<>
Edit: for “…Spencer Tracy dying” substitute “…Spencer Tracy sick and exhausted”.
I just watched the dinner scene clip on YouTube. I’m dying over here. Gotta see if I can rent or stream this one…right up my alley!
Only now do I see this could be considered a very tongue-in-cheek comedy (especially in the second season). At the time, when I was in fifth and sixth grade, I took it dead seriously and thought it was scientifically accurate and true-to-life.
I was offended when TV Guide labeled it a “comedy” and couldn’t understand why I was the only one in my family who wanted to watch it. 
Thanks, I feel better about my sense of humor. 
I was too young to watch it first run, so I must have seen it in syndication. Until today, I had no idea it was intentionally campy.
I also ended up seeing a little clip about how much of an asshole director David O’Russel was on set, but – well – unfortunately, I know these types. Gonna rent it tonight and watch it.
Executive Producer William Dozier read some of the comic books and decided that was the only way the show could be done. Taking it seriously would require too great a stretch of the imagination.
Like Steve Martin said at some awards show honoring Tom Hanks:
"I saw ‘Captain Phillips.’ I didn’t think it was so funny.”
OK, I lied. I rented it and watched it today. What a whacked-out premise and movie. Kinda vibed a bit with me with something like Being John Malkovich in its non-conventionality. It’s a solid 7/10 for me, with several laugh-out-loud points. (What was up with the Twizzlers or Cheery Vines?) Totally up my alley. If you’ve got any more of this ilk, feel free to recommend.
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman - Wikipedia
It’s weird and quirky. But, dagnabbit, I find myself laughing aloud at it so much.
Yes. Looking for a video rental, my friends suggested The Great Race. Nobody laughed; not even my friends who suggested it. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon were miscast and this video sleeping pill had a run time of 160 minutes.
[quote=“alfonzos, post:133, topic:976094”]
my friends suggested The Great Race.
*[/*quote]
There were a bunch of movies of that type in the mid-1960s, starting with “It’s a Mad…World,” then “The Great Race” and later “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.” There were probably others that I don’t recall. All of them were much too long and none of them would win awards for laughs.
The reason they were so long is because they were meant to be entertainment for an entire evening or afternoon. Back in the day, going to a movie was a big event. Big-budget movies like these were offered as an alternative to the small screen, which had yet to dominate viewing habits quite as much as it does today.
I realize there’s a cultural age gap here, but I saw all of these movies multiple times when I was in grade school and enjoyed them thoroughly. I was put off not at all by their length, pacing, and more subtle (adult?) humor. None of them were intended as yuck-fests in the vein of Bill and Ted or Pee-Wee Herman. Instead, they were rollicking adventure films with comedic overtones.
We just saw the new film Banshees of Inisherin. Good film, but we were surprised that most critics called it a “comedy” (or at least a “tragicomedy”), Some called it “extremely funny.” We don’t understand this at all. There is a sprinkling of barely discernible humor in a few bits of dialogue and a couple of situations, but it’s 99% anything but a comedy — and my idea of comedy does extend beyond the “laugh-out-loud” type.
When I was a kid, seeing highlights / trailers for crap like Porky’s, American Pie, Revenge of the Nerds, Risky Business, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Last American Virgin, Home Alone, etc. (what I call teen exploitation movies), made me realise that none of that crap would’ve garnered one single laugh from me, and wisely have never bothered.
Home Alone and Revenge of the Nerds are the same type of movie? I mean, that is a seriously scorching hot take…
Fair enough, you’re right - with RotN swirling in a couple circles lower than the other one in the ole you know what.
Also, Revenge of the Nerds is from 1984, while American Pie is from 1999. That’s a mightly long stretch for “when I was a kid”.