Most comedies age rather quickly and if it’s been many years since you last saw the joke that might explain why it’s not funny any more.
I know this is practically heresy, but I don’t find Fawlty Towers to be as funny as when I originally watched it. Most of the episodes are about some catastrophe that Basil has gotten himself into, and he usually deserves it, but even when he tries to do something nice it blows up in his face. I’m sort of caught between watching him get his comeuppance and feeling sorry for him.
As for the “what does a yellow light mean” scene from Taxi, it’s great. It may not be as funny on later viewings, but I notice some details about why it was so great. The first thing is that it’s Bobby who is responding to Reverend Jim; none of the others would have reacted with the frustrated aggravation that he does. Also, watch how Christopher Lloyd plays it. He says “whaaaaat doooooes aaaaa”, and then he looks down at the paper. It’s great for the character to have such a short memory, and it gives the audience a chance to catch their breath before they start laughing again.
I saw an interview with Chuck Jones once where he was describing the body language he used when drawing Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. He said he would draw Bugs as if he was casually leaning, with most of his weight on one foot; that’s a very confident and self-assured pose. Daffy he would draw with his feet apart, nervous and anxious. I think there are things that are funny the first time you see them, and on later viewings you can pick up the subtle reasons why it was so funny.
I took animation classes about 10 years ago, and one of my classes used “The Animator’s Survival Kit” by Richard Williams, a longtime Disney animator who originally wrote it as a guide for his son when he was breaking into the business. He himself did a lot of field work to come up with animation ideas, going out in public and discreetly following people around. We did a lot of observing in the way people walked, postured, and acted when they were in various emotional states.
We had one assignment where we drew two random emotions out of a hat and discussed how we would represent those emotions in animated form. One girl drew “happy” and “angry” and couldn’t think of how she would express them. I suggested a scenario where she brings her boyfriend home for dinner. They’re having a great time, hanging out and talking, and she has to go to the bathroom for a minute. When she comes back, her boyfriend has propped his feet onto the coffee table. Her face lit up. She made a “shame shame” finger wag and said “You just don’t do that!” I should have chosen that moment to animate.
Here’s the interview I mentioned.
Jones also talks a bit about Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy, and some of the physical gestures that different comedians would use.
This applies both to his characters and to him in real life, naturally. I still love the Rachmaninoff story.
Office Space. It wasn’t hilarious the first time, but I smiled. Now, I’ve heard the jokes a million times and I cringe.
A few years back, my daughter gave me a collection of MAD magazines, mostly from the 1960s, as a Christmas gift.
I may have laughed uproariously at these when I was in grade school, but I was surprised at how much of the content I now find not at all amusing.
There’s also the bit where Eric Idle shows up for a night at the theatre with a feather in his hair and warpaint on his face and little else besides buckskin leggings and a bow and some arrows, and the gag is that he confounds the expectations of the chap he sits down next to by revealing that he’s quite a big fan of Cicely Courtneidge’s skills as an actress — not merely her timing, you understand, but the downright subtle touches she uses to really bring a role to life — while his father, Chief Running Stag, leader of mighty Redfoot tribe, him heap keen on Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray.
(Of course, once expectations readjust, the next gag is that an announcement about the understudy kicks off a bow-and-arrow massacre.)
I’m with you on this. I tried watching them a while back and quit after just a few episodes. Painfully unfunny stuff for the most part.
THAT is the funniest part of the whole bit, and I didn’t even consciously recognize it until you pointed it out. Comedy=Timing isn’t just a trite phrase.
Well, how about just semi-heretical? 
I can’t think of too many comedy series where there was such a coinsistency of high-quality writing, with each episode dense with quips and gags of every variety, constantly peppered throughout, that even the throw-away asides warrant good chuckles, and because of how choc-a-block with great lines the show had, I found actual pleasure in re-watching them to catch a lot of the funny little asides and whatnot that I had missed in a previous viewing. Sure, some episodes I’ve seen maybe a fifth time, and that’ll do, but others, maybe two or three times, and would gladly watch those again.
And further milking the Python racism FWIW, indigenous African peoples would sometimes get the treatment, like aides (who couldn’t their remember lines) helping the Colonials in search of the Turkish Little Rude plant, or Pasolini’s machete-hurling cricketer, or Chapman in some kind of tribal regalia returning home from Dublin to mummy and daddy. (“Well, t’ings is pretty bad there at the moment but there does seem some hope of a consta-too-sha-nul suddle-munt.”)
Their 15th Ideal Loon Exhibition took a crack at a number of natiionalities/races.
Well then. So much for cataloguing all that nastiness. (yeah - wouldn’t fly today)
If anyone saw The Magic Christian when they were a kid, the disappointment would rain down on them in bucketloads if viewed again today.
Ain’t that the truth. The Badfinger song endured over and over again without ever hearing the ending is the perfect analog to each set-up. Where is the payoff? And, yeah, I thought the film was pure genius when I saw it as a kid.
SpongeBob ripping his pants.
As a someone who grew up in the 80s watching comedies like Animal House, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Porky’s I thought they were hilarious.
Now I mostly find the characters obnoxious and annoying and really would like to beat the crap out of them
Maybe I just lost my sense of humor but my tolerance for obnoxiousness and immaturity has gone done dramatically the older I have gotten.
Can someone please fill me in on the name? Spoiler it, message me, send me a telegram, I don’t care. I’m racking my brain over here.
And if we are allowed to speculate, I have a strong feeling that, were I to re-watch Napoleon Dynamite, it might fit this category.
Or maybe not. If only there were some way to be certain…
mmm
I think you mean “asterisks.” Asterix is a comic book/cartoon character.
It was Mrs Shazam’s female friend who exploded spontaneously, just like people do every day. After all, exploding is a perfectly natural medical phenomenon!
I’ve always said that Stripes is actually two movies in one. The first movie ends with the graduation scene, and then is immediately followed fy the much-less-funny sequel, Stripes II: Bounced Czechs.
I still laugh out loud at the Three Stooges, but find it difficult to sit through a Marx Brothers film anymore. Yes, they were great, but the films themselves were dull and plodding between the comedy bits. Maybe they should have made 20-minute shorts like the Stooges did.
Thanks. But that did not help a bit.
mmm
You don’t know the “Has he got a chubby tummy?” and “Of course I can read. I’m Minister for Overseas Development” sketch?!? 