Et tu Comedy?

By Chris Kavan - 03/12/10 at 11:31 AM CT

It is a sad state of affairs how the once mighty parody has fallen. And don't get me started on the barrel-scraping that the National Lampoon name has resorted to.

I remember when parody films were actually funny. The days of Airplane! and Naked Gun. Slapstick and puns - visual gags that were actually well thought out. And Mel Brooks - Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs, heck even Men in Tights had its moments.

Somehow it morphed. I think it started with Scary Movie (which wasn't that bad) and then started to go downhill with each sequel. Then Another Teen Movie came out, then Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer came along and now the parody is at its nadir.

If there is anyone out there who paid money to see Date Movie, Superhero Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spatans or Epic Movie in any way - I'm so sorry. While have the barest minimum of plot, these movies are pretty much pop culture references (many of which are old by the time the movie comes out) thrown in with gross-out gags and humor so obvious it isn't funny in the least. Yet for some reason, they won't stop! At least if people didn't go to these travesties, they could be relegated to straight-to-DVD hell, which brings me to National Lampoon.

Once the bastion of Animal House and Vacation films - you know, movies that were funny, now National Lampoon sticks its name in front of films like Gold Diggers, Dorm Daze and "presents" films like Cattle Call, Robodoc and Endless Bummer. I think the meh film, Van Wilder might have been the last decent Lampoon movie. This straight-to-DVD mess is embarrassing and wrong. Kids don't need bad films to invest in T&A anymore - the days of sneaking a peek at raunchy movies has died thanks to the interwebs. Maybe there's drinking games involved with these films? I just don't get it.

The comedy drought doesn't end there: we're still getting American Pie sequels for some reason, and even Judd Apatow is starting to wear me down. For every surprise like The Hangover, there's ten more pedestrian, vulgar and unfunny film being made. The golden age of comedy this ain't.