Doug: Hey, guys, That Guy With The Glasses here. Uh, a while ago, I did my Top 20 favorite movies of all time, and a lot of people seemed to like that a lot. So this time, I'm gonna do my Top 10 favorite comedies. Now what I mean by that is not comedies that totally redefined the way we look at comedy or which ones were the most poetic or abstract or anything like that. I'm only going by which ones made me laugh the most; which ones made me laugh the hardest. So, these are the comedies that I can watch over and over again, never get tired of them, they just always inspire me, always make me laugh, and I am going to count them down for you right now. So get ready, these are my top 10 favorite comedies.
[Throughout all this, Doug will say the film's title and then give his own thoughts on the film as various clips of the film play]
(Interlude)
#10[]
Doug (vo): Number 10 -- Hot Shots! Part Deux. Something you're gonna hear me say often in this countdown is "epic comedy", which is a comedy that's not only funny, but has a huge scale in terms of the story and jokes. Hot Shots Part Deux is one of those comedies. It's a satire of 80s and 90s action films that's probably my favorite out of these straight-up parody flicks. And don't get me wrong, movies like Young Frankenstein and Airplane are probably much more clever and groundbreaking than this one, but this just makes me laugh the most. I love it for two reasons. One is the main stars, Charlie Sheen and Valeria Golino, who play their parts so staight-faced and so serious that it makes all the madness happening around them just seem all the more hilarious. I actually wish they made more sequels just so they could work together again. The other reason is the visual jokes, which I think this one has the most of. They just threw everything at you, lampooning all the over-the-top action scenes that we love in so many other films. I tend to be a very visual guy, so these kind of jokes really make me laugh. It makes me laugh every time, and I never get tired of watching it.
(Interlude)
#9[]
Doug (vo): Number 9 -- Rat Race. Now I'll say right now that the beginning of this movie and the ending of this movie is pure crap. It's cheap jokes, lame writing, and serves the plot poorly. However, the middle of the movie, the chase portion, is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Seeing all these funny people constantly work off each other creates a lot of comedic gold. The premise is pretty much just a rewrite of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and to be fair, that's probably a much better movie. But again, this one just makes me laugh more, particularly these two brothers, played by Seth Green and Vince Veluf. They're both weaselly con men who constantly get themselves into trouble. One of them pierced his own tongue, which means he's virtually impossible to understand.
Blaine Cody: Duane, stop the car! Stop the car!
Doug (vo): These two are the funniest part, but the other characters are really enjoyable, too. Plus, some of these jokes are so beautifully and abstractly forced that you can't help but appreciate them. For example, Jon Lovitz and his family are driving in Hitler's car...don't ask...when a bunch of bikers attack them. He burns his throat with a cigarette lighter, he gets black lipstick from earlier on his face, and arrives at a World War II veteran ceremony. Now that's really forced, but it's also beautifully created. How can you not laugh at that? I love the people, I love the scenarios, and I love the slapstick. With a movie like this, you just can't get silly enough.
(Interlude)
#8[]
Doug (vo): Number 8 -- Life of Brian.
(Interlude)
#7[]
Doug (vo): Number 7 -- (The) Blues Brothers. How can you be a Chicagoan and not love this movie? If you go down any Chicago street and say the line "We're on a mission from God.", everyone knows what you're talking about. It's a simple premise: an orphanage needs money, Jake and Elwood try to get it through band gigs, yet somehow all this shit happens. I just love how two little people can cause such a pileup of cars, trucks, police, military, and on top of that, it's all real. All the cars piling up are really piling up. All the people they got are really the people they got, no CG at all. That makes it all the more massive and all the more hilarious. Through a slow but sturdy pace, we see how all this trouble comes about and why so many people want to get these guys. I just love how huge it gets and it's so funny knowing that all this chaos is caused by just these two people, who in it of themselves are hilarious. On top of that, the jokes are great, the music is great, the acting is great, it's just an all-around great film. Blues Brothers: music, dancing, comedy, and a shit load of cars, what more do you need?
(Interlude)
#6[]
Doug (vo): Number 6 -- Shrek 2. You're probably gonna be really surprised when I say this, but I'm one of the few people who didn't like the first Shrek movie. I thought the idea was clever, but the jokes were very few and often not really worked out. It just didn't make me laugh that much. Shrek 2, on the other hand, is funny as hell. The amount of jokes they throw at you is almost overwhelming. There's jokes in the background, there's jokes in the foreground, subtle jokes, obvious jokes, they're all over the place. The characters themselves are jokes. Puss in Boots as Zorro is great, the Fairy Godmother running her own business is great, and on top of that, I actually really buy the love story between Shrek and Fiona. It's surprisingly a very nice and believable romance...well, as believable as it can be with ogres. It also looks nice, it's very colorful, and plus, you gotta watch it a few times in order to get every single joke that they throw out there. Everything in this film works, and in my opinion, it blows the original out of the water, but maybe that's just me. Either way, it's one of my favorites.
(Interlude)
End of Part 1[]
Doug (vo): And that's about it for now. Stay tuned for the other Top 5, coming soon.
Beginning of Part 2[]
Doug: Welcome back to my Top 10 favorite comedies. Well, let's not waste any time, let's get back to the countdown.
(Interlude)
#5[]
Doug (vo): Number 5 -- Ghostbusters. Yeah, you knew it was coming. Aside from the fact that it has an unbelieveably creative premise, Ghostbusters succeeds from having some of the funniest people at the time in one place. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, how can you go wrong with that trio? I just love the way these guys work off each other, and make a really complete and funny team. On top of that, the lines, man. The lines are just perfect. This is probably the movie I quote the most in general situations, next to maybe Batman and...actually, the next movie you'll see on the list here. The lines are just so cynical and laid back that it's hard not to use them in everyday talk. The cool thing is that when I was a kid, I was only familiar with the cartoon, and then, I was like, "Dude, there's a movie? Dude, they swear up a storm? Dude! They're smoking? This is badass!" And to me, they still are pretty badass. They're comedians with weapons, they're practically my personal heroes. I looked up to it then, and I look up to it now. I love the idea, I love the jokes, but most of all, I love the characters.
(Interlude)
#4[]
Doug (vo): Number 4 -- Spaceballs. This is another movie I quote all the time, not as much from the Lone Starr and Vespa story, but more from the Dark Helmet subplot. These guys take up so much of the movie, and to me, there's nothing funnier than a powerful guy who is an absolute loser. I love the incompetence that they produce. Whenever Helmet, Sandurz and Skroob get together, it's impossible to keep a straight face. They just clearly have no idea what they're doing. You're looking at various levels of idiocy and yet somehow, they have an entire empire at their command and that just really cracks me up. How did they get an entire empire at their command? And of course the visual jokes are just a riot, most of them being over the top cartoony and filled with painful slapstick. I quote it a lot in my videos and everyone always gets the references. And even though the lines and puns are good, it's the characters that keep us coming back, particularly the villains. These guys make me laugh every single time, never without fail. What else can I say but, may the Schwartz be with you.
(Interlude)
#3[]
Doug (vo): Number 3 -- What's Up Doc? Now don't get me wrong. I'm not really a Barbra Streisand or Ryan O'Neal fan, but this screwball comedy has some of the best writing and fastest timing in maybe the past fifty years. The jokes are quick, the characters are quirky, and again it pays tribute to the epic comedy by having one of a great car chase at the end. It's right up there with The Blues Brothers chase in terms of creativity and laugh value. It's just perfect. Though sort of like a farce, What's Up Doc? takes a lot of it's comedy from screwball films like His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby. On top of that, as you probably guess, it also takes a lot of it's humor from the Looney Tunes. When you watch it, it may start off a little slow but trust me when I say if you stick with it, you're really in for something clever and really funny. I never thought I'd recommend a Streisand picture, but trust me when I say it's well worth checking out.
Streisand: (singing You're the Top) I'm a lazy lout who is just about to stop!
(Interlude)
#2[]
Doug (vo): Number 2 -- The Great Race.
(Interlude)
# 1[]
Doug (vo): And my number 1 funniest comedy is... Hot Fuzz. I know it's weird to put such a current movie as my favorite comedy, but every time I see it, there's always like a dozen jokes that I miss. I just love how fast, blatant, subtle, direct, verbal, and visual these jokes are. I think every joke know to man is tried out in this movie. And they're thrown at you a mile a minute. I love the pacing, I love the story, and I love how it all seems to be building up to a gigantic punchline which also serves as the climax for the movie. It's so over the top yet there's also a lot of little jokes happening that you miss the first time around, and even the second time around. I've seen this movie about five times and I still don't think I've seen all the jokes. They're so fast and so clever that you have no choice but to go back and watch it over and over again. Thankfully, the characters are well-written enough to support several viewings as well. They're funny, likable and enjoyable to watch, even when they're batshit insane. Now unfortunately to talk about it too much would be giving away a lot of the jokes and the storylines, but I can easily say that I have never laughed harder and more consistently than I have watching Hot Fuzz, the all-time funniest movie I've ever seen. Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed my picks, if you haven't seen any of them yet, check them out.