Top 5 Underrated Comedy Films

My top 5 underrated comedy movies from the 80's and 90's.
On
July 18, 2011
In the world of movies, there are ones that win awards, and there are those that very little people talk about to this day. These are among the latter; specifically, comedies.

Keep in mind that these are all in my opinion.



5. BASEketball (1998, Universal)

This movie was created by the director of Airplane! and Naked Gun, David Zucker, and stars South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. It parodies the sports movie craze of the 90's (i.e. Mighty Ducks, Cool Runnings, Little Giants, etc.)

It's about two guys named Coop and Remer (Trey and Matt respectively) who start their own sport called "BASEketball" at a party, and it eventually becomes a big success thanks to a man named Ted Denslow, but one year, their team, the Beers, loses, when Denslow dies from choking on a hot dog.

A beautiful woman named Jenna, who works for charity and is the object of affection to both of the protagonists, asks for Coop to help give hope to an ailing boy named Joey, but Coop nearly screws up after becoming intoxicated before a game.

Things get worse when a corrupt businessman named Baxter Cain comes in and tries to get ownership of the team for his own selfish purposes.

The movie is pretty funny if you can handle all of the crudeness of it (it's R-rated for a reason!).



4. Splitting Heirs (1993, Universal)

In this story written by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame, Tommy Patel (played by Idle) was an average man living in London's West End with a Hindi family. An American by the name of Henry (played by Rick Moranis) visits from New York and he and Tommy have a night on the town, leading to Tommy's firing.

When the 14th Duke of Boormouth dies from falling off of his yacht, brought upon by the family curse, Henry becomes the 15th Duke and hires Tommy back, but after attending the former 14th Duke's funeral, Tommy learns from Mrs. Patel that he was adopted after accidentally being left behind in a restaurant as a baby, and that he's the real Duke!

Tommy searches for evidence to prove his birthright and has an affair with a beautiful woman named Kitty (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones). When Tommy finds out that Kitty is Henry's fiancée, Tommy attempts to do away with Henry in order to claim his rightful position as the 15th Duke.

If you're a fan of Monty Python, check this out. If you're fan of Rick Moranis, check this out. If you think that Catherine Zeta-Jones is hot, check it out. This movie is pretty funny.


3. UHF (1989, Orion)

UHF is about a guy named George Newman (played by comedic musician "Weird Al" Yankovic), who always had his head in the clouds and daydreamed. This got George and his friend Bob fired from Big Edna's burger joint. But hope shines on George as he is granted position of manager of Channel 62, a UHF station that his uncle Harvey won in a poker game.

George and Bob try to keep Channel 62 on the air with wacky original programming, but their efforts are null because of Channel 8, which is run by its amoral owner, R.J. Fletcher. But when R.J. fires his janitor, Stanley Spudowski, Channel 62 gets back in the saddle when Stanley replaces George as the host of a kids show, and the ratings rise, but R.J. Fletcher won't take this sitting down.

This is one of these movies that are considered "cult classics", and well worth that, even though this movie was intended to be a blockbuster. I found this movie to be really enjoyable and the theme song is really catchy.



2. Strange Brew (1983, MGM)

Before Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Little Shop of Horrors, and the like, there was Strange Brew, which Rick and his SCTV cast mate, Dave Thomas, have made together.

The movie focuses on their characters, Bob and Doug McKenzie, who plan to get free beer by working at Elsinore Brewery, where Pamela Elsinore (played by Lynne Griffin), is troubled over the owner, her father John's death. Meanwhile, the sinister Brewmeister Smith (played by veteran actor Max von Sydow) wants to unleash a hostile takeover to release a hypnosis-laced beer to the world.

For the first movie that Rick has ever done, it's actually pretty good. I laughed at almost every single scene in this movie.



1. Ghostbusters 2 (1989, Columbia)

While the first Ghostbusters movie is considered to be a masterpiece and gets better the more you watch it, Ghostbusters 2, on the other hand, isn't. Why?

Well, the answer maybe due to the fact that our heroes were up to their eyeballs in lawsuits after defeating the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Ungrateful yuppie larvae.

Well, anyway, 5 years later, Dana Barrett (played by Sigourney Weaver) is revealed to have an infant son, who becomes the target of a malevolent god named Vigo the Carpathian, who wants to be reborn in the baby's body to take over the world. She asks the Ghostbusters to help her once again, and they find out that there's a river of pink slime that reacts to human emotions and brings out a person's hostility on contact.

This is only just a BIT inferior to the first movie in my opinion. I really liked Bobby Brown's "On Our Own", which is featured in the movie, and I also liked what happens around the end of the movie.
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And these are my top 5 underrated comedies. Until next time, see ya later!
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