The 1970s were a great time to be a comedy fan. Lorne Michaels assembled a cast featuring such legendary names as John Belushi and Gilda Radner for the premiere of Saturday Night Live. The Monty Python team moved from television into film, creating some of the funniest comedies ever put on the big screen.
Stars ranging from Steve Martin to Gene Wilder were on the rise. Auteurs like Mel Brooks and John Landis were putting their stamp on the genre. Of course, it wasn’t all great. So, here are the five best and five worst comedies from the ‘70s.
Best: National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
All the clichés of the college-set comedy originated with National Lampoon’s Animal House, and despite some astoundingly un-woke moments, it holds up surprisingly well. Written by Lampoon alums who got up to antics like this in their own college days, Animal House is the comedy classic that all college movies wish they could be.
In John Belushi’s portrayal of Bluto, it has the ultimate party animal. In Dean Wormer, it has the ultimate fusty antagonistic dean. In the iconic “toga party,” it has the ultimate party scene.
Worst: Goin’ Coconuts (1978)
Starring Donny and Marie Osmond as themselves, Goin’ Coconuts is a musical adventure comedy in which the singing siblings get swept up in a crime plot while performing in Hawaii.
The soundtrack was certified gold because the Osmonds were huge at the time, but the film itself was despised by critics and moviegoers alike.
Best: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Mel Brooks provided the parody genre with some of its finest entries, from Young Frankenstein to Spaceballs. But arguably Brooks’ finest contribution to the art of the spoof is Blazing Saddles, his satirical deconstruction of the western.
Brooks and his co-writers (including the great Richard Pryor) dove headfirst into the troubling racial politics of the western genre with the story of a black sheriff being hired to help a wealthy fat-cat build a railroad through a small town. The movie’s endlessly quotable dialogue, impeccably gifted cast, and breaking of the fourth wall make it a comedy for the ages.
Worst: The Villain (1979)
Whereas the previous entry is the best example of a western spoof, deconstructing the tropes and politics of the genre, The Villain might be the worst example. Instead of using satirical critique in its humor like Brooks’ film, The Villain uses references to Wile E. Coyote, which makes it way too silly to be enjoyable.
What makes The Villain even more of a disappointment is that it’s the result of the combined efforts of screen legend Kirk Douglas and Smokey and the Bandit director Hal Needham.
Best: The Jerk (1979)
Under the sharp direction of Carl Reiner, Steve Martin brought the wacky, groundbreaking comic stylings he first displayed on the stand-up stage to the big screen with The Jerk.
With countless hilarious gags written directly for the movie, as well as some of Martin’s best stand-up material being translated to the screen, The Jerk is a truly funny movie ripped straight from one of the most brilliant comedic minds that ever existed.
Worst: FM (1978)
There was a lot of potential in an ensemble comedy about the trials and tribulations of an FM radio station, but John A. Alonzo’s FM really misses the mark. Having comic greats like Martin Mull and Cleavon Little in the cast wasn’t enough to salvage it.
Executive producer Irving Azoff came onboard with a bias towards certain artists, which makes the soundtrack feel more like a marketing tool than a love letter to rock music.
Best: M*A*S*H (1970)
Before the most famous piece of media in the M*A*S*H franchise was a sitcom that stretched out the Korean War across 11 seasons, Robert Altman directed the movie that the TV show was based on.
In the movie, Donald Sutherland plays Hawkeye and Elliott Gould plays Trapper, and it has an even bleaker and more pitch-black comic sensibility than its subsequent small-screen adaptation.
Worst: The Strongest Man In The World (1975)
Straight out of the Disney family comedy factory, The Strongest Man in the World follows a well-worn formula with very little of its own merit to offer.
This is the low point of Kurt Russell’s career as the Mouse House’s go-to funny man, a curse he’d be saved from when John Carpenter cast him in darker, grittier actioners like Escape from New York.
Best: Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1975)
For their first feature-length movie drawn entirely from original material (i.e. not just repackaging sketches from their TV series), the Pythons decided to lampoon the Arthurian legend.
The loose structure of King Arthur’s search for the Holy Grail gave the Pythons a blueprint onto which they could cram dozens of sketches about the Knights of the Round Table and life in the Middle Ages, as well as a few generally absurdist premises that have nothing to do with the historical context, but are unforgettably hilarious (like “The Knights Who Say ‘Ni!’”).
Worst: Rabbit Test (1978)
Joan Rivers is one of the great comedic minds of all time, so it’s baffling that she directed such a terrible movie. Long before Arnold Schwarzenegger would play the world’s first pregnant man in Junior, Billy Crystal played the world’s first pregnant man in Rabbit Test.
After being turned down by every studio, Rivers re-mortgaged her house and got her dad to do the same to raise the budget. Her dad must’ve been pretty disappointed when he saw the film that he financially devastated himself to fund.