You know a comedy is in trouble when its biggest laughs involve someone’s rectal aperture.
Poorly scripted comedies fall back on fart jokes when the scene calls for a guaranteed chuckle. It’s lazy and cheap, but more often than not it works, especially in films aimed at the pre-teen set. But a good fart joke demands other, superior jokes around it. Otherwise, the odor of desperation can be just as foul as the bodily expulsion.
Here are some examples of movie comedy crutches that should go the way of the silent film:
- Fart/fecal jokes: Where would comedy writers be without the classic fart joke? These gags have become a staple of kiddie movies, a place where hack screenwriters go when they can’t make it in adult comedies. The newer variation involves bathroom sessions no one should witness. The new “Bridesmaids” film features an entire sequence built upon a wave of diarrhea. Yuck.
- Drag: Most comedians today don’t bother dressing up as women, and when they do it’s often more about the flab (“Norbit,” “Big Momma’s House”) than the fabulous (“Tootsie”). It’s time drag comedy got a well deserved vacation. UPDATE: Spoken too soon. Mr. Sandler is on the case.
- Groin impact: Your average Sandler movie would be about 10 minutes shorter without the obligatory groin punches/kicks/smacks. Benny Hill mastered the art of groin trauma reaction shots. Everyone else should leave it alone.
- Potty mouthed kids/seniors:What could be funnier than a tyke swearing up a storm, or a sweet grandmotherly type cussing like a sailor? That kid from “Kindergarten Cop” who droned, “boys have a penis, girls have a vagina” was funny. But enough, already. And please don’t make the great Betty White say anything naughty ever again on screen. She deserves better.
- Reader’s choice: What comedy crutch could you do without, and why?
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
The nerd or otherwise innocent person getting drunk or wasted.
Please, Hollywood, enough with the sex obsessed teenagers. It’s been done to death.
But Paula, teenagers are sex obsessed. Its only a depiction of reality. Or are they sex obsessed teens because thats what they’re told to be like on film? (Did I just blow your mind?)
In all seriousness. I would agree with most of the list simply because they seem used more and more today to go for the cheap laugh and not in service of the story. For example, in the otherwise forgotten film Down Periscope, there is a fart joke, but the joke is made at a time when those around the person who did it were confined to a small space and couldn’t make any noise. It was classic.
Today, it seems like they don’t want to work for the joke, they just throw it out there and hope it sticks.
Not only in comedys but films in general, the easy pickup. They depict a girl who could have any guy she wants, but you know this girl wants a guy who works for it. Well, why is it that she typically falls for the lame guys lame line right out of the gate? Why is it that you don’t see more films where a guy has to really work to make a good FIRST impression?
And while we’re on that subject, the drop dead beautiful girl who thinks she’s fat, unattractive, or whatever with self esteem issues. There’s being modest, and then theres what you see on film. Get over yourself.
Seeing characters smoking pot and then giggling like fools and doing stupid things has gotten old, especially when the characters are not teenagers (and should know better).
Overall, there’s a lack of subtlety. Comedies seem to thrive on over the top situations, and actors such as Will Farrel can’t resist hamming it up and wringing every last second out of each scene (long past the point of it being funny). How many times are we supposed to be shocked and amused by him running around naked screaming?
I got one.
Please Hollywood, I don’t ask you for much, but stop putting black comedians in fat suits. It angers me.
Also, the parody film is dead. Stop with the “[Insert Descriptor Here] Movie” films that are nothing more than a stream of pop culture references. I openly advocate the blacklisting of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, please stop giving them work. They are the anti-funny.
You’ve called out the worst offenders; especially in purported family films where it’s inappropriate as well as lazy. I’d add rednecks, trailer trash and other such stereotypes of poor white people.
Also: black people saying “DAYUMN!” Stop it.
Bush/Cheney/Palin/Republicans are stoooopid.
Scenes where the male main character gets beat up by a girl. Unrealistic, and seriously not funny. And imagine if the genders were reversed (i.e. if Jerry Maguire was beating up his ex-fiance or Ron Burgundy was beating up Christina Applegate’s character instead of the other way around), would anyone be laughing?
Geez JC, it’s a movie; just how uptight ARE you? Like entertainment isn’t PC enough…
How about the swear word that’s either cut off to the next scene or drowned out by a loud noise. Always slipped into those G or PG movies
Anything with smart kids/dumb parents is old…..
Like entertainment isn’t PC enough…
The “you go gurl” 200lb male beat up scene by a 90lb women is as PC as it gets.
. . it’s a movie; . .
Exactly, and having to pay big bucks to see that movie I don’t appreciate being taken out of the story for a product placement ad on the physical equality of the sexes.
Humor is based on surprise, and once upon a time a the scenario was surprising and therefore funny. But that horse was beat to death decades ago.
Ok since folks are ranting on here I’m really over stupid hollywood films that appeals to folks that really don’t know film. How about we all get smarter and watch some sophisticated films for once? No more hollywood sh*t like Zookeeper that’s coming out? Films from Adam Sandlers company which mostly produces the crap films for uneducated folks?
Let’s all get into watching smart films so Hollywood sees it and produces more of it! That’s what I say!
Yeah, that drives me nuts. Sure, have a 90lb woman beat a 200lb man by being craftier, or more vicious, or more skilled, but don’t have her overpower him in a fair fight unless she’s supposed to have superpowers. It’s the present-day equivalent of that idiocy you got in late-’80s/early-’90s action movies where a bullet could knock a man back 20ft through a plate glass window.
Great responses! Thanks to everyone for chiming in. Somedays I should just write the first sentence of a post and let you all have at it.
Who are you, CT, Eddie Money, drunkenly belting out the first line of his songs and letting the crowd finish them?
just how uptight ARE you?
Not very. But if you’re going to lob a personal insult over the fact that someone disagrees with you about a dumb Hollywood cliche, then clearly you’re pretty uptight.