The funniest scene ever for me is from Caddyshack. The scene where all the kids are at the pool. Someone drops a BabyRuth[sup]TM[/SUP] into the pool. People are screaming while rushing out of the water cause it looks like a turd. The theme from jaws is playing. The next scene shows the pool drained and when Bill Murray’s character finds the “turd” he sniff it and then eats it and the snobby lady faints.
That scene cracks me up. I know it is low brow humor, but it is done so well. The comedic timing is perfect. Plus when this scene is mentioned to others they will invariable laugh in memory.
OK, now for yours. Plus you can debate why yours is better than mine.
Two thirds of the things in Raising Arizona. (One third is setup for the next funny scene).
But I doubt if I have ever laughed as hard as when I watched that whole sequence in that old W.C. Fields movie ( I think it may have been The Gift) where he’s trying to get a nap on a glider (maybe it was a swing) on the porch of this multi-storied apartment place. The things that come along to disturb his rest are just one continuing topper to the one before. Eventually he falls through the floor several stories and reaches out with a fly swatter to swat a fly.
In “The Naked Gun”, Lt Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) has been suspended from the force but he still goes to a baseball game where he knows Queen Elizbeth II will be assassinated. Being suspended, he has to disguise himself. At first he impersonates an opera singer (the fictitious Enrico Palazzo) and then he impersonates an umpire. The umpire (Leslie Nielsen) eventually subdues the assassin. When Frank Drebin removes his umpire’s mask you’d THINK the Police Squad members would say “Frank Drebin !!!” Instead, someone in the audience shouts “Hey, It’s Enrico Pallazzo !!!” And the baseball audience goes into a frenzy because “Enrico Pallazzo” saved the Queen. I saw this in a theater and it really cracked up the entire audience.
I think this is funny because it is incredibly unexpected.
For me, comedy is really enhanced by being part of a good audience. If everybody around me is giggling and laughing, it makes even mediocre comedy seem hilarious. Therefore, I’m not really sure if this really is the funniest moment, or just a funny moment that happened under the best circumstances:
The scene in Maverick when the driver of the carriage dies and Maverick has to save the day. Everything about it is just hilarious, up until he falls off the cliff and needs help getting back up.
Most of Something About Mary but especially the entire sequence where they feed the dog speed. I must have seen that 100 times and I’m still crying with laughter on the floor.
Christmas Vacation- I can’t remember I time I laughed harder during a movie than when Clark (Chevy Chase) took out his frustrations with the Christmas lights not working, by punching and kicking the reindeer display on the lawn. At one point he kicked Santa, who then lands on the roof.
The opening sequence in Airplane, with the jet’s tail sticking out of the clouds like the shark fin from Jaws – the perfect set up for the rest of the movie.
Raiders of the Lost Ark, where a scimitar-wielding henchman confronts Indiana, who shrugs, pulls out his gun, and shoots the guy. It was beautifully played, completely unexpected, and just about the only movie gag I’ve ever seen where the audience not only laughed, but cheered.
I’m not sure exactly which specific moment in The Party is the funniest moment in film, but I have no doubt it’s in there somewhere. Every time I screen that film, there’s a point that I have to rest a bit before I asphyxiate. Peter Sellers’ genius knew no limits.
The scene in Something About Mary is hilarious. It remnds me a little of my favourite scene in Scorsese’s After Hours. A guy is has a date with a woman he’s just met. She’s preparing dinner for them in her apartment, and the guy is left alone with her little white psychotic dog. Somehow he manages to apparently kill the dog (a sedative?) and in hopes of salvaging his chances of getting a little action, he tries to cover up the situation by hiding the dog’s body in an upright halogen lamp. When the lamp gets turned on, the dog begins to smoke. The bit with the diaphragm slays me. I barely remember this now, I think I’ll have to see it again.
Aria was a big disappointment for me, but it has its moments-- and the whole bit with Buck Henry and Beverly D’Angelo is one of the funniest shorts ever. (Sad Sack offers his “date” ecstasy, but she puts her tab in his drink when he’s not looking, so he gets a double-dose. Hilarity, as the saying goes, ensues.)
I don’t remember which **Pnk Panther ** film it is but Inspector Clouseu goes to the Commisioner’s castle where the Commissioner’s gone mad and is trying to destroy the world or something.
Anyway Clouseu disguises himself as a dentist and the nitrios oxide gets all over the place and Clouseu’s nose disguise is melting and they’re both laughing and Clouseu pull the wrong tooth.
It’s got to be one of the best film scenes of all.
Something About Mary had me hysterical with laughter. I was honestly expecting to hate this movie, and yet afterward my sides actually hurt from laughing.
Doesn’t have much staying power, though. I watched it a second time and chuckled maybe once or twice. The humor is mostly in the shock value of the jokes, I think. Once you’ve seen them, they’re not so funny the second time around.
The scene in High Anxiety where Mel Brooks is examining a patient to verify that he indeed has a severe psychosis with symptoms that includes hallucinations of werewolves. Harvey Korman as the unsrupulous doctor produces plastic Halloween werewolf fangs and silently terrorizes the man from behind Brooks, snatching the fangs from his mouth and “acting natural” whenever Brooks turns to face him.
I first saw And Now for Something Completely Different around 2 am at a science fiction convention in Boston in, I think, 1971.
Monty Python had never been shown in the U.S. but I had heard some vague references to it and decided to check it out.
I have never, before or since, been so blown away by humor. All the best scenes from the funniest tv show of all time just washed over me and left me with my jaw to the floor. It wasn’t any one scene: it was like being hit by a thunderbolt.
In The Man Who Loved Women Burt Reynolds somehow glued a small dog to his hand with eyelash glue while hiding from his girlfriend’s husband in her closet.
No, that doesn’t quite convey it. I guess you had to be there, because a certain amount of build-up accompanied this moment.
I wish I could have again the experience of seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail for the first time. Now I’ve practically got the movie memorized, and if you see it in a theater, there’s probably some asshole shouting out the lines to show how clever he is. Anyway (in case there’s anybody who hasn’t had the pleasure yet):
At the very beginning (after the wacky credits) you see a mist-shrouded castle, looking better than most “serious” movies; you hear hoofbeats and glimpse the head of a mailed rider approaching. As the figures come fully into view, you see that there is no horse; instead the “rider” is prancing along pretending to ride a horse, and his servant is providing “hoofbeat” sound effects by banging two coconut halves together. For a pure absurd comedy sight gag, you can’t get much better.