Typically, I find myself top-posting when I have something I really want to complain about. Last night I witnessed a travesty on television, courtesy of the Bravo cable network. I'll also call it "farcical", because it was a special entitled "The 100 Funniest Movies Of All Time", an apparently sincere effort to list filmdom's all-time top comedies. Emphasis on "Of All Time" for purposes of this tirade, because this list broke all previous records for the kind of indolent, ignorant, self- or youth-referential twaddle which usually infects lists of this nature. This program was blithely but profoundly disrespectful of the contributions of countless great artists, and the "serious" professionals who appeared as guest commentators, such as John Landis and Rob Reiner, should be ashamed to be connected in any way with this monstrosity, even if their own films were deservedly featured along the way.

Now then---am I simply complaining about the prevalence of recent films, or their relative preference over older classics? Not hardly, though that's been the typical failing in such lists, and it's certainly not absent here in this Bravo abortion. It's so much worse than that. Digest this slowly: 1964's Dr. Strangelove, coming in at No. 56, was the oldest film on the list. Nothing worth listing.....before 1964. Altman's M*A*S*H was second-oldest (1970), hitting the list at No. 17 (just a few yuks short of No. 16, Old School, that crazy 30-somethings frat-house romp with Will Ferrell and Luke Wilson). Toss in the wonderful Harold and Maude and a few Woody Allen and Mel Brooks masterpieces, and it turns out that a grand total of ten or tewlve of the greatest film comedies of all time were released before the 1980s. We've come a long way, baby.

The horror....the horror....of the youth-driven entertainment biz's "Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia" consumerist mentality---and lack of integrity. It's not just that stars with current film contracts like Ferrell or Adam Sandler are favored over traditional fare: e.g. Sandler's The Wedding Singer at No. 6---yes, No. 6---edging out Blazing Saddles at No. 7, and WAY funnier than Young Frankenstein at No. 56, but less of a seminal comedy than There's Something About Mary at No. 4, or Shrek at No. 3.....all while Monty Python And The Holy Grail languishes at No. 40. No, not just unspeakably foolish gradations like that.

What about the fact that the likes of Will Ferrell's Anchorman rates the list, but Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot is absent? Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor remake appears, but no films whatsoever starring Jerry Lewis, Charlie Chaplin, Judy Holliday, or the Marx Brothers. We've got Ben Stiller's Dodgeball at No. 37, and his Meet The Fockers at No. 25, but no room on the list for Peter Sellers in Being There or his genius turn as Clouseau in A Shot In The Dark. I was transported by incisive criticism on the Bravo countdown....not from Leonard Maltin or Devid Denby---hey, gimme David Edelstein!---but from assorted twenty to twenty-eight year-olds, the likes of TV's Bachelor Bob and Chelsea Handler, who let us know, condidentially but authoritatively, that films like Legally Blonde, Happy Gilmore, School of Rock are among the greatest all-time film comedies.....we suspect in part because they've actually seen those films, of course, as opposed to non-raters like His Girl Friday, Harvey, or The Philadelphia Story......and in part because the list-raters aren't (gasp!)......old.

Youth is always interested in youth, in earlier days as now. But the degree of navel-gazing indolence is greater than ever before---not merely ignorance in the sense of a gap in knowledge, but supercilious rejection of any value, for themselves or even others, in what is not within their own ken or interest. The wise lose their wisdom---with the comic geniuses Rob Reiner knew himself and from his father's generation, he should not have lent his face and words to any level of validation for this Bravo atrocity. But then again, perhaps Reiner's in keeping with the signs of the times, where emotion trumps or redefines fact, and history is boring and soooooo yesterday. As Reiner would doubtless say---Obama '08!

But the degree of navel-gazing indolence is greater than ever before---not merely ignorance in the sense of a gap in knowledge, but supercilious rejection of any value, for themselves or even others, in what is not within their own ken or interest.

but they had the decency to tune out.

I'm sure that the only rational reason that Groucho Marx isn't on the list is that he wouldn't have wanted to be on any list that would have him as a member.

Weird, that AFI had Some Like It Hot as their #1 comedy of all time, and it doesn't even make this list. (Duck Soup and Strangelove also in AFI's Top 5)

Hulu.com, a terrific site, just added Casino Royale to their list of titles available for free viewing.

I'm afraid to ask what movie Bravo thinks is #1.

i watched a few moments too, but was forced to avert my eyes at the atrocity. i caught it at "25 to 1"

old school, the wedding singer, mary, shrek . . . all the devils choices.

is there a site to research the full 100? where did some of my favorites, end up, like . . .

• catch 22
• earth girls are easy
• dogma

I couldn't believe they left Waiting off the list.

Here's Luis Guzman explaining the batwing to a young initiate.

Just last night I watched one of the funniest of all time, The Inlaws. Thats the original one with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin. Damn that was a funny movie Shelley.

Fuck, I thought us boomers were bad about ignoring anything that happened much before or after the 60s!

I am proud to say, however, that my 23-year-old daughter has a real appreciation for music and movies that were even before my own time, so at least not ALL the younger generation have such a narrow view.

. . . I certainly share much of your indignation. No Marx Brothers? Appalling. No Billy Wilder? The Apartment? Some Like It Hot? The Seven Year Itch? Incomprehensible.

Actually, forget about that. As a physical clown and devotee of Theatre of the Absurd, it's even more inexcusable that they missed some of the classics of silent cinema: Battling Butler, Modern Times, The General, Safety Last!

Was this limited entirely to American cinema? Well, I guess not, since Monty Python was there (at dangerously low ranking). So why not foreign language cinema? What of Jacques Tati, for whom language hardly mattered? If Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, Mon Oncle, and Playtime aren't the three greatest film comedies ever . . . well, that's a highly subjective assertion, but if they aren't at least in the top 100, then the people charged with paying attention are dropping the ball, including any old crank in here too unschooled in the art of film or physical staging to have seen them (which is not a comment on anyone in particular).

I could also speak to matters of comedies not recognized as comedies--Fight Club, An American Werewolf in London, the latter of which brings me to genre comedies like Shaun of the Dead . . . but you get the idea. Like you, I could agonize over the gaps.

And for the record, while I think Sandler is an acceptable actor, when called upon to be one, I find him atrociously unfunny, especially compared with some post-SNL players like Bill Murray, or even Steve Martin (who hasn't had a good film in ages, but who is still a reasonably compelling presence; maybe he, like Murray, needs a Wes Anderson, a Jim Jarmusch, or a Sophia Coppola to give him something interesting to do). Ferrell is a mixed bag with a big talent, but I'm tired of his schtick.

Still . . .

Isn't the appeal of art always subjective? I'm not saying that there isn't a difference between good art and bad art. I reject any distinction between high art and low art, but I also recognize that, once you accept any genre, subgenre, or niche on its terms, you can still measure things like content and form, unity (or unified disunity), etc.

Still, how something reaches you will usually have some relation to when and where it reaches you; cinema is, by its nature, an art of the now. The best films are as much capsules of the time in which they were made as they are timeless works of art (though the best of the best are that, too). And comedy is the most subjective of all genres, I think; we all find the same things tragic, but we don't all seem to find the same things funny.

That this subjectivity should erase history is disturbing; I think the smart person finds the roots and family tree of his or her aesthetic interests. I don't think my interest in absurdism, punk, horror, heavy metal, and gothic style have robbed me of the ability to comprehend broader movements.

History is hardly boring, but its lessons--especially where entertainment is concerned--are hugely dependent on perspective. So-called "classic" rock is a wash for me; the '70s had too much to offer in the way of proto-punk, industrial, free jazz and No Wave for me to waste my time on moustached wankers and their endless soloing. That doesn't keep me from observing the past, of course, and it doesn't keep me from acknowledging debts to the past. But since I'll NEVER call the Eagles anything but a shit band, or have more than a shrug for Led Zeppelin, I can sympathize with a rejection of the notion of classics.

Maybe the problem isn't navel-gazing; maybe the problem is that we don't look deeply enough, or we don't try to see how that navel fits into the larger context, the history of navels like ours, if you will. Maybe our subjectivity is inadequately complete, because the notion of myself supersedes the notion of self, THE self.

Now I'm just meandering, I know. This is always tough, because I have mixed feelings about canon formation. I tend to take issue with THE CANON, but I'm always forming A canon of my own, and that process would be impossible without a formal canon from which to diverge, against which to rebel . . .

In any case, to use evaluation of comedic cinema as a measure of emotion trumping fact is problematic, because art appeals to the former, and is notoriously, even necessarily ambivalent about the latter.

When I was 15 in my junior year of HS, strep brought me down with pericarditis and after a few days in the H, I got to convalesce at home for six weeks to make sure it didn't turn into rheumatic fever.

So I was up every night till 4AM watchin the Late Show and the Late Late Show on NYC CBS channel 2 - everything for free.

Must have watched 120 of the best in US moviemaking history.

no really. there is a kind of timelessness to your post/rant that is charming. I say that even as I find myself in complete agreement with your estimate of the films named and unnamed, the short-comings of 'today's' youth and the unfairness of it all. were it ever thus.

I'm so glad you included that. Just a couple months ago, we read the script and decided to do that show in the fall. All the while I was reading it, I was thinking, 'can this still work?' and decided it can.

Some works almost beg to be brought forward. I rewrote parts of 'You Can't Take It With You' to be able to do it in the present, rather than try to pull it off as a period piece. Some works remain remarkably timeless, some capture only that moment in time, and some have to be coaxed into the present.

But live theatre is different than films in that regard. In some ways, watching an old film is like watching ghosts.

I suppose the glib answer would be that it served you right for watching Bravo, but you have enough of a point to deserve more than that. I admit to the same crusty-old-fart response recently when I commented on a child's Daffy Duck band-aid in the emergency department and received a blank stare; kids today just aren't aware of any of the cartoons I'm inclined to call "classics," just Spongebob and Dora and whatever crappy anime thing is the fad du jour. And yet, at the same time, I'm sure that the Speed Racer cartoons I grew up with were considered pale pretenders by those who grew up on original Mickey Mouse clips. Comedy films are no different, so this should hardly be a surprise. And rather than dismiss the list out of hand as ignoring older comedies, one could also take the view that comedy is an intrinsically era-sensitive venture; Shakespeare wrote many comedies that have stood the test of time, but they won't inspire the same degree of laughter as will a comedy that is more in tune with the comedic overcurrents of a given era. Similarly, I recently convinced my wife to watch Blazing Saddles, a movie that had inspired me to side-splitting laughter when I was younger; I turned the thing off in embarrassment after the first 45 minutes passed without a chuckle from either of us. If you wanted to complain about this list being called "100 Greatest Comedy Films," you'd have a point that they were overlooking the innovation and pioneerism of previous eras' comedies, but "100 Funniest Films of All Time" is a bit different and implies a very different, inherently subjective standard.

The other simple explanation for you observation is pure economics. Any survey like this is typically skewed in the direction of more recent material, which can be read in part as a reflection of historical trend - each successive generation has become more media-aware (or media-dependent, if you prefer), and it only makes sense that the TV execs are going to aim their programming toward the demographic sweet spot for advertisers. For this survey, that means more There's Something About Mary and less Some Like it Hot. This does have the unfortunate effect of shortchanging the contributions of earlier eras, but you can blame capitalism for that - younger viewers aren't going to sit through a list of 100 films they haven't seen, and advertisers aren't going to pay for eyeballs that aren't watching. So ultimately, you have two options: recruit enough older viewers to skew the demographics back toward balance, or just do the smart thing and quit watching Bravo.

The Bravo Network has invested heavily in the newest technology available to measure the innate funniness of movies and television shows. Using a device called the Laser-guided Atomic Funniness Factorial, or LAFF, scientists who study these things, called yukkologists, use a digital version of the movie which is projected onto a virtual theater inside a giant computer hard-drive in Poughkeepsie. This projection is intersected with a beam of high-speed comedy particles (sometimes called "humitrons") and the resulting radiation of absurdity is measured with a guffometer. The score is reported in units called "belushis" (oddly, named after Jim, and not John) which comprise an open-ended scale that runs from the lowest possible score, a 0 (curiously, the only two movies that ever scored a zero were DC Cab with Mr T., and Taxi with Jimmy Fallon) to infinity. The highest score yet recorded was for Dr. Strangelove, but leading scientists are all in agreement that the raw score for this movie must be adjusted downward, since Peter Sellers plays three different roles in the movie. Some maverick scientsts have been using the technology to measure the unintentional funniness of news footage, but this line of research has been quashed by the Bush Administration, since the highest score yet measured was recorded for Dubya's 2003 State of the Union Address.