Super Troopers has the same “loosely structured series of vignettes about a close-knit group, propped up by a thin plot” format.
Okay, I will buy that.
TV Tropes calls them Random Events Plots.
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.
Push_You_Down, since you started the thread, is that what you mean?
Unless I missed it, I don’t think anyone has yet mentioned the obvious answer - American Graffiti.
…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.
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:
which sounds pretty much like what we’re after here.
Both directed by Savage Steve Holland.
I was thinking he meant things like the Hope/Crosby Road pictures or the Bowery Boys.
Would you include this film?:
Slacker (1991, U.S., dir. Richard Linklater)
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.
The key elements are:
- 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),
It hasn’t been brought up in this thread, but an interesting anecdote about this film: a (very) young Patrick Swayze is in it.