The Movie House
Comedy has been a mainstay of the American cinema since the turn of the twentieth century, evolving to match the tenor of the times. These selections from the National Comedy Center’s interactive “Movie House” exhibit in Jamestown, NY highlight key genres of comedy film that have entertained audiences for generations. Explore the development of physical comedy since the silent era, the genesis of the “buddy comedy,” the invention and evolution of animation, the sustained popularity of parodies, and the rise of the contemporary “coming of age” film.
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Physical Humor
What is it about falling down, getting bonked, or taking a pie in the face that is so reliably funny? The ‘shock humor’ of physical comedy dates back to the oldest Greek plays - and extends to some of the funniest movies of the last 50 years, including Blazing Saddles, The Jerk, Old School, Dumb ...
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Parody in Film
Parody is as old as comedy itself. 1903’s The Great Train Robbery may have been the first great action movie - but 1905’s The Little Train Robbery (featuring an all-child cast) played to even more audiences. Few films have been funnier than the smartest parodies, like Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenste...
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Airplane!
Airplane! has come to be considered one of the great parody films of all time, renowned for its dense co-mingling of slapstick, sight gags, wordplay, innuendo, satire, and an overarching tone of deadpan mock seriousness. Created by writer-producers Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker on ...
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Buddy Comedy
From the films of Laurel & Hardy to modern day hits like Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, two friends overcoming obstacles while being forced to contend with one other has proven to be a resilient comedic formula. Emerging from early vaudeville ‘double acts’ featuring the uneven pairing of a ...
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Ghostbusters
In 1984 Ghostbusters broke all box-office records to become the highest-grossing comedy of all time to that point, and the most successful comedy film of the 1980s. The film featured an ensemble of Saturday Night Live and Second City comedians who were vaulted to international superstardom as Gho...
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Big Screen Animation
From Mickey Mouse’s heralded debut in Steamboat Willie to Warner Brothers’ Lego Batman Movie, comedy has been a mainstay of animated film for a century. Although all major studios have experimented with comedy animation, Disney has been most influential in pushing the bounds of this artform. More...
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Arrested Development
There’s something about lovable-but-immature adults struggling to ‘come of age’ that has captured the imagination of filmmakers. From Billy Wilder’s The Apartment to Judd Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin, stories about hilariously underdeveloped grown-ups have endured through every generation of c...
