Four Empire writers.
Eight legendary funnymen.
One top 10.making a film?
Ian: The closest Chevy Chase got
to my top 10 was the ‘You Can Call
Me Al’ video.
David: That’s harsh.
Ian: It’s a smug persona. It hasn’t worn
well for me.
Chris: He’s not smug in the Vacation
movies, where he’s playing a put-upon,
browbeaten, everyman dad.
David: That’s the Chevy Chase I like.
I’ll give him those films.
Chris: There are lots of high-concept
comedies here, but there’s a lot of
interesting character work also. You get
absolutely daft films like The Man With
Two Brains and ¡Three Amigos!, but also
stuff like Planes, Trains And Automobiles,
Trading Places, Ghostbusters. I’ve said
this before, but Ghostbusters is not
a hilarious film. It is not filled with
zingers and one-liners, but the character
work is really great in that.
David: I watched Stripes as part of my
research for this and I didn’t smile once.
I find a lot of those Bill Murray and
Chevy Chase films so loose. That’s why
I like the Carl Reiner-Steve Martin
films. The scripts are really tight and
everything is funny and they’re not
going to let people make it up as they
go along, or feel like they made it up as
they went along.
Ian: You can say that about The Blues
Brothers in a sense. How funny is The
Blues Brothers? It has lots of other
qualities, but is it laugh-out-loud funny?
Nick: It’s very deadpan. I think it’s laugh-
out-loud funny. I think Ghostbusters is
laugh-out-loud funny. It’s got loads of
great one-liners. Blues Brothers is a weird
film. That’s what I like about this period
of comedy. There’s a lot of experimental
stuff going on. You’ve got Steve Martin
doing Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, which
is completely unlike anything anyone has
done before or since.
Ian: Apart from the Holsten Pils adverts
with Griff Rhys Jones.
Chris: I was trying to figure out who is
the most talented member of this group.
It’s a toss-up between Steve Martin and
Eddie Murphy. What age was Murphy
when he started doing SNL — 12? 13?
It’s incredible what he was doing.Chris: I’ve wanted to do ’80s comedy
movies in The Ranking for a long time.
But I wanted it to be a little more focused.
As chance would have it, Empire’s own
Nick de Semlyen has written a book called
Wild And Crazy Guys, which focuses on
the stars who rose to prominence during
the 1970s and 1980s. Chevy Chase, Bill
Murray, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, John
Candy, Rick Moranis, Steve Martin and
Eddie Murphy. Not a bad little octet there.
So we’re going to discuss those guys’
movies that came out between 1 January
1980 and 31 December 1989.
Ian: I’m peeved about the date thing.
Chris: Have I knocked something off?
Ian: Yes. Steven Spielberg’s 1941 , which
came out in December 1979. And it just
missed this mad window. We’re also
missing Animal House and The Jerk.
Nick: And Groundhog Day.
Chris: And Meet Dave. Meet Dave
would be a walkover. So I had to do that.
Nick: I love this period of comedy.
I love these guys. I love these movies.
I genuinely think they transformed
big-screen comedy. Ghostbusters, nothing
like that had been done before.
Chris: There are some absolute stinkers,
let’s be clear about that. Does anyone
have Best Defence on their top 10 list?
Nick: No. It was a Dudley Moore
comedy, and it was so terrible they
decided to parachute in Eddie Murphy.
They did a week of reshoots with
Murphy
in a tank, just yelling stuff.
David: Did they Bowfinger him? Did he
know he was in it?
Nick: He may have just been trapped
in a tank. He and Dudley Moore never
crossed paths on it. Modern Problems is
probably the worst thing I had to watch
for the book. Chevy Chase levitating off
the floor while doing a massive line of
cocaine. That’s the climax of the film.
Chris: Again, did he know they were’80s COMEDY
CLASSICS
IAN FREER
Wild and crazy
guy level:
kissing a brain
in a jar.DAVID HUGHES
Wild and crazy
guy level: banana
in a tailpipe.CHRIS HEWITT
Wild and crazy
guy level:
going loco at
Walley World.OUR
CRITICSNICK DE SEMLYEN
Wild and crazy
guy level: driving to
Chicago wearing
sunglasses.
THE RANKING
ILLUSTRATION: JACEY