The Rules of the Game

125 comedy movies covering 125 years of film history. One movie per year. One year per episode.

On the face of it, it seemed simple enough. But, I soon began to realize I needed to create a more defined playing field. This would be for the sake of my own sanity, if nothing else, and to hopefully anticipate some potential listener questions/concerns. It would make sense if these are indeed frequently asked questions from new arrivals to this project because they are the very questions that first jumped to my mind when I began drafting the idea. Here goes:

WHAT QUALIFIES AS A COMEDY?

For the most part, I’m going to be pretty liberal on this, but if most of the reference sources and critics identify the movie’s genre as a comedy or some sort of comedy hybrid (e.g., action comedy, comedy-drama, dark comedy, comedy-sci fi, etc.), I’ll consider it. And, humor is often an important device found in other genres (action and horror, for example), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that every action film or horror film is also a comedy, even if the hero has a lot of great one-liners throughout. I’m going to have to take the “I’ll know it when I see it” approach. For me, the main question will be: is comedy one of the primary intents of the creator or just a means of relieving tension (thus, comic relief) from what is otherwise a very fine thriller/action film/western/slasher flick.

WHAT ABOUT ANIMATED COMEDIES?

I have decided, for better or worse, to not include animation in this 125-year run of films. Not because they aren’t good comedies, in fact they’ve represented some amazing comedies over the years, but I really wanted to focus on live-action comedy. That doesn’t mean animation won’t be discussed at various points in the conversations, but it will be unlikely that a purely animated film would be the featured movie of a future episode.

IS THIS AN ATTEMPT TO CREATE A “TOP 125 COMEDIES OF ALL TIME” LIST?

Dear Lord, no. That would be madness. This isn’t even an attempt to identify the top comedy/best comedy/most influential comedy, etc., of any given year. The films I end up choosing to feature in their given years are most likely to be reflective of a theme or topic that I want to discuss in the evolution of comedy. This might mean that we’ll be looking at a particular film because I think it is a good representation of the work of a person I want to discuss in depth (writer, director, actor, etc.), or because it represents something going on in the zeitgeist of its era, or it represents an innovation in the way comedy and/or film is presented, or any number of reasons. I can’t promise that every film will be the best comedy film of its year. I can’t even realistically promise that some of the films will be very good at all. There may very well be a few stinkers in the bunch, or films whose messaging has not held up well over time. But, it’s also likely that is the reason I chose it for that episode, because it’s a good conversation to have sometimes.

ARE YOU ONLY LOOKING AT AMERICAN FILMS?

Nope. Comedy film got its start in France and has always been an international creation. While I acknowledge that Hollywood contributes a significant amount of output, I am interested to see how other cultures have tackled the issue of putting comedy on film and how that has all filtered down to today’s world over time. So, I hope that amongst the 125 films to be discussed we’ll get an opportunity to leave Hollywood from time to time to see what was/is happening around the world.

SO, IS THIS JUST A MOVIE REVIEW PODCAST OR A PODCAST WHERE YOU RIFF ON A MOVIE?

No. While there will likely be some amount of brief review and synopsis of the film at the beginning of the discussion, to help people who have not seen the film, this is really not intended as strictly a movie review podcast. How do you even do a review of a 40-second film from 1895 that isn’t 10 times longer than the movie itself? And, no we won’t be riffing on the movie or otherwise watching the movie during the episode. We’ll have watched the episode (separately most likely given the current conditions) and then having a conversation revolving around that film and related topics during the episode.

WHO IS THIS “WE” THAT YOU KEEP MENTIONING?

I’ll be hosting the episodes and getting the conversation started, but to have a conversation, I’ll need guests. My hope is you’ll get to hear me in conversations with people in a position to help teach me about the things I’m curious about, namely: how comedy films have evolved over time, who helped shape those evolutions, and what those films have to teach us about our past, present, and possibly future. I’m reaching out to a number of guests, including people in the worlds of cinema studies, film collectors and archivists, critics, filmmakers, historians, pop culture experts, niche topic experts, and more. I’m also inviting guests to be a part of the conversation from the world of comedy. These might include improvisational performers, stand-ups, musical comedians, comedy writers across various media, and more.

—-

I think that pretty well covers it for now and hopefully it gives you a better sense of what I’m trying to do. I hope you’ll subscribe to the Acting Funny podcast when it debuts later this year and, in the meantime, hope you’ll subscribe to the newsletter (link in the footer below and elsewhere on the website) to get updates on when the podcast is debuting, where you’ll be able to listen to it, announcement of guests, and more. Thanks!

If you missed the first blog post introducing myself and the whole Acting Funny concept, feel free to read “Why I’m Taking Comedy Films Seriously” when you have a moment.