Why Movies Aren't Funny Anymore

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]I'm going to play two scenes from two different  movies for you. One of them is funny. One of them is not. He was quite fond of the drink. ahh.  T'was the drink that killed him. How awful, he was an alcoholic? No, he was hit by a Guinness  truck. Here we are! This place is sinking. I think you mean charming! Do you know why one was funny  and the other was not? Those were both examples of mechanical comedy, meaning there was a clear  set-up and payoff for both of them, and all of the intended humour was stemming outwards from  the dialogue. I'm trying my best to use like for like comparisons here. The first clip is from  Mrs Doubtfire release year nineteen-ninety-three, and the second clip is from Spider-Man Far From  Home, release year two thousand-nineteen. I know you're probably thinking it's so unfair of me to  match Mrs Doubtfire up against a Spider-Man film, and ordinarily I'd agree, but Spider-Man Far From  Home so desperately wants to be a comedy movie, and while I think it failed at that, I'm  going to treat it as the comedy it so wants to be.Lets try another comparison,  same again, comedy style mechanical, with dialogue. That's a pretty impressive  bobble you got her. hmm? Oh thank you, thank you. Fella gives a gift like that, he  wants more than a piece of her heart, hey?

[00:01:48]Bit of a going-down payment, huh? I would totally  kiss you, but I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. I might have a mint. I think what  stands out the most between these two clips is the abundance of wit in one, and the lack  of it in the other. There's a cleverness to Mrs Doubtfire's writing, the way it takes such boring  terminology as down payment, and bastardises it, repurposes it and imbues it with new meaning. This  is also a joke that would have gone WAY over your head if you were a kid. The movie is full of  these jokes, and people do love a dirty joke.

[00:02:35]You dog! You scallywag! It's guaranteed laughs,  right?! How's the suit? Ah, the suit's great, it's awesome. Little tight around the old web-shooter.  Parker! Oh never mind. See, dirty jokes do often require some effort, some creativity. They  can be seen as cheap laughs a lot of the time, but not that cheap. Oh, by the looks of you, that  water's so cold. Now lets get to a different style of comedy. Situational, with dialogue. If he  would get a job and a decent apartment. You see, he's the kind... excuse me dear. I'm sure you  normally would encourage the children to step out of the room before you verbally bash their  father, hmm? I'm sure it fits fine. I don't really need to try them on. Take off your clothes! Okay.  This is weird. You'll notice the lack of setups and payoffs here, there's no punchline in either  of these clips. Situational comedy is not about what's being said. It's more about how its said,  the comedy is almost entirely in the context, for example, that Mrs Doubtfire clip, it wouldn't  surprise me if you didn't find that funny, because you're lacking the full context, assuming you  haven't just recently watched the movie. Nothing Mrs Doubtfire says in that scene is funny, but  when you add the context back in, its hilarious.

[00:04:17]For those of you who are unfamiliar, or haven't  watched it in a while. In the movie the main character, Daniel Hillard, professional actor,  has temporarily lost custody of his children for ninety days, following his divorce, because  he lost his job, and his wife got their house.

[00:04:37]He has to get his life in order and then if all  checks out after 90 says, he will be awarded joint custody of his children. Seeing his children 2  days a week for 3 months wasn't enough for him, so he has the brilliant idea to get his special  effects artist brother, and brother in law, to put the fe in female, to turn him into a woman.  Could you make me a woman? Disguising himself so he can pose as a housekeeper for his now ex-wife,  so in this scene, this is Daniel under all of this make-up, listening on as his ex-wife badmouths  him, Daniel, to his children, and he's desperately trying to hide his irritation at that. I'll play  it for you again. If he would get a job and a decent apartment. You see, he's the kind... excuse  me dear. I'm sure you normally would encourage the children to step out of the room before you  verbally bash their father, hmm? Was it not funnier that time? Now as for the Spider-Man Far  From Home clip, the context, strangely enough does not heighten the humour. Here's the context. This  woman telling peter very kindly to pull his pants down, is an ally of Peter. She just wants to make  sure Peters new stealth outfit fits him properly, and she's quite insistent on him stripping down  before her and trying it on, to see how it fits. I really don't see what's supposed to be funny about  this. It's definitely an attempt at humour, and I can see that it's situational comedy, but its not  very comedic. It's actually a little horrifying, and I'm comparing it with a movie where we walk  in on an old lady peeing standing up. That says something. Oh God. Oh my God! Chris! Let's do one  last comparison, and lets take it right down to the most fundamental level, as if it were the  old silent movie days, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton kind of stuff, Comedy Style Situational, no  dialogue. How precise. and just to further prove my point, I'm going to put them both in black and  white and give them more of a classical sound.

[00:07:20]Now once again, the Mrs Doubtfire clip, as  simple as it was. You might have even missed it, the comedy was heightened by the context.  The movie has so much fun with the concept of a man disguising himself as a woman, like  with what you saw here, Mrs Doubtfire, Daniel, checking out the ass of a hot girl passing by, and  once again, the Spider-Man clip can't be saved by its context, because there isn't any, besides  this man is a moron. Just making the rounds, see if anyone needs any emotional counselling  after today's traumatic events. No, we'll be okay, we're fine. Thank you. Before I put pen to  paper, writing this script, I was going to make the argument that situational comedy is  just inherently superior to mechanical comedy, but that's not true. I do think situational comedy  tends to have a longer shelf-life. Its easier to still find funny ten, twenty, fifty years down the  line. I think actions can be funnier than words, but it's clear to me now that you don't have to  choose any one particular style of comedy. You can succeed and fail at any of them, really.  It's all about the cleverness of the writers, and the wit and spontaneity of your performers  to be able to amplify what's on the page. That hit by a Guinness truck joke from Mrs  Doubtfire really should not have worked, but it was saved by how it was delivered,  how it was performed. No. He was hit by a Guinness truck. A lot of movies today don't  put much trust in the audience. Things are overly-explained a lot of the time, like  this example, from Spider-Man Far From Home, once again. We're going to the Opera. None of  us have ever wanted to go to the Opera, ever.

[00:09:28]I bet now you're all happy that I  had you pack a nice outfit. Yeah, because we'd much rather go to a four-hour Opera  instead of the biggest party in the world. Flash Thompson's dialogue at the end there, thirty years  ago, that would not have needed to be said aloud, It could have been a funny scene, Kids whining  about having to go to the opera when there's a massive carnival going on, It almost did it. It  had them moaning about having to go, them saying they don't want to go, and then the immediate  quick cut to them all dressed up for the opera, looking miserable, having to begrudgingly walk  through all the people having a good time, heading to the carnival. That's it, we  get it. That actually might be funny, but then you have this one character literally  explain to us why its funny, to the point where it sucks all the energy out of it. Guys, I  think this is going to be really fun, seriously.

[00:10:25]I bet now you're all happy that I had you pack a  nice outfit. Okay, here we are. There definitely are still funny movies being made. There  are modern comedies that people do enjoy.

[00:10:37]I recently watched The Fall Guy, and I have to  say. I found the way Emily Blunt delivered her lines in the first half of that movie, to be some  of the funniest and most impressive examples of dialogue delivery I've seen in a long time. She  could turn on a dime from serious to playful, to outright condescending. How would he justify this  year she spent spinning out over this. What could he say? It's a puzzler isn't it, but have you  got any thoughts? Maybe he'd... Nigel, can you, can you get him a bullhorn, I can't hear him.  A YouTuber I watch vehemently, I wont say who, but they swear by a movie called Joyride release  year 2022 as being the funniest movie of the last 10 years. I put it on, with that in mind, and  I had to turn it off after half an hour. It is absurd that after 30 minutes, I did not find  anything funny, in a comedy movie. I thought the comedy was lazy. A lot of it was filth without  the creativity, crude for the sake of being crude.

[00:11:42]I cannot be seen in public looking like this.  Anyway, Mrs Doubtfire is without a doubt my favourite comedy movie, and it was released more  than three decades ago. If you've got a favourite, for the laugh, maybe just tell me how old it is,  because I'm assuming it is decades. Bottom line, don't patronise kids. You know? They're  little people. You got to personalise it.

[00:12:14]Make it fun and entertaining. If it's  something you'd enjoy, they'd enjoy it.