# Episodic Comedy Films ..... a dead genre?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** movies
**Created:** [November 16, 2025, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904 "2025-11-16T17:23:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/41 "2025-11-18T00:25:00Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#):
>
> I’m not sure if you and I are thinking of the same thing, but one film that I kind-of liked, back when I saw it, has similar themes to what you describe. [Midnight Madness (1980)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Madness_(1980_film))
M-E-A-T M-A-C-H-I-N-E, Meat Machine, Meat Machine! The Green Team would be wearing Red Hats these days.
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### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/42 "2025-11-18T00:32:30Z")
Word.
That movie needs a remake, with less corn and fewer offensive stereotypes. Seth MacFarlane could do something with this and make it work.
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### Author:  [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/43 "2025-11-18T00:36:22Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#):
>
> Seth MacFarlane could do something with this and make it work.
You had me until ‘MacFarlane’. Seriously! I was going to say;
_“Seth_ Gordon may be an odd choice, but…”
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### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/44 "2025-11-18T00:44:26Z")
OK, what comedy director do you suggest? And also, I think Seth MacFarlane could and should remake _Revenge of the Nerds_.
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### Author:  [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/45 "2025-11-18T00:47:44Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#):
>
> Seth MacFarlane
I don’t know. But I thought the new Naked Gun movie was boring, with a handful of jokes that worked, and they were all in the Trailer. I mean, Family Guy is basically 2020 AI slop, IMHO.
I just personally don’t enjoy his works.
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### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/46 "2025-11-18T00:50:02Z")
> [@MyFootsZZZ](#):
>
> But I thought the new Naked Gun movie was boring
Sacrilege! Mrs. H and I loved that movie.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/47 "2025-11-18T00:51:19Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> (I have never found a single other person in my life who has even heard of _Twenty Bucks_, let alone seen it.)
I have, so there you go. Seriously, I did see it, but I was unsure what to make of it. It was basically a day in the life of a twenty-dollar bill, and the things that happen to the people in whose hands it ends up as it gets spent, given in change, and so on. It doesn’t really have a plot, or an ending that ties everything up neatly, so I was left wondering what it was all about.
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### Author:  [@MyFootsZZZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyFootsZZZ)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/48 "2025-11-18T00:51:24Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#):
>
> Sacrilege! Mrs. H and I loved that movie.
Mrs. H may be good at picking out significant others… not gunna take movie advice from her, tho. 😁
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/49 "2025-11-18T00:51:54Z")
I’d say _Do the Right Thing_ just barely qualifies.
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/50 "2025-11-18T00:53:05Z")
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> It was basically a day in the life of a twenty-dollar bill, and the things that happen to the people in whose hands it ends up as it gets spent, given in change, and so on.
So a one-day version of _The Red Violin_?
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/51 "2025-11-18T00:55:24Z")
There was a TV series a few years ago called **The Guest Book** which did this. Each episode a new story about the guests in a getaway cottage, with a through line from the camp staff.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/52 "2025-11-18T01:02:38Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#):
>
> The one that came to mind was _Kentucky Fried Movie._
That film was a classic- kinda dated now, but parts are still hilarious. Also _the Groove Tube,_ and _Amazon Women on the Moon._
There was a weird film where they all met at this strange Motel on the CA/Nevada border, plus their backstories?
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/53 "2025-11-18T01:14:36Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> Also _the Groove Tube,_ and _Amazon Women on the Moon._
Don’t forget _Disco Beaver from Outer Space_.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/54 "2025-11-18T02:12:09Z")
Quoting Fargo.
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### Author:  [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/55 "2025-11-18T18:04:14Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> There was a weird film where they all met at this strange Motel on the CA/Nevada border, plus their backstories?
Bad Time at the El Royale–it’s another “kind of close/maybe”….for me there’s just too much plot.
That’s the big piece of the puzzle people are missing if you haven’t seen these types of movies…so much of it was meandering character bits and the plot often is shoe-horned in so the movie can have a climax with stakes (“we got the money!”)
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/56 "2025-11-18T18:13:34Z")
I still don’t completely get which kind of films we are talking about, because I haven’t seen most of those that were mentioned. I _do_ know Jim Jarmusch’s “Night On Earth”, actually it’s my favorite movie ever, and a similar episodic movie I’ve seen is “Four Rooms” (though of course that’s also 30+ years old). Am I on the right track?
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### Author:  [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/57 "2025-11-18T18:20:13Z")
Four Rooms is an anthology movie.
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### Author:  [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/58 "2025-11-18T18:43:53Z")
Does Robert Altman’s **Nashville** qualify?
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/59 "2025-11-18T18:45:04Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#):
>
> That’s the big piece of the puzzle people are missing if you haven’t seen these types of movies…so much of it was meandering character bits and the plot often is shoe-horned in so the movie can have a climax with stakes (“we got the money!”)
I think I get it.
Consider _Meatballs_. There isn’t really a plot. Well, there is, but it was definitely shoehorned in. It’s set at a summer camp, but the emphasis is on the counselors-in-training (CITs). The movie is a bunch of comedy vignettes about the CITs—their awkward game of tennis, Spaz and Fink get caught spying on the girls, the unorthodox way the CITs got out of a basketball game with the other camp, the guys constantly “kidnap” Morty when he is sleeping, leaving him in his bed in unlikely places (up a tree, at the side of the road, on a raft in the lake). There are plenty more, but no vignette is more important than any other, and none really advances the plot.
There is a plot, but it is not at all apparent from the film’s outset, hence the “shoehorning in.” Seems that camper Rudy likes to go running in the mornings. So does head counselor Tripper, and they run together. That would mean nothing, until a runner is needed for the inter-camp Olympics. Tripper suggests Rudy, Rudy runs and wins, and the film has a climax.
Am I on the right track?
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/60 "2025-11-18T18:49:23Z")
> [@sciurophobic](#):
>
> Does Robert Altman’s **Nashville** qualify?
Or **A Prairie Home Companion**?
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