Seven and a half months and 30 films ago, I began a mission to watch all the best comedies my sheltered childhood, lack of cable, and pop-culture cluelessness had prevented me from seeing until now. I think it’s safe to say I’ve accomplished my goal, in some measure. Not that I’ve seen every comedy, or even every great comedy, but I think I can safely say I’ve seen the same funny movies any healthy kid of my generation can reasonably be expected to have seen. Of course there are countless films I still have yet to see in order to consider myself any kind of authority on comedy films, but I’m getting to the point where when I mention to someone that I’m a comedy writer and director, I no longer worry they’ll ask me to differentiate Venkman from Spengler. Not sure who would ever ask me to do that.
When you see so many iconic films, from so many different decades, in such a short period of time, some interesting things happen. You start to fill in blanks in your childhood, attach context to quotes and homages. You start to see the ranks in the slow march of comedy and appreciate its depth, how it has changed. You start to see patterns emerge, trends thrive and die, careers build and dismantle themselves. You get to see movies that are so completely deserving of their iconic status and films that have been rendered impotent and meaningless by time and countless imitators. It’s been pretty fascinating.
But more importantly, seeing these films, trying to honestly and earnestly see them from my own perspective in the present, detached from their reputations, has been a chance to illuminate — or rather, reinforce — what I know to be the heart of comedy that abides.
There’s already been some great discussion on this site of which kinds of comedy last and which don’t, so I’ll skip that, but seeing the successes (many) and failures (very few, but glaring) of these films reminds me that modern comedy has more similarities to comedy of the past 40 years than it has differences. The vast majority of these movies, and the vast majority of the jokes in them, are still going strong.
The ones that aren’t are the ones that had smaller, but no less noble goals. Jokes and movies concerned with creating the biggest splash at that exact moment — films that were concerned only with addressing a generation, or an experience, jokes that were designed to offend or confuse anyone who didn’t know what they were getting into. Those firecracker movies and the bits in them are just charred divots in the comedy driveway now, the flash of light and deafening boom of a truly of-the-moment film now just a hollow reminder of what most excited us then. And, uh, the oil spots on the driveway are multi-camera sitcoms, or something.
Maybe it’s my own bias. Maybe story and character, redemption and pathos, non-topical jokes and solid physical humor are just what define my tastes as a comedian. Those are elements I strive to include in my own writing, and I think old movies that contain those elements hold up better because I think those things are important. Are they, objectively? Who knows.
But it works today, too. Family Guy will never have the iconic status The Simpsons has, even though there have been seasons where it’s the funnier show, because Family Guy doesn’t have a shred of heart. People like Judd Apatow have made careers out of extracting the pathos and characters from what 15 years earlier might have been concept-driven comedies to create a potent all-syrup Squishee of relationships and feelings. Comedy clubs, sketch classes and improv schools across the country are churning out young comedians who know that simple observation isn’t enough — you need the why, the point of view, the relationship between your characters and your ideas to make something that will satisfy and endure.
Does this mean today’s comedy will hold up 30 years from now? It’s impossible to tell, of course. And ultimately, not that important. Comedy shouldn’t be made to last, it should be made to be funny. It’s not our job to guess what some sheltered dope will think of our screenplay in 2041, it’s our job to do what comedians have always done: live with our parents. I mean, make people laugh.
The Complete Finally Screenings:
Alden Ford is an actor, writer and comedian living in Brooklyn. He performs regularly in NYC with his sketch/improv group Sidecar.
