What Makes Me Laugh

Funny things, or at least things I find funny

Everyone has their own personal sense of humor, but I think some things are universally funny. I will now present a list of things that I think are some of the funniest things around and I think everyone should think are funny. If you don’t find some of these or any of these things, funny, it is alright, we can still be friends.

NOTE: Some of these clips are not safe for work or mixed company. Be warned!

Airplane: This is THE classic absurd comedy. Released in 1980, written and directed by David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams. It stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and features Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It is a parody of disaster films, especially the film Zero Hour! and the Airport series.

I quote this film almost every day, from the classic “I am serious and don’t call me Shirley” and the Lloyd Bridges line when things aren’t going as well as hoped “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue” to the ever popular “roger, Roger, What’s our vector, Victor?”. There is so much going on in this movie you can catch something new every time you watch it, from the baby being thrown into the air when the plane crashes through the window to seeing an ice cream cone instead of a microphone during a press conference.

Bob and Doug McKenzie: Originally created for SCTV by Rick Moranis (Bob) and Dave Thomas (Doug) to mock CBC network mandated Canadian content demands. The characters were so successful that the comedians released an album in 1981 and a movie in 1983.

I have to give credit to Bob and Doug for the fact that for the longest time I didn’t think Boxing Day was a real thing. On the 12 Days of Christmas track of their album, The Great White North, they talk about what the 12 days are supposed to be. They said there was Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and Wrestling Day. I knew that Wrestling Day was not a real day so I assumed that Boxing Day wasn't either. I didn't know until I was at least 25 that Boxing Day is in fact, an actual holiday.

I love these guys so much that I knew every line by heart and wore out the album. The movie was just as funny and I was disappointed that there was never a sequel. In a high school film class, a group of my friends and I did a movie parody called Canadian Vice, a combination of Bob and Doug stuff and Miami Vice (This was 1986, so they were both very relevant at the time). I was Bob Crockett and dressed in a pink t-shirt, baby blue slacks, docksiders with no socks, a white sports coat and a toque. If I find this on TV, I will stop and watch every time.

America's Funniest Home Videos, Jackass and Ridiculousness: As you can see from my selection of these shows, I must like it when people have accidents. AFV has been showing people falling down since 1989, Jackass started on MTV in 2000, it only ran for three years but they released six movies and a few TV specials and Ridiculousness has been on the air since 2011.

There is just something funny about watching someone that shouldn’t be trying something, crash and burn when it goes bad. Obviously, I’m not the only one since between these three shows they have been showing things just like that for 50 seasons. I think people like these shows because we can all identify with making a fool of ourselves and we like it when it happens to someone else. I can’t put any of the Jackass videos on here because they are all age restricted but you can just look them up if you want to.

Robin Williams: One of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time, a interviewer's nightmare and a pretty good actor too. It’s a shame he left us so soon. I first saw him as Mork in the Mork and Mindy show in 1978. Even though I was only ten I had never seen anyone act like that on TV and I actually learned a thing or two every episode. After Mork and Mindy I discovered his stand-up and found that it was even more frantic than his acting. His movie career is legendary, Good Morning Vietnam, Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji and the Birdcage, just to name a few. He just makes me laugh so hard, even today.

Language Warning:

Gene Wilder: Another American treasure who’s film roles are iconic; Leo Bloom in The Producers, Willy Wonka, The Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles, Dr. Frankenstein and his three movies with Richard Pryor; Silver Streak, Stir Crazy and See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Stir Crazy holds a special place in my heart because it was the first R rated movie I ever saw. Young Frankenstein is a classic with plenty of quotable lines like the Marty Feldman line “If you can be Frankensteen, I can be Eyegore”. Wilder’s ability to be a likeable idiot is second to none and Johnny Depp can’t hold a cane to Wilder’s turn as Willy Wonka. However, it was those movies with Richard Pryor that really stand out to me. They worked together and played off one another so well, you would think that they had been a comedy team for a long time. They took slapstick to another level and a line of gibberish from one of them is a classic comedy moment.

Another Language Warning:

Spaceballs: Is a 1987 spoof of Star Wars and other Sci-Fi shows. It stars Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Daphne Zuniga, Dick Van Patten, George Wyner and the voice of Joan Rivers.

Anyone who has looked through the archives of Midwestern Guy will see that I am a HUGE Star Wars fan and might wonder if I saw this movie as sacrilegious. No, I don’t I look at it like that, to me it’s just a director that appreciated the movie and his irreverent take on it. If you can’t laugh at the things you love, than you should really examine why you love them. Besides, anybody that tries to take anything Mel Brooks does seriously, doesn’t understand what he does. This is another movie with quotable lines like “Ludacris speed!”, “My Swartz is just as big as yours” or “We’re combing the desert” and another one I will stop for if flipping through the channels.

Only a Mild Language Warning here.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “Help, Help, I’m being repressed!”. The Holy Grail came out it 1975 and stars the Monty Python comedy group, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. It is their take on the legend of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail.

This film was all the rage when I was in junior high, not because it had just come out but because it was just so darn funny and sophomoric just the kind of thing that would appeal to a bunch of thirteen and fourteen year old boys. We really enjoyed quoting the movie to one another, so if you were to have visited the halls of Traverse City Junior High in 1982 you would have found a bunch of boys roaming the halls yelling “Tis but a scratch” or “Bring out your dead or any of the countless other memorable quotes from this movie. Now a days my son likes to watch it as much as I do and he laughs just as hard as me.

The Celebrity Jeopardy SNL skits: These skits ran between 1996 and 2015 with the majority of them running between 1996 and 2002. Will Ferrell played Alex Trebek in every one and Darrell Hammond played three characters but most famously Sean Connery in twelve skits.

Everybody that watches Jeopardy knows that the Celebrity Jeopardy episodes are just not as intellectually taxing as regular episodes and Saturday Night Live took that to the extreme with these skits. I’m pretty sure I peed my pants a few time because I was laughing so hard watching Alex Trebek get more and more frustrated with his celebrity contestants. Of course, it was Connery that caused him the most grief and it was always so funny to see how he was going to yank Alex’s chain that week. These were some of my all-time favorite SNL skits and It marks the beginning of the end of SNL’s run as the funniest show on tv.

Eddie Murphy’s stand-up:

Once again, language warning ahoy!

Eddie Murphy released a HBO special called Eddie Murphy Delirious in 1983 and a theatrical release of another comedy concert called Eddy Murphy Raw in 1987. For a time, Raw, held the record for most uses of the F word until 1990 when Goodfellas was released. It is the most successful stand-up comedy concert film of all-time.

These films were just so funny, Murphy has a keen view of society and especially the differences between black and white cultures but he talks about it in such a way that everyone can find funny things in it. In Delirious, his bit about how his mother was a deadly sniper with her shoe is just hilarious and I remember talking about it with all my friends and while we never experienced anything like that we could still find it funny. Now, some people might say that it hasn’t aged well with his comments on domestic abuse and homosexuals but that doesn’t mean it’s not funny. Just like most things on this list, Eddie Murphy could not make these shows now and would be cancelled if he tried.

A Little Independent: This will be the least known of all the things that make me laugh and the newest thing on this list. It’s a podcast that is available on all the usual podcast places. It is presented by two friends; Ryan and Todd who talk about independent, obscure or just plain weird movies. Every episode they take turns picking a movie to discuss.

I’m not really an independent movie guy which is why I like this podcast even more. Once I listen to their description of a movie I don’t need to see it. Now, they would say that their discussion is meant to encourage people to watch the movies for themselves, which is fine but to me it’s like a Cliff Notes version of the movie.

Ryan and Todd have a excellent rapport and it really comes through on the podcasts. They have inside jokes which they don’t always feel the need to explain to the audience, which I think is better then clueing them in on everything. You can tell that Todd is the “movie nerd” and Ryan is more of a “regular” movie consumer and appreciates a good story. If you want germane cultural references, than Ryan is your man but if you want out and out passion for small budget independent movies than Todd is your White Knight. They always have a witty repartee and I have never failed to laugh out loud at least twice an episode.

Everyone, especially those of you that are movie fans, need to give this podcast a listen. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!

Explicit Content Warning!

(not really, just a few bad words)

There you go, this is the list of what makes me laugh. Please comment on what makes you laugh.