I've seen a couple over the years: Robin Hood, Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, and most recently Spaceballs. I found them all funny, theoretically, but they rarely got an open laugh out of me. It seems like most of the time this is just because the comedic timing makes every joke or funny bit land very awkwardly, or with just a bit too much space to leave room for any subtlety or reward for the watcher.
I feel like I remember the few I saw as a kid being funnier at that time. Is it just because my brain has been attention-poisoned with the rapid fire wit of modern comedic television?
Possible hot take but I think the Brooks approach is closer to the average speed at which people speak English in real life.
For sure, but real life and most conversations are only punctually comedic.
Spaceballs still feels fairly modern to me. Lots of homages, running gags, puns, and breaks in the fourth wall. It has Deadpool energy. Ryan Reynolds would be right at home on a Mel Brooks set.
Absolutely, but my point was a bit more specifically about timing. Something about the comedic pacing just felt like it kept jerking forward and then hitting the breaks.
simply play them at 2x speed and have a button that makes the vine boom noise on demand
I grew up with Brooks and while I haven't watched any recently, the pace of movies were definitely slower back then.
Edit: thinking back, a lot of humor in those movies would almost break the fourth wall in that Jewish, "eh? Eh?" Sort of way.
There definitely is a distinctive Jewish comedy culture, Yiddish speaking Jewish comedy is especially known for puns and clever wordplay. And going waaaay back I'm told that there are a lot of really gutbusting puns and referential jokes in the Torah that you can only understand if you can read it in Hebrew.
The Talmud and Midrash are also well know for clever humor, wordplay, gotcha jokes, and puns, all woven in to serious debate about the topic being discussed.
I agree about the pacing, which is strange to me, because I much prefer older movies for the most part because they're slower.I just watched Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice from 1969 and the pacing was absolutely fantastic. Modern cinematography is usually too quick for me and there's no room to let the actors really shine and do their thing, especially when you never have more than two of them in one shot for more than a few seconds. But when it comes to Mel Brooks specifically the dialogue just feels very clunky in its timing, and it gives every joke whiplash.
Definitely major fourth wall breaking with him though and I always gotta appreciate that.
Oh yeah, the Brooks comedies knocked the fourth wall down in the first few minutes. They're so genre-aware and so much winking and laughing along with the audience i can't think of any other good comparisons.
Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. That, "see what we did there? We've got jokes!" Kind of energy. He would often give the audience a second or two to figure out the joke before moving on.
Digital cameras have completely changed moviemaking. They’re now able to just keep the cameras running while the actors riff for a while then they cut out the funniest lines from all the takes and tighten up the timing. Film had a lot less room for improvisation.
IDK but conventions definitely change over time, so what played well with one audience may not play as well with a newer different one.
On the flip side, I feel like modern comedic stuff never has the great frenetic pace of stuff like Airplane!
I do like that about Airplane! so maybe it's just a personal taste thing. I did mention in another comment though when it comes to non-comedy I much prefer older, slower movies.
There's jokes that work when you're in a crowd to get a laugh. I think most of the jokes/bits in Brooks' movies falls into this. Alone I chuckle, together we laugh.
Yeah watching dumb cartoons with my nieces really ups my personal laugh factor. Alone I might smile or chuckle at a few jokes. When a couple kids are laughing super hard it is infectious.
It's like when I saw star wars 9 because I took my nephews to see it as a treat. I had fun. Shut my brain off. Laughed at the little robot surgeon guy. Ate popcorn. Had a good time. Then I got on the internet and everyone was howling like baboons. Jesus christ folks, it's a kids movie. Watch it with some kids.
it’s a kids movie
pointing out that modern blockbusters are all written at a child's level just makes the fanboys even more mad.
Yeah I still laugh at that dude who was like "Dune is a great example of how you could make an adult star wars movie" and it's like... my dude... they already make those movies they just aren't called 'star wars'
all those lesser spoof comedies (wayan's brothers stuff, scary movie and clones) that came out in the 90s and early 00s probably helped with the poisoning.
watching Mel brooks movies for me is like reading Shakespeare my brain needs about 30 minutes to reset to the pacing and comedic language.
yes! thank you for confirming the thing i've been saying since i saw it recently and told my partner it was like watching Medieval Movie 3
felt like it was mass produced at the shitty comedy factory
I kinda feel that. Watched it as a kid and loved it. Watched it recently and it was a little painful.
Hmm, they land perfectly for me - but i also find that a lot of modern movies move way too fast and ruin potential jokes.
I bet you could study this to determine if there's a generational drift in comedic expectations or if it's just preferences.
A while back, I took my niece to the drive in movies for her birthday. She loves star wars, and it was the empire strikes back and spaceballs. I thought she'd get sleepy and the humor in spaceballs would go over her head, so I thought we'd be leaving early. Nope! She absolutely loved spaceballs and was howling with laughter. I laughed too, but mostly because she was making me laugh. I don't know the answer to your question, but I can tell you that at least one child still loves Mel Brooks. So maybe it is the brain poisoning? Dunno.
That kind of comic pacing was considered fast for the time. Brooks came into his own as postmodernism made its way to the forefront. His comic style is shaped by this. His philosophy was to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
That being said, Blazing Saddles is the only one that still makes me laugh. The scene where Jim makes a frowning Bart crack up gets me every time because it feels like Cleavon genuinely didn't know what was coming.
I've always heard it told that he was in fact not told the punchline before filming and was just told to try and not laugh no matter what.
Blazing Saddles is the one I found funniest and well-paced of the four I listed, for sure.
i'm not sure. When I rewatched The Producers and even though some of the cultural references are outdated on paper, it all lands hard (like i think the character of Lorenzo Saint Dubois makes no sense to a modern audience, but his sheer show-stopping weirdness carries the gag, and if anything I think is funnier than the pandering gay joke they did in the remake).
Then again I think the 3 Stooges still kill
There's a brand of reddit nerd who loves to tell you how hilarious they find Airplane!, mel brooks, monty python. I'm pretty sure that no one under 75 has ever physically laughed during those movies and they're all lying for clout. Professors probably lie about how much they laughed at the two gentlemen from verona.
"He has a wife you know." and the roman guards in the front both go "jupiter help me please"
gets me everytime :michael-laugh:
I don't remember much of being a kid vividly but distinctly remember Mel Brooks and Leslie Nielsen movies making me laugh til I cried. My entire family was sick of Men in Tights because I watched it so often
The Naked Gun is still funny
Now, if you want to talk about poorly aged comedies, one only needs to point to the first Ace Ventura
airplane and blazing saddles are great even today. you may just have zoomer sensibiltiies
Speak for yourself, I rewatch all of those pretty regularly and think they hold up.
Airplane! is hilarious, when I was a kid I could recite Robin Hood: Men In Tights from memory
everyone calling this take zoomer, it's actually just cap.
watch the Holy Grail and Young Frankenstein again. If you say you don't laugh at at least 1 scene from each, you're a massive capper lol
I actually watched Young Frankenstein recently and I definitely enjoyed it but I did not laugh.
