Forum Moderators: open
1- The Parrot Sketch - monty python.
2- Jessie Jackson reads Green Eggs and Ham as a Eulogy to Dr.Suess creator on Sat Night live.
3- Jonny Carson - the potato chip bit.
4- Sienfeld - What do women want? This That and The Other.
5- SNL - it would be hard to pick just one, but I'd go with Bulushi's samurai night fever or Jane you ignorant misguided sl* you.
6- Python, the Killer Joke.
Strutting down the corridor to the tune of 'you can tell by the way I use my walk....' --- absolute classic, has me in stitches every time ;)
Nick
Silent skit. Tommy is seated at a table in a restaurant with a date. He discovers his zipper is down. Funny watching him suavely trying to zip up his pants, which he eventually accomplishes. As they get up to leave, suave Tommy has managed to zip the tablecloth in his fly causing him to pull all the contents off the table. He stands there with the Tommy Smothers goofy look on his face, the table cloth hanging from his zipper like some giant loin cloth.
[edited by: lawman at 12:48 pm (utc) on Nov. 24, 2002]
All good, but in particular The 'stars in the eyes' night.
I nearly had to change my trousers.
Monty Python skit (there are so many good ones):
"I'm A Lumberjack" song
Saturday Night Live:
Bass-o-matic commercial
King Tut
Church Lady
Jingleheimer Junction
Only this time, it's a group of urban gay guys who are cruising the bayous. Pushes all kinds of boundaries.
Garret Morris' falsetto of Dueling Banjoes is hilarious.
Since we're talking Funniest of All Time, we've got to start before TV....
In silent film, Buster is my favorite... The sequence in "The Navigator" where he and the girl on the boat are looking for each other and always just missing each other as the boat tilts from side to side is a classic. So is the sequence in "The General" where Buster gets his foot caught in a rope attached to a cannon, and no matter how he tries to dodge it, it keeps pointing at him.
Laurel and Hardy have a great scene where they're carrying a piano over a swinging bridge and they meet a gorilla coming in the other direction. WC Fields playing pool drunk is like a dance. And the cabin teetering on the edge of the cliff in Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" has been often imitated but never quite equalled.
On radio there was Jack Benny's "your money or your life" sequence.
One of my favorite "Saturday Night Live" sequences is John Belushi in the first "Samurai Delicatessen," where gives the customer mustard instead of mayonaisse and is so mortified that he wants to commit hari kari.
And the "Show of Shows" with Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, etc, hasn't been equalled either. You can get "12 From Your Show of Shows" on cassette.
And in "Singin' in the Rain," the number "Mose's supposes his toeses are roses, But Moses supposes erroneously" is way up there too.
Paul Lassiter from spin city when he get's laid for the first time.
Strutting down the corridor to the tune of 'you can tell by the way I use my walk....' --- absolute classic, has me in stitches every time
I have to almost agree, huge Spin City fan, have them all on tape (to bad you can't buy them on DVD would love that)
One excellent, is also the bald cap scene, with Paul and James.
Never put jam on a magnet, never put your sock in a toster and never, ever, put your granny in a bag...
Kevin Spacey doing an impression of Christopher
Walken auditioning for the part of Han Solo is one of the funniest things I have ever heard. I don't know where it's from- I've only heard it, never seen it.
Saw "The Second City National Touring Company" on stage a couple weeks ago here. Watching comedy skits on TV is nothing compared to seeing them live on stage. :)
As the drinks are passed around to the non-existent guests the butler has to drink their portion and take on their character.
It's from the UK and dates back to the 30's or 40's. It's a comedy classic that still gets regular screenings even today.
More recently I would go for the Superfans from SNL along with the original Matt Foley skit. I still laugh out loud when I see those. Also, "So... you like the juice" is great.
Any Scene with Happy and Shooter McGavin - Happy Gilmore
Dr Evil fights Jerry Springer - Austin Powers: the Spy who shagged me
Life of Brian:
Spare a sheckel for and old ex Leper.....
He hath a wife you know........
"The Camp Town Ladies" - Blazing Saddles
The Goodies populating Britain with a plague of Rolf Harrises (as if one wasn't enough)
"The reading of the will" from the Jewish Comedy Club. I only heard this for the first time recently.
Fr Ted on holidays, or at the fair, or getting lost in the lingerie department while Christmas shopping.
Any Fawlty
Any Bilko
Most of Cheers
And for the season that's in it, Frank Kelly's (of Fr Ted fame) take on The 12 Days of Christmas. If you haven't heard it, buy it. If you have, you can remind yourself here [ion.le.ac.uk]. (The missing reference is Wanderly Wagon, an Irish kids TV show of the 60s and 70s.)
one of my first on-line purchases. All the video's he produced.
Have to check if something new is out.
you English win out on comedy as far as I am concerned.
Makes me think of Alec Guiness. Before (and after) he was Obi-Wan, he was a great actor, and a great comedian. It's hard to think of what he did as skits... he didn't come out of vaudeville or sit-com or stand-up... but his performances in The Horse's Mouth, Kind Hearts and Coronets (he played 8 parts), The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit, Captain's Paradise, are unbelievably funny (the writing wasn't bad either).
And for serious stuff, there was Great Expectations and Bridge on the River Kwai, among many others.
Peter Sellers in 'The Party' - as the overly polite Indian gentleman who needs a bathroom.
Firesign Theater - 'All Hail Marx and Lennon' [that's Groucho and John, for the uninitiated]
Bill Murray in 'Caddyshack' - many manic and wonderful monologues.
John Malkovich in 'Being John Malkovich' where he ends up possessing his own body. My oh my!
Then there's Jenna Elfman (Dharma of 'Dharma and Greg'.) Her sense of timing and comic delivery can be as brilliant as Gracie Allen's. One particular skit that nailed me took place at a funeral where she crawled upside down into her grandmother's coffin, trying to retrieve an heirloom ring. Another was the skit where Greg was possessed by the spirit of a woman who had died a virgin and wanted to make up for her missing experience. The gender bending comedy was rather outrageous.
