-heavy than earlier eras.

 
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