# 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:** 4
### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/61 "2025-11-18T18:52:29Z")
> [@Spoons](#):
>
> 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
**Super Troopers** has the same “loosely structured series of vignettes about a close-knit group, propped up by a thin plot” format.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/62 "2025-11-18T20:53:03Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#):
>
> Bad Time at the El Royale–it’s another “kind of close/maybe”….for me there’s just too much plot.
Okay, I will buy that.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/63 "2025-11-18T21:44:22Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#):
>
> I call them “Charlie Brown movies”.
TV Tropes calls them [Random Events Plots.](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RandomEventsPlot)
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### Author:  [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2025, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/64 "2025-11-19T00:53:59Z")
I think **Best in Show** would count as an episodic comedy. After introducing the characters, it takes place over one day at a fancy dog show. The plot is which dog will win. The characters do interact but their individual stories don’t. It’s not as old as most of the films in the thread but it doesn’t really feel dated even though it’s from 2000.
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2025, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/65 "2025-11-19T02:01:10Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#):
>
> TV Tropes calls them [Random Events Plots.](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RandomEventsPlot)
Push\_You\_Down, since you started the thread, is that what you mean?
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### Author:  [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2025, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/66 "2025-11-19T13:43:48Z")
Unless I missed it, I don’t think anyone has yet mentioned the obvious answer - _ **American Graffiti.** _
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### Author:  [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2025, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/67 "2025-11-19T20:51:41Z")
…what I’m describing would be a subcategory at best of this. I think even movies TV tropes lists here don’t even belong together under the same umbrella. Like Cannonball and The Big Lebowski and Ladybird?
@Spoons gets it. Meatballs is pretty close because it ticks most of the boxes (if it had been one day at summer camp? Oh perfection.) Same with Caddyshack—and if they had stuck to the original script, I think it would also hewed even closer to it.
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### Author:  [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2025, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/68 "2025-11-20T01:33:52Z")
A couple of mid-‘80s John Cusack movies come to mind: _Better Off Dead_ and the somewhat less known (but still worth seeking out IMO) _One Crazy Summer_.
The IMDb plot summary for the latter is:
> [@](#):
>
> An aspiring teenage cartoonist and his friends come to the aid of a singer trying to save her family property from developers.
which sounds pretty much like what we’re after here.
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2025, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/69 "2025-11-20T01:56:26Z")
> [@Wheelz](#):
>
> A couple of mid-‘80s John Cusack movies come to mind: _Better Off Dead_ and the somewhat less known (but still worth seeking out IMO) _One Crazy Summer_.
Both directed by Savage Steve Holland.
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### Author:  [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2025, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/70 "2025-11-20T01:57:02Z")
I was thinking he meant things like the Hope/Crosby Road pictures or the Bowery Boys.
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2025, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/71 "2025-11-20T15:00:53Z")
Would you include this film?:
**Slacker** (1991, U.S., dir. Richard Linklater)
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/72 "2025-11-20T20:40:59Z")
I saw the movie **Lost & Found In Cleveland** last night. I think it fits the bill. Kind of like _Best In Show_. It follows 4 mostly-unrelated teams of characters who all have the goal of making it to an “Antiques Roadshow” type thing in Cleveland. It takes place over 24 hours.
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### Author:  [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2025, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/73 "2025-11-20T23:48:51Z")
The key elements are:
1. Set in one location. With the caveat that opening scenes to GET the characters to the location are okay, an epilogue set somewhere else is okay, a rare cut to another location for a short “bit” also okay.
This is why they are usually centered on a work place or other location where people aren’t going to leave.
2. Needs to take place over a short period of time (a day or a weekend).
3. Focused on vignettes and/or gags over plot.
The “usually has” list:
A contest or competition
Sex….characters actively on the prowl.
Features new comedians and often previous generation comedians getting a paycheck.
Examples - Thank God It’s Friday, Car Wash, Record City, Skatetown USA, Empire Records, Blue in the Face
Almosts - Caddyshack, American Graffiti (I don’t consider the town of Modesto to be a single location), Meatballs, Bad Times at the El Royale, Altman movies EXCEPT for Pret a Porter which might actually count as an example–I just haven’t seen it.
The “not at alls” - Anthology movies, mockumentaries, road movies, parody movies (Wet Hot American Summer excused beause its as much parodying this kind of movie as it is camp movies),
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### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2025, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/74 "2025-11-21T05:22:07Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#):
>
> Skatetown USA
It hasn’t been brought up in this thread, but an interesting anecdote about this film: a (very) young Patrick Swayze is in it.
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### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2026, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/75 "2026-01-20T02:46:40Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#):
>
> Almosts - American Graffiti (I don’t consider the town of Modesto to be a single location),
They were always in cars; Lucas wanted to show the SoCal car culture. Does that count? (Maybe not, because there’s the school dance, the radio station…okay, they weren’t _always_ in cars.)
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### Author:  [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2026, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/76 "2026-01-20T22:54:26Z")
…umm.. no…
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### Author:  [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2026, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/77 "2026-01-21T11:35:04Z")
Does Rat Race fit?
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2026, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/78 "2026-01-21T12:31:22Z")
The treasure hunt/race is a pretty strong plot engine. And there are a lot of unique locations. Road movies have been disqualified by the OP. If none of them ever made it out of the casino, it might apply.
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### Author:  [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2026, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/79 "2026-01-21T13:06:13Z")
The Tom Green movie from 2000 (won two prestigious Stinkers awards!), Road Trip, seems to contain most if not all of the required elements.
Would classic ‘madcap comedies’ with big all-star casts that are really nothing more than a series of vignettes count? Like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World or Cannonball Run qualify? They’re missing the sex scenes, but have a similar vibe to the low budget ones mentioned in the OP
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### Author:  [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2026, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/episodic-comedy-films-a-dead-genre/1024904/80 "2026-01-21T17:24:43Z")
No. Clarified above back in November.
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#):
>
> The key elements are:
>
> 1. Set in one location. With the caveat that opening scenes to GET the characters to the location are okay, an epilogue set somewhere else is okay, a rare cut to another location for a short “bit” also okay.
> This is why they are usually centered on a work place or other location where people aren’t going to leave.
>
> 2. Needs to take place over a short period of time (a day or a weekend).
>
> 3. Focused on vignettes and/or gags over plot.
>
> The “usually has” list:
>
> A contest or competition
>
> Sex….characters actively on the prowl.
>
> Features new comedians and often previous generation comedians getting a paycheck.
>
> Examples - Thank God It’s Friday, Car Wash, Record City, Skatetown USA, Empire Records, Blue in the Face
> Almosts - Caddyshack, American Graffiti (I don’t consider the town of Modesto to be a single location), Meatballs, Bad Times at the El Royale, Altman movies EXCEPT for Pret a Porter which might actually count as an example–I just haven’t seen it.
>
> The “not at alls” - Anthology movies, mockumentaries, road movies, parody movies (Wet Hot American Summer excused beause its as much parodying this kind of movie as it is camp movies),
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