HUMOR IN THE MOVIES
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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Rocky Horror Picture Show
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ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW:
http://www.rockyhorror.com/
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MEL BROOKS
• In Blazing Saddles, all of the townspeople
have the same name, “Johnson.” And after a
bunch of cowboys have beans for dinner they
have a farting contest.
• Young Frankenstein is about the grandson of
the infamous scientist. He tries to get back
his good name by pronouncing his name
“Frahnkensteen” and by teaching his
monstor to dance in top hat and tails.
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• The plot line of Mel Brooks’ The Producers is
that two producers buy a lot of insurance in a
play, and then try to produce a play that is so
lousy that they can collect the insurance
money.
• But the play is so lousy as a tragedy that it is
a success as a comedy.
• Springtime for Hitler is a play within the play
of The Producers. It is so exaggerated that it
succeeds as a comedy.
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• Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety spoofs Alfred Hitchcocktype thrillers.
• His Spaceballs spoofs such space epics as Star
Wars.
• In his History of the World, Part I, Brooks plays the
roles of Moses, Louis XVI, and Comicus, a “stand-up
philosopher” who can’t get a job and so has to work
as a waiter, asking at the Last Supper, “Are you all
together, or is it separate checks?”
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Mel Brooks
THE PRODUCERS (MEL BROOKS):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395251/
BLAZING SADDLES—FART SCENE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6dm9rN6oTs
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CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD
• When Marlee Matlin, the deaf protagonist, in this
1986 movie wanted to sign her disagreement, she
signed two fingers representing the word “bull.”
• But then she laid her right arm over her left and
signed the bull’s horns lifting up from the inside of
her elbow while the fingers of her left hand wagged
back and forth as if the bull were relieving itself.
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EXAGGERATED PLOT LINES
• Wish fulfillment for children can be seen in
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
• Wish fulfillment for young adults can be seen
in National Lampoon’s Animal House.
• And for adults we can see the post-divorce
hostilities in War of the Roses.
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GIMMICKS
• Movie producers are always looking for
gimmicks that will allow their stars to
shine.
• The stage play Harvey was a perfect
movie vehicle for tall and lanky Jimmy
Stewart, who looked up to an even
taller, imaginary white rabbit.
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CARRIE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOxlSOr3_M
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The Marx Brothers
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• Whoopie Goldberg’s singing ability was
highlighted in Sister Act where Whoopie
is a singer on the run from the Mafia who
hides in a convent and transforms the
nuns into singing performers.
• The large, muscular and blond Arnold
Schwarzenegger is contrasted with the
short, plump dark-haired twin Danny
DeVito in Twins.
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Adam Sandler
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• Arnold Schwarzenegger’s
size and muscles are also
featured ironically in
Kindergarten Cop.
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PARODIES
• Monty Python’s The Life of Brian is an
irreverent parody of the story of Jesus Christ.
• Brian denies that he is the Christ. His followers
declare that only the true Christ would deny his
divinity.
• The movie ends with Brian being crucified with
many other people. And they are all singing,
“Always look on the bright side of life.”
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Monty Python
QUEST FOR THE HOLY GRAIL (MONTY PYTHON):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/
THE LIFE OF BRIAN (MONTY PYTHON—ERIC IDLE):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
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• Roxanne is a parody of Cyrano de Bergerac.
• Men in Black parodies the whole genre of
movies about secret government agencies
and aliens from outer space.
• Airplane parodies the disaster movies that
were produced in the 1970s. When Leslie
Nielsen asks Robert Hays if he can fly the
plane, Hays responds, “Surely you can’t be
serious?”
• Nielson responds, “Don’t call me Shirley.”
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• Caddyshack is a parody not so much of
other movies as of the game of golf
itself.
• In the same way, Stir Crazy contains
much prison humor.
• Bull Durham is filled with baseball
humor.
• And Analyze This has humor about
psychiatric counseling.
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Parodies
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/
MEET THE FOCKERS:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290002/trailers-screenplay-E23858-10-2
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• Woody Allen’s Bullets over Broadway
Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys and
Some Like it Hot are filled with inside
jokes about show business.
• The Pink Panther The Naked Gun, Fargo,
and Pulp Fiction are detective spoofs.
• The Police Academy films are police
spoofs.
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Woody Allen
ANNIE HALL (WOODY ALLEN):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075686/
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PERIPHERALS
• Producers and theatre managers are
now putting more and more humor into
the peripherals that surround movie
goers.
• Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd come
onto the screen with the message:
“Watch movies in the old fashioned
way—in Silence.”
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• The advertisement for the theater’s THX
sound system is done as a sophisticated
cartoon.
• At the end of movies now there are often
funny outtakes or original messages.
• At the end of Spice World the five Spice Girls
stare out at the audience and Sporty says,
“Why do people sit there at the end of the film
and watch the credits go up?”
• Ginger answers, “It’s probably the sad
anticlimax. It’s all over. Back to reality.”
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QUEST STORIES
• Humorous quest stories can be as
realistic as Biloxi Blues, the
autobiographical story of Neil Simon’s
1945 conscription into the army, or as
ridiculous as Pee-wee’s Big Adventure
in which Pee-wee Herman goes
searching for his lost bicycle.
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The Dude!
THE BIG LABOWSKI:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd-go0oBF4Y
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SILENT MOVIES
• Because they are not language-dependent,
silent movies have a universal appeal that the
talkies don’t have.
• For example, every year in Gabrovo, Bulgaria,
there is a humor festival in which a large
percentage of the town members put on their
derby hats and oversized pants and shoes,
pick up their canes, and go about the city
turning square corners like Charlie Chaplin
did.
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• Other icons of the silent films include
Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks Sr.,
the Keystone Kops, and Fatty Arbuckle.
• In vaudeville, Buster Keaton was the
human mop who never smiled. He also
never smiled in movies, even when a
side of a house came falling down
around his ears.
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SCREWBALL COMEDIES
• Screwball comedies are the zany but
romantic movies that were produced
during the Depression and on into the
early 1940s.
• Virtually all screwball comedies
included a male-female conflict, with
one or both of them being rich.
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• Therefore the screwball
comedy was always set in
the elegant surroundings of
the idle rich, with occasional
visits to the poorer sides of
life.
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MODERN SCREWBALL COMEDIES
• Modern screwball comedies, like the earlier
screwball comedies, are based on the
slapstick relationships that can occur in the
battle of the sexes.
• They include Some Like It Hot, Tootsie, Mrs.
Doubtfire, War of the Roses, and Arthur.
• The rich theme can be seen in Trading
Places.
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We’re the Millers
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TRAGICOMEDY
• Another recent trend in movies is
tragicomedy.
• The Italian film, Life Is Beautiful is set in a
Nazi death camp.
• The humor and irony in the film serves as a
foil to make the horror all the more terrible.
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“Life is Beautiful”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64ZoO7oiN0s
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In conclusion… “How it should have ended!”
HOW IT SHOULD HAVE ENDED:
http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/
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