Variety’s Comedy List Proves Hollywood Forgot How to Be Funny

Variety published its list of the 100 best comedy movies of all time. Many of choices exposed a very big problem. Classic hits like Planes, Trains and Automobiles and A Christmas Story vanished from sight. Animal House did not appear. No did the Bad News Bears. Neither did any Pink Panther film or a single Bob Hope picture. Who runs this list? Why does Waiting for Guffman sit at number five? Does anyone outside a small circle even remember it?

It alsmost seemed like some movies were just added to tick boxes, almost as though the writers hadn’t even seen the films they were ranking. John Nolte nails it when he says “[T]his is what happens when a publication stops hiring Normal People.”

“Woke Hollywood has painted itself into a fascinating corner. First, to increase the power of producers and studios, the movie star was deliberately wiped out by making high concepts the draw.

Then, because woke prudes now run Hollywood, the movie comedy was killed off by a mix of political correctness, ironic distance, grosser and grosser gags, a lack of warmth (Will Ferrell and Seth Rogen), and self-indulgence (Adam McKay and Judd Apatow), when, at the very same time, budgets blew out of control. “

Christian Toto spotted the real scandal. As he points out, only four films from the last 15 years cracked the list: Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Poor Things (2023), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Bridesmaids (2011), and those weren’t exactly great “comedies”. 

As Toto assembled an ample amount of great comedies that were no where to be found on Variety’s list.

• “Raising Arizona”
• “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”
• “Knocked Up”
• “Ghostbusters”
• “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”
• “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World”
• “Tommy Boy”
• “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo”
• “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”
• “Arthur”
• “Better Off Dead”
• “Old School”
• “A Christmas Story”
• “What About Bob?
• “Beverly Hills Cop”
• “Fletch”
• “Back to School”

The 1980s delivered 20 entries. The 1990s matched that with 18. What happened after 2010? Did laughs just dry up? No, the studios went woke.

Paul Chato ripped the list in his YouTube video, called out the madness. “Are you freaking nuts, Variety? I mean, this could easily have been number one,” he said of Blazing Saddles, stuck at 77. Chato also questioned stand-up specials like Eddie Murphy’s Raw. “Funny Standup, not a movie,” he declared. Chato also pointed out how nearly every Peter Sellers film is missing other than Dr. Strangelove. 

He also notes that recency bias poisons the list. Viewers still flock to Seinfeld reruns and John Candy classics decades later, but Hollywood still ignores what works.

Hollywood chased high-concept blockbusters. Woke rules killed raw laughs. Political correctness forced self-censorship. Studios now skip cheap comedies that audiences crave. They pump cash into comic book flops instead while their stock prices keep falling. When will they learn that Americans still want to laugh. Is this suicide or just bad business?

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