What happened to absurdist comedy?

[Overusedname]

Japan never abandoned it.

Deconstruction of anime cliches, glorification of high class life, and the stupidity of patronizing women:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTVKuLq6gR8

Black Adder and That 70's show are good western examples.

 

[The Funslinger]

I mean, in Spaceballs: the Movie, the villains find the Hero's hiding place by watching Spaceballs: the Movie. When was the last time A comedy had the stones to shatter the fourth wall that bad.

Meet the Spartans had Leonidis checking the reviews for 300.

And that movie was mind numbingly bad.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

Tim & Eric.

<youtube=iFKvgo7q6lw>

Also, while not technically absurdist, the American dub of Shin-Chan is quite easily one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. Check it out on hulu. Entire series for free: http://www.hulu.com/shin-chan

While you're there, Spy: http://www.hulu.com/spy

 

[Kpt._Rob]

While there certainly is some, I think it's a case of a horse beaten almost to the point of extinction. It's in intensive care right now, and no doubt someone could resuscitate it, but none of the doctors on call have had the balls to take a shot since it seems pretty stable in its life support based coma. The distant bastard offspring of the Mel Brooks style humor was for quite some time embodied most memorably in the increasingly horrible Scary Movie series, as well as its many clones. While I loved the Mel Brooks films, I would have to say that this era in film making probably soured the genre as a whole for most people, and I don't think it's surprising that we haven't seen much of it as of late. I mean, is there anyone who actually wants to suffer through another Scary Movie? While the Brooks films were probably intended for older audiences, the Scary Movie era descendants were aggressively juvenile, and as a result of this I think that the comedy style itself has lost some of its credibility in the eyes of the general public.

Now that's not to say that someone couldn't change that. All it takes is one movie which is both absurdist and designed to be laughed at by someone older than 12, but I imagine that for the time being studios will be hesitant to invest large sums of money in such a film.

 

[Aris Khandr]

I mean, in Spaceballs: the Movie, the villains find the Hero's hiding place by watching Spaceballs: the Movie. When was the last time A comedy had the stones to shatter the fourth wall that bad.

I ended up watching 21 Jump Street last night, and a line from that seems rather relevant here.

We're reviving a canceled undercover project from the '80s and revamping it for modern times. The people behind this lack creativity and they've run out of ideas, so what they do now is just recycle shit from the past and hope that nobody will notice.

We've replaced witty comedy with the word "fuck" and people seem to think it's funny. I don't get modern pop culture.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Haven't bothered with comedy movies lately. And why should I, when there's still: Monty Python's Flying Circus, Peep Show, Arrested Development, Office, Black Books, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, Scrubs, and so on, plus a few excellent Finnish shows most here wouldn't know about... Peep Show still living for a series or two and they're making a movie on (a bit incomprehensibly stopped) Arrested Development.

I wouldn't call Mel Brooks' films absurdist, or at least not to the extent I prefer it. That's Monty Python's business right there.

And isn't there a bunch of parodies done about horror, action and superhero films? And in case you didn't know: Hot Shots is a parody on Top Gun and The Naked Gun movies were built from very similar TV shows.

You can't make 80's and 90's comedy movies couple decades later. Also, you can never see movies as good, if you don't take off the awful, distorting nostalgia goggles.

Comedy & self-parody just hasn't been, nor is, on the lips of every movie executive in recent years.

 

[Total LOLige]

Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia is pretty absurd, I think. It's got Danny DeVito and he's awesome. I can't tell the difference between ridiculous and absurd, Mighty Boosh is pretty absurd.

 

[aksel]

HOT ROD.
Easily one of my favourite movies.

Other than that, Tim & Eric are pretty damn hilarious. Five glorious seasons, plus a billion dollar movie.

 

[Mr Mystery Guest]

There is The League of Gentlemen and Psychoville if you like the absurd, though that is dark comedy. If you like absurd humor quite rude and violent there was a 90's show called Bottom. I think all the American absurdest writers found a niche in animation, brilliant examples being Ren & Stimpy and Roco's Modern life. If you like sketch comedy Horrible Histories is the best thing on telly. And Japanese Anime like Excell Saga is absurdest humor being fired out of a machine gun.

 

[Mr Mystery Guest]

There is a German sketch comedy called Switch Reloaded. There is a very funny piece where they parody The Office with The Third Reich. Hitler doing the David Brent dance is unforgettable. Absurd enough?

 

[Saulkar]

Absurdist comedy still exists. It just migrated to the internet.

That is not absurdist comedy, hell I wouldnt even call that comedy.

You don't but I do through the awesome power of subjectivity and thus it becomes comedy.

 

[The_Waspman]

Well, the way I see it is that absurdist comedy is kind of a niche taste, and we all know the movie industry is all about making money. So comedies are all lowest common denominator. Which is why they're all fart gags and 'look! We're mocking something thats popular, we're so cool!'

Though frankly, how anyone can find all that [genre] movie shit funny is beyond me.

Comedy is like Horror, its very personal and sujective. Which is also why most horror films are either gorefests or jump scares. Or both.

 

[Krantos]

I mean, in Spaceballs: the Movie, the villains find the Hero's hiding place by watching Spaceballs: the Movie. When was the last time A comedy had the stones to shatter the fourth wall that bad.

Meet the Spartans had Leonidis checking the reviews for 300.

And that movie was mind numbingly bad.

That's kind of the impression I'm getting from feedback.

Absurdist hasn't really left. It's just that the current crop isn't any good at it. So people have just kind of sworn off the style all together.

Sad.

Kind of makes me wish we could get Brooks out of retirement....

 

[theSteamSupported]

I can't believe this slipped under your radar.

<youtube=YwYfbZgJOBs>

 

[Squilookle]

In recent memory, Black Dynamite and Kung-pow kinda. The problem absurdist takes a lot of work or talent to be that good and humans are lazy

I was going to say something like this- yeah: Absurdist comedy that actually works takes a lot of effort- a LOT of effort, and cheap laughs are... well... cheaper by comparison.