You might want to add a comic short each week, along with the main movie. For instance, a Mack Sennett Keystone Cops short with Chaplin’s GOLD RUSH, one of the Fatty Arbuckle/Buster Keaton shorts with what Keaton you show, a Laurel and Hardy short with the Harold Lloyd.
You could thus include a Disney cartoon (like THREE LITTLE PIGS), a Three Stooges short, a Road Runner cartoon, etc.
El_Kabing:
I love the Producers, but it’s a straight comedy plot, and there are plenty of those to pick from. In Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks invented the genre spoof, which has become a comedy sub-genre in itself, from Airplane to Hot Shots to Scary Movie. I think that if we’re genuinely “programming a course”, you’ve got to be covering artists for their unique contributions, not just because they were significant talents in their field.
I mean, Tom Hanks has distinguished himself as an actor, but can you really point to “his place” in American cinema history?