MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Comedy shows, movies, and standup that s...

Comedy shows, movies, and standup that still hold up two decades (or more) later.


Many people claim that comedy ages poorly after a decade or so has passed, but I believe there are exceptions.

What older comedies do you still find funny?

In my opinion, off the top of my head, the following have aged really well:

Monty Python (series and movies)
Fawlty Towers
Blazing Saddles
Young Frankenstein (and most of Mel Brooks's filmography)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
Uncle Buck
SCTV
3rd Rock From the Sun
Red Dwarf
Futurama

Dave Chappelle's '90s routines.
George Carlin
Bill Hicks
Richard Pryor
Lenny Bruce

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Naked Gun
Throw Momma From the Train
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

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I remember loving SCTV. Haven't seen it in ages.

Adding one very short-lived MTV series from the mid-90s: "The State". Many of the alumni went on to appear in other successful projects like Reno 911 and Party Down.

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Only Fools & Horses
The Vicar of Dibley

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“The Vicar of Dibley”

No no no no no no no... YES!

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😄

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The only one I can agree with you on is Fawlty Towers. Still very funny.

It's been a while since I last saw it, but I thought Eddie Murphy's stand-up show Delirious was funny.

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“Dave Chappelle's '90s routines.”

I’ve recently been revisiting classic Chappelle on Netflix and I agree 100%, just as funny today.

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How on earth does SCTV hold up when it has so many dated cultural references? That's like saying Laugh In or Your Show of Shows holds up.

Sorry to be picky, but my pet peeve is when people post a genuinely interesting thread that strays away from the generic "post your favorite shows" thread but then you see from their answers that this is exactly what they're doing. I don't think you can say SCTV holds up. You can certainly say that it still makes you laugh after all these years just as I still find Kids in the Hall funny as hell. But I don't think you can say a show that had so much topical humor holds up.

Ditto your stand-up comics, especially Lenny Bruce. You really think people in this day and age would be rolling in the aisles from his routines or getting half of what he's joking about?

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Rodney Dangerfield, Steve Martin

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Ha!
I came here to post Rodney but you beat me to it

He had the perfect 'everyman' schtick and killed in several movies too

He gets ALL the respect

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Mort Sahl - "The Daily Show" stole from what he used to do. In an interview, Jon Stewart says Mort started it all, and had his Mort Sahl-like moment on "Crossfire", but then became a right-wing social democrat apologist.

Bill Hicks
George Carlin
Dick Gregory

The Larry Sanders Show

I've rated about 2,400 movies on IMDB, but there's only a couple of funny movies.. Buffalo '66 is definitely the funniest.

Lenny Bruce?? Besides not being funny or profound, I find nothing he does standing up (pun intended)... Skits on "the pill", saying the word "shit"..

I'm going to play a random Mort Sahl list (stand-up and interviews mixed in).. Here's a good one... "The Communist Party is made up of 4,000 people, half of whom are FBI agents" (sounds like every political group in the US, regardless of their views).

"Mussolini started as an Italian Socialist, but then being an opportunity, became a right-winged fascist" (politics is all about opportunism, not ideology)

"We had a far-sighted FBI director, who knew crime would rise, and it has risen in direct proportion to the budget" (it's all about business... now it's "patriot" act).

"If the nuclear powers blew everything up, the NYT would come out with a headline --- 'World Ends: Women and Minorities Hit Hardest'

(at the beginning of what is considered to be the first official stand-up comedy record with an audience.. the first actual one is also Mort Sahl's, but it was recorded illegally, but its on YouTube).

"We're recording this right now, and the sound engineer is Herbert Philbert (FBI snitch like the guy from "the proud bois")

"Every time the Russians put an American in jail, WE put an American in jail, to show the Russians they can't get away with it".

You know, [General Michael] Hayden used to be NSA, now he runs the CIA — he was going to be on Larry King and all week long they ran promos during the day (impersonating Larry King), “Michael Hayden and your phones!” (Laughs) I bet, I’m sure.

(while on a circular stage)... "Notice I'm moving to my right... YOUR left is MY right and that's why our country is slowly becoming what its becoming".

(on supporting the nominee for President) - "Discovering your pregnant and trying to fall in love as rapidly as possible"

"My life needs editing."

"A conservative is someone who believes in reform, but not while they're alive."

"Television is never more false than when it's openly sincere."

"Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth, and Reagan couldn't tell the difference."

"People tell me there are a lot of guys like me, which doesn't explain why I'm lonely."

"A political satire's job is to draw blood. I'm not so much interested in politics as I am in overthrowing the government."

"The New York Times is the official leak of the State Department."

"This matter of two sides to every question is bad logic and bad practice: sometimes there are no sides; sometimes there are a hundred."

"There were four million people in the American Colonies and we had Jefferson and Franklin. Now we have over 200 million and the two top guys are Bush and Dukakis (which you can use interchangeably). What can you draw from this? Darwin was wrong."

"I'm for capital punishment. How else are they going to learn?"

"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen."

"During the war in the Pacific, near Okinawa, I was in charge of these four natives, who had no language, who sat in trees, literally eating leaves.. And my job was to save them from Communism!"....... (few minutes later)....... "They had no drive, no incentive, so we started giving them tests. The idea was to organize a society. The strongest two guys would fish, the other would make the boats, and the other would make nets to fish with, and they could have money when they sell the fish to the other two guys to buy a bigger boat, or maybe to make a payment, and then move, make payments, get more boats, more fish.. When we left that island, we made a report to the Pentagon in which we showed in only 12 short months, we showed these people how to live off each other instead of the land".

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