First of all, shorts: Duck Amuck and Pixar’s “Magician’s Apprentice” are getting second nods. That freakin’ bunny had me in tears, and being ridiculously pregnant at the time, I did pee myself a little and almost missed half the jokes because I couldn’t see straight. Still makes me laugh hysterically whenever I see it.

And the two that no one mentioned (although lots of good stuff on here) both feature the actress Anna Farris, who is unbelievably good at her craft. ‘Just Friends,’ where the little brother tasers her in the mall through the following scene where she eats blueberry flavored toothpaste left me gasping. I frequently watch those two scenes over and over again before I will finish the movie.

And ‘Smiley Face,’ which really gets rolling when she hallucinates her roommate (Danny Masterson) f**king a skull while bathed in red light and mist…it only gets better from there. I actually have to rerent the film, because I did miss about half of it–blinded by tears and deaf from all the howling that ensued from myself, husband and friend. Ridiculous fun.

The funniest bit in film or video tape I have ever seen is the wrap around to SCTV’s Six Gun Justice, Episode 8, otherwise know as the Happy Hour with Happy Marsden and Sammy the Goose. Happy demonstrates how to use an editing splicer.

The Happy Hour was an afternoon kids show that takes place in a bar (get it?) and John Hemphill plays Happy. It was always great and this episode was painfully funny.

The scene where Mary Magdalene stumbles upon the scene of the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. She looks upward, tears streaming down her face as she takes a bite of the loaf of bread she’s been given…

…and my six-year-old daughter says, “What? Was the bread stale?”

I lost it.

Not a funnier movie moment for me before or since.

(Wonderful reading through all these. Lots of movies it seems I need to see!)

Three movies that haven’t been mentioned before: 1) “Johnny English” – Rowan Atkinson spoofing James Bond should come with a box of Depends 2) “Murder By Death” – spoof on every single who-dunnit out there that will leave you gasping for air 3) “Transylvania 6-5000″ – spoofs on all the mad scientist/monster movie classics

For serial love (TV shows, that is), you can’t pass up “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ of course – my personal fav in that one is “Attack of the Eye Creatures”. “Fawlty Towers” is another. I was banned from watching the original English episodes of “Whose Line Is It” for fear of cardiac/respiratory arrest occuring.

My personal fav series for laughs was “Farscape” – I just died too many times during the later episodes – Crichton’s dialogue was just too perfect – fav of favs were the episodes where everyone on ship keeps changing bodies (wet’em on that one) and the one where Crichton and Dargo wake up after a night of partying (leather hot pants and fishnet stockings anyone?).

For stand up comedy I never stop laughing at no matter how many times I’ve seen it: Richard Jeni: Platypus Man; Robin Williams: Live at the Met; Bill Cosby: Himself

But the first and only time I actually slid off a movie theater chair and rolled in the aisle? – the scene in the principal’s office from “Porkys” – never did get the gum, soda, and popcorn off that coat. I’m surprised I didn’t crack a rib laughing that hard. And it still gets me.

“Any of you fellas smithys?”

“It’s the straight-and-narrow for here on out. The preacher says all my sins have been washed away. Even that Piggly-Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.”
“I thought you said you were innocent of those charges.”
“Well I was lying…and the preacher says that sin’s been washed away too!”

“Any of you fellas know your way around a Walther PPK?”
“Ah, there’s where we can’t help you. I don’t believe that’s in Mississippi.”

“You two are dumber than a bag of hammers.”

And a cartoon I’d seen on television a dozen times before I saw it in a movie theater.

So I knew exactly what was coming.

And it still made me literally fall out of my chair laughing.

Because as funny as it is on TV, it’s that much more mind-blowingly funny on a big screen.

And that’s movie-theater big, people, not living-room big.

(drum roll…)

Duck Amuck.

Noises Off is definitely the sort of thing to watch with theater people. Just classic.

I actually watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail too often when I was young (starting at what, eight? I know I wasn’t allowed to watch it the first time because I was too young, but I think my parents gave up) and it is therefore not a laugh-fest but part of my unconsciousness. I mean, when you can quote the Black Knight verbatim at the age of ten, you’re more proud of doing it correctly than cracking up while saying it.

Dogma is funniest if you’re Catholic. Seriously. Evil Rob and I saw it in the theater and were laughing hysterically when most people were quiet. Especially since we really do know the priest that probably blessed his golf clubs.

One of my favorite make-somebody-else-laugh moments was for a theoretically non-funny movie— Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood. There’s a scene where he comes into the hall with a deer slung over his shoulders and proceeds to outline to his enemy exactly what he’s going to do. So I leaned over to my mom and whispered, “Actually, I am an escaped lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world,” and she completely lost it. Good times.

… and that reminds me of The Court Jester, a classic sendup of precisely the sort of movies Errol Flynn was making. Danny Kaye’s comedic timing is a blast. (And Angela Lansbury’s the young love interest! Young and princessy— but her voice is instantly recognizable.)