Thu 1 Dec 2022
This should be easy:
Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Dorothy Provine, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Jim Backus, Ben Blue, Joe E. Brown, Alan Carney, Chick Chandler, Barrie Chase, Lloyd Corrigan, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Selma Diamond, Peter Falk, Norman Fell, Paul Ford, Stan Freberg, Louise Glenn, Leo Gorcey, Sterling Holloway, Marvin Kaplan, Edward Everett Horton, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Charles Lane, Mike Mazurki, Charles McGraw, Zasu Pitts, Carl Reiner, Madlyn Rhue, Roy Roberts, Arnold Stang, Nick Stewart, Sammee Tong, Jesse White, Jimmy Durante, Jack Benny, Stanley Clements, Joe DeRita, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Nicholas Georgiade, Stacy Harris, Tom Kennedy, Ben Lessy, Bobo Lewis, Jerry Lewis, Eddie Rosson, Eddie Ryder, Jean Sewell, Doodles Weaver and Lennie Weinrib.
December 1st, 2022 at 10:14 pm
It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Never seen it, but as suggested, the title comes trippingly.
December 1st, 2022 at 10:17 pm
And that took all of 30 seconds. You’re the champ, Barry!
December 1st, 2022 at 10:19 pm
I was once asked by a good friend who I thought was the funniest comedian of all time. I had an answer immediately. He/she is in the list above. Who’s yours?
December 1st, 2022 at 10:19 pm
Hint: My answer was not Spencer Tracy.
December 1st, 2022 at 11:20 pm
Comedian apart from a comic actor.
Jack Benny, comedian and Edward Everett Horton just saying hello.
December 2nd, 2022 at 12:14 am
I’ve always been an ardent fan of the flick. Spotted it on the instant.
I’m not sure but that it just may be #1 of all time on my list; and that includes all the wonderful slapsticks I’ve enjoyed from the ’30s and ’40s. No small potatoes, those.
But there’s still just something extra-special magical about this extravaganza. I even have the soundtrack on my music player to cheer me up when I get blue. Rarely fails.
I sometimes rue the unfortunate omissions: Bob Hope, for instance. Jerry Colonna. A couple others who copped out.
But yea, it’s something unique.
I savor the “Alice in Wonderland” viewpoint from which it surveys America in that temporary post-WW2 window of absurdity. A sprawling and phantasmagoric USA. Ian Fleming and V. Nabokov caught some that quality –around the same time — in their prose.
Favorite scene? Tough pick, but I typically settle on one. The twin-engine Beechcraft (or whatever it was), **smashing** through the highway billboard. GadZOOKS.
December 2nd, 2022 at 12:25 am
Favorite comedian of all time …mine is a toss-up between WC Fields and Groucho.
The nod probably goes to Groucho because of his singing and dancing and his knowledge of vaudeville musicals.
I do like Benny a lot as well –sure –as well as Keaton –but just not as much as those two.
Chaplin is not strictly a comic so I discount him from the running.
Honorable mention to France’s Jacques Tati.
December 2nd, 2022 at 9:30 am
Funniest comedian?I don’t deal in superlatives, or even “favorite.”I enjoy different aspects of each of my favorites (stress the plural there) without ranking them.
But Zeppo Marx always appealed to me by the simple absurdity of his presence, and when he left the team, they lost that sense of riotous anarchy that made their earlier films so uniquely funny.
December 2nd, 2022 at 10:40 am
Odd to say but I feel like my opinion of the funniest comedian is far different from funniest film actor. To me, Robin Williams was one of the funniest stand up comics of all time. But I generally hate his film work other than Popeye (and maybe One Hour Photo). On the other hand Leslie Nielsen leaves me nearly hysterical in Police Squad! and Airplane. But it’s because of his absolutely insane straight man work–not because of any on screen antics. And it would be unimaginable to think of Leslie Nielsen doing stand-up.
December 2nd, 2022 at 9:49 pm
Picking up from Barry’s comment #5, about the difference between a comedian and a comic actor.
I’m sure I read this somewhere else, and even so, I probably have it wrong, but how does this sound?
A comedian says things funny, and a comic actor says funny things and does things funny.
December 2nd, 2022 at 9:50 pm
Funniest comedian not in this movie? Henny Youngman.
Of the ones in this movie? Jonathan Winters.
December 2nd, 2022 at 11:09 pm
Hackett and Rooney make a heck of a team in this one, but the most underrated comic is this is Eddier “Rochester” Anderson.
December 2nd, 2022 at 11:15 pm
Steve, I selected Jack Benny because he was classically good-looking, not Cary Grant, but still a leading man, and Edward Everett Horton because he was simply a great character actor. As I said, I have not seen Mad World, this was only a personal judgment based on the cast listed. Mostly, pretty good.
December 3rd, 2022 at 12:32 am
A final thought, the end.
December 3rd, 2022 at 12:52 am
Thanks, Barry. I was getting worried.
December 3rd, 2022 at 7:08 am
Re Jonathan winters, recently watched his roast of Sinatra, which really cracked me up. https://youtu.be/c_y0SA1yNLc
December 3rd, 2022 at 12:48 pm
Thanks, Tony. That was the fastest eight minutes ever. Here’s 20 more:
December 4th, 2022 at 1:43 am
re: 8, 9, 11
Agree about Robin Williams. Zany stand-up. Not the same in feature-length works. However, he did one dramatic turn which astounded me: Saul Bellow’s “Seize the Day”. American Playhouse. To me, this proved his hand at pathos.
Zeppo Marx: really interesting pick. I’m gonna think about this some more on my own.
Henny Youngman: cogent reminder. But I wonder: did Henny ever do anything else except stand-up?
Leslie Nielsen: “Airplane!” is neck-and-neck with MMMM for me. It’s true, his rigor as a dramatic actor makes him a stellar straight man. In one episode of Police Squad he parodies-this-upon-parodies-this.
How about: George Burns, Red Skelton, or Fred Allen. No credits for any of them in MMMM. Maybe they were all on vacation that year. I’m not a fan of Fred Allen –his voice irks me –but he had a lot o’ fame.
December 4th, 2022 at 2:21 am
Fred Allen wasn’t in the film because he had died in 1956.
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2015/12/two-tributaries-to-our-overlooked.html
December 4th, 2022 at 2:32 am
D’oh! I’m a dope. Good on ye mate
December 4th, 2022 at 2:45 am
The production of “Seize the Day” with Williams as the protagonist was his best dramatic performance I’ve seen, as well.
Funniest comedians include Maria Bamford, Jackie Kashian, Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory, Fred Allen, Laura Kightlinger, Jake Johannssen, Sarah Silverman and quite a few others through the decades. Funniest comic actors…wow, even more ties for first, but Albert Brooks, Cary Grant, Catherine O’Hara, Elaine May, Khandi Alexander are among those who come to mind.
December 7th, 2022 at 10:27 pm
Ernie Kovacs? Wonder where he was, when this film was cast.
December 9th, 2022 at 4:58 am
The story I heard (unconfirmed):
When Stanley Kramer was putting this together, he had the idea that Ernie Kovacs would appear with his wife Edie Adams, playing as a couple; Kovacs’s fatal car crash in early ’62 put paid to that, and so Sid Caesar came in off the bench to take that role.
Correction welcomed, if needed…