A movie like Brainscan is unique. The characters in this film only exist in the time that the movie was made. Brainscan can almost be called a period film today due to its embracing the troubled...
Its a fun to play with friends, find fun quest and just have a blast! I have been playing for several years and i keep going back. always new things to do or find! Just wish there wasnt so many...
TLDNR REVIEW: “Amazing Spider-Man” is almost good, just like powdered mashed potatoes are almost real.
Look, guys. I realize that anyone that is reading this review has already made up their...
How to play: Rather than rattling off the first great episode of dramatic TV that comes to mind, I'd ask that you primarily consider & choose episodes that have stayed with YOU over the years & that go far in defining a great series as a whole. Feel free to choose any episode from TV history, from "Your Show Of Shows" to last Thursday's Colbert Report. Please include whatever is, in your opinion, the chosen episode's key unforgettable moment.
1. The Simpsons "Last Exit To Springfield" S04E17 (1993)
This list will no doubt be made up of 1/4 Simpsons episodes but, out of all of them, few come close to stunning fountain of genius on display in this one.
We've been watching a season and a half of John Krasinski silently dying as he watches the only good thing in his life be so close yet way beyond reach and in this season 2 finale as boss Michael Scott sets up a casino night for the office staff, he just can't stand it anymore. He confesses his feelings. It's a really funny and terrific episode, but Krasinski's monologue makes it something really special and makes the show great. Both he and Jenna Fischer deserved Emmys for this episode.
3. Fawlty Towers, S02, E04, "The Kipper and the Corpse"
A masterpiece of black comedy that should have gotten one look from the creators of Weekend at Bernie's and caused them to scuttle their film entirely. John Cleese and Andrew Sachs pull off some amazing physical comedy, and a ton of credit has to go to Derek Royle as the dearly departed Mr. Leeman, both for his physicality and his discipline; how he managed not to break character is remarkable. And the ending is perfect, with Basil simply hiding away while Sybil shrieks his name into the credits. Honestly, all twelve episodes of this show belong on this list, but this is the high water mark for me, walking a deft line between humor and tastelessness so incredibly well.
If Fawlty Towers is the greatest sitcom (mutli-cam, laughtrack) of all time then for me Father Ted is solidly in second place. It's pure irreverent Irish absurdity at its very best and "Speed 3", with its blindingly obvious movie reference, is probably the best example I can put here to introduce those Chewers who are as yet uninitiated.
After the local milkman is busted by Ted and Dougal for diddling around town Dougal is forced to take over the position until a replacement can be found. But when milkman-gone-bad Pat Mustard takes revenge by placing a bomb on Dougal's milk truck which will detonate if he lets the speed drop below 4mph the tension ramps up all the way to 11. For fans of the series the slow motion Milk Truck vs Carboard Boxes scene is one of the all-time greats in sitcom history.
The plot is simple. Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and George make a wager on who can go the longest without masterbating. What follows is one of the funniest half hours of comedy that ever aired.
The Goodies was a consistently reliable source for inventive visual humor, and nothing exemplifies this more than this special episode, wherein the trio manage to send up the Beatles and British politics with equal aplomb. The crowning achievement of the episode is when the Goodies install a puppet government composed literally of puppets, leading to an insane chase scene where a veritable who's who of British children's TV characters pursue our heroes. If this was a just and proper world, The Goodies would be every bit as revered stateside as Python, and this episode is a prime reason why.
Brilliant, wildly inventive, & full to the brim with pop culture references, Spaced was a gift from the comedy gods. The iconic episode "Gone", which encapsulates the best of what the show was, has long been the episode I show to convert non-believers.
Because child molestation is HILARIOUS. Just kidding. Just wanted to let the younger folks on here aware that this aired during family hour on NBC back in the day.
Seriously though. Watch that Youtube and see if that isn't more creepy than "Happiness"
Tired of Lucy always being late, Ricky puts Lucy on a rigid schedule. Using a dinner party with an important business guy of Ricky's, Lucy and Ethel get revenge. There are dozens of episodes I could choose and be just as happy, but this is one of the best.
The show featuring Thatcher-era Britain's filthiest and most beloved university students was about more than just aggressively silly laughs. It was shot through with angry social commentary from its lefty creators while simultaneously taking the mick out of lefty students.
In Bambi this takes the form of our dirtbag heroes taking on a toff college at University Challenge and features a beheading, Hugh Laurie before he became a boring Doctor and the greatest ever musical moment in a television comedy series when Motorhead plays Ace Of Spades in the living room.
11. The Venture Brothers S1 E08. "Ghosts of the Sargasso."
It was this episode that solidified the undeniable awesomeness of this show, and cemented Brock Sampson as one of the baddest characters in television history. The episode begins with an incredible homage to "Space Oddity."
(12) Mystery Science Theater 3000 - "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" - Season 8 - Episode 22
Yeah, I know that some people prefer Joel and the earlier seasons, but the later seasons with Mike on the Sci-Fi Channel was my first introduction to this fantastic series. I mean, two hours of one-liners at terrible movies. Sign me up! If I could only pick one episode, I'd go with this one. The scenes where Mike and the bots take the piss out of the Sydney Greenstreet impersonator is one of my favorite memories of this show.
13. Seinfeld- The Chinese Restaurant Season 2, Episode 11.
Seinfeld, perfectly distilled. There's frustration, angst, misanthropy, and even echoes of existential dread all in an episode where very little actually happens. If this was all there was of the show, it could function as a great one act play.
Also because it began the most epic comedy series in the history of television - a series which spanned centuries and which ended in the trenches of WW1 with an episode which will surely appear in this thread before too long. As with the Young Ones "Bambi" episode this also features a beheading. Beheadings are so hot right now.
16. Party Down- James Rolf High School 20th Reunion, Season 1, episode 9.
The mixture of funny and uncomfortable in this episode was potent, as Ron was hopelessly trying to impress his old high school classmates by leading the team catering it. Also, Henry considers giving up totally and moving back in with his folks. The cast is filled with people able to hilariously portray delusion or disillusion about their careers, and, to me, that sort of made it the comedy of the Bush-fueled recession.
Key moment- Ron telling his childhood crush to call 911, as he hurls up a lake of vomit.
17. The Dick Van Dyke Show S02 E20 "It May Look Like a Walnut"
Perhaps one of the most out there moments for a sixties sitcom. Rob and his wife are in bed watching a sci-fi horror similar to The Invasion of the the Body Snatchers, except instead of being pod people the mind-washing alien culprit masquerades as the lowly walnut. If you eat one you'll become a zombie slave to an alien that looks suspiciously like Danny Thomas.
Rob and Laura end up tossing and turning all night with nightmares and when Rob wakes up the next day he finds walnuts strewn about the house and his wife preparing some for his breakfast. Is Laura just mad at him for scaring her with the movie last night, or has his house become ground zero for the unstoppable invasion?
What we get when all is said and done is a hilarious left field episode that has the distinction of being the shows creator, Carl Reiner's, favorite. Deservedly so.
There is one more episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show I might throw in here as the thread progresses, but I wanted to get this in first.
My all-time favourite sitcom, Newsradio rivals Seinfeld for it's consistently genius level writing & mega-high rewatchability. Featuring the flawless comedy titan Phil Hartman, there are any number of episodes that could be ranked as "the best". Relentlessly fast-paced & quotable, Newsradio was comedy lightning in a bottle. Groucho would've been proud.
The key moment:
Bill delivers an astonishing tirade of misinformation as he tries to rally the troops to go down to Pharoah's cave to demand free snacks.
Stars in Their Eyes rip off hits the priests. This is my favourite Ted, amongst a lot of favourites. I love the Henry Sellars subplot, Jack running free after having been on floor polish I think, and the three ages of Elvis.
Really, all the episodes can be listed here (and probably will) but let's start with the first one. Most comedy pilots are problematic since the cast for one reason or another doesn't gel right away or the writers are still working out the kinks. By some miracle, Arrested Development starts out as a fully formed, well oiled machine. Everything from the chemistry of the cast to the sharp writing to the blending of comedy styles is in full effect right from the get go. It also has one of the great opening lines:
"Why is Michael so happy? Because he'll never have to see any of these people again."
And then there's this....
Instant Classic
It's really hard to pick just one episode of this show. With the exception of some season 3 eps, they are all classics.
Probably not the funniest over all but what, I feel, should have been the perfect end to this series. But they had to make more..
but I digress. The culmination of the Trotter's dreams. Bittersweet in the way the later episodes were, but a perfect capper. And Del's reaction to the price is gold.
The boys try to entertain themselves during a summer break from classes, things get broken, they try to rob a bank, & then take a road trip that ends in a fiery blaze. The perfectYoung Ones episode, IMO.
I know next to nothing about British comedy, a friend of mine gave me Fawlty Towers on VHS recently and I absolutely loved it. This also looks like something I would really like.
A difficult toss up between this and the paedo one. I picked this, because despite the emotive topic the drugs episode still managed to piss more people off. Famously Noel Edmonds complained about this and so Morris did an (obviously) fake news flash that stated that Noel Edmonds had gone mad, kidnapped Clive Anderson and beheaded him. Despite the fact that the female news reporter had a fake moustache it still fooled a lot of people (sigh).
Plus, the sheer balls of Chris Morris trying to score made up drugs and the fact an MP tried to alert the government to the dangers of cake, as described, a "made up" drug.
Damn thread hammering my rep quota! Some superb choices here, chaps.
27. Blackadder II Series 2, Episode 1: 'Bells'
While the first series of Blackadder was great, it was the second series that saw Richard Curtis and Ben Elton really hit their stride. By switching the dynamic between Edmund and Baldrick, making the former smart and the latter stupid, they arguably tailored the roles to Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson's strengths (Especially Atkinson, who plays 'scheming and sardonic' so naturally well you have to marvel at how most of his mainstream success has come from him acting goofy).
I'd put this series forward as one of the all-time great individual comedy series/seasons, and it hits the ground running with 'Bells'. Parodying Shakespearian gender-swapping romantic comedy, the episode shows Edmund beginning to have more-than-platonic urges towards his new manservant Bob - who, much to his relief, turns out to be a girl called Kate who's come to London and disguised herself as a boy to earn money for her infirm father (Who would much rather have had her try prostitution and make cash from home).
No time is wasted in introducing this era's Edmund's running mates, who are one of the best casts in any comedy you can name. You have Tim McInnerney who is just relentlessly hilarious as Percy, Edmund's foppish, ineffectual friend/whipping boy; Stephen Fry as the supremely toadying and passive-aggressive Lord Melchett; Patsy Byrne as the udder-fixated Nursie to Queen Elizabeth, played by Miranda Richardson. While Richardson has always been known for her dramatic roles, she's one of the highlights of this series, playing Elizabeth as an overgrown pre-teen with a particularly lethal brand of fickleness. Frankly she's amazing in the role, showing comedy chops that at times eclipses the other pros, and she also happens to be incredibly hot in a potent if slightly unsettling way (Or is that just me?)
I could've picked any episode of Blackadder II for this list; from beginning to end it's so relentlessly funny it's almost scary, and is arguably the best thing Curtis and Elton have ever done. But in the end I picked Bells because it ends with what is IMO one of THE great cameos in comedy history. Edmund has somehow managed to get Kate to the altar without a) His friends ruining it of b) Getting his head cut off, and just when they're about to swap vows... THIS happens:
As far as I'm concerned, this one scene should be held up as evidence of the advantages of filming comedy before a live audience. You can actually feel the audience losing their minds here.
All the Blackadder series have incredible episodes, including the one Bucho mentioned - which, not to spoil anything, I nearly picked. But I had to go with this one simply in terms of sheer comedic firepower.
Pure Simpsons brilliance! Conan O'Brien wrote this one and it is just a perfect episode. The great Phil Hartman as the scheming Lyle Landly(going form memory), the best Nimoy cameo ever, it's probably the one that started the whole "lets give Homer a new job this week" storyline(points deducted if true). I just love this episode.
Tucker is starting to lose it as his spins get more and more desperate. It's great because Tucker gets more and more desperate, and Capaldi nails it. I'm not even sure it ends up as comedy as the realisation of his downfall is just so well done.
I don't know if there has ever been a show that makes me consistently laugh out loud like FX's brilliantly written and voiced spy-spoof Archer. Picking one episode is so tough, but this is without question in the top three or so.
After discovering the chemotherapy drugs he was taking for his breast cancer are fake (sugar water and Zima), Archer goes on a rampage in his quest to find those responsible. Watching Archer and Lana bounce off each other is always a joy, and there's plenty of that here. The hilarious banter between Pam and Cheryl back at the office is icing on the cake. The fact that the episode culminates in a fantastic Magnum PI homage puts an exclamation point on the whole thing.
Key Moment: Archer's Family Feud rampage (some of which is shown at 1:24 in this awesome fan-made trailer):
In the midst of the greatest run of genius of the show came this little slice of fried gold. The rake gag alone makes this worth sitting through again and again, but the joy doesn't top there. 'Oh, I'll go away... go away forever!'... 'No one who speaks German could be an evil man'... 'No, I don't like that bowel in there. Gut him. Ah, the mot juste!'
I had never seen a sitcom like The Office, but it took me a few episodes to realize just how good it was. The training episode just floored me, just perfect... especially when David started singing. This is the whole episode, but I will queue it up about 8 minutes in... because I think around that point I started laughing and didn't stop for about ten straight minutes.
34. Fawlty Towers, season 1 episode 6: The Germans
If you don't know about this show, nothing I can say will prepare you for the lunacy. It's best if I just let Basil speak for himself. One of the most gifted comedians of his or any other generations, in the finest episode of the show he created. Sublime.
This show is like comfort food for me, and having watched a ton of it, I'm pretty confident saying that this is the best one. Season 2 is the show at its best, and this episode is the absolute peak.
Unlike most episodes of comedy, there's only one plotline, but it's a doozy. It all starts off innocently enough, with Robin admitting to the group that she doesn't like malls. This, of course, leads the group to try as hard as they can to figure it out. Barney, naturally, believes her secret is that she did porn-wait for it-ography. Marshall and Barney then propose a slap bet over whether Robin has done porn, an act which will have repercussions for the rest of the series.
The episode is packed with great jokes and moments for each of the characters (my favorite: Lily's response to being named slap bet commissioner), but the reason this is a powerhouse episode is the revelation of Robin's secret. The secret that is so heinous that she would rather admit to having been previously married, and would prefer pornography to: Robin was a teenage pop star in Canada. Queue one of the all-time greatest things in sitcom history.
"I'm not afraid of Sasquatch, I just think we should all be on the alert."
Over the past decade, British comedy has seen one hell of a renaissance & this brilliant Seinfeld by way of Spaced show is one of it's crown jewels. In this episode, the gang venture out to see a gay stage musical. Mishaps & shenanigans occur.
This episode. This fuckin' episode. Tongue firmly in cheek, this dramedy goes full tilt into ZAZ style slapstick as it "adapts" Taming Of The Shrew. So damn fun, I saw it dozens of times as a kid. One of the most entertaining things to come out of the 80s. Period.
This episode. This fuckin' episode. Tongue firmly in cheek, this dramedy goes full tilt into ZAZ style slapstick as it "adapts" Taming Of The Shrew. So damn fun, I saw it dozens of times as a kid. One of the most entertaining things to come out of the 80s. Period.
#38 Spaced S01E06 "Epiphanies" AKA The Clubbing Episode.
My favourite, probably because I was in the middle of being a big club goer, while flatting in my mid 20s. This whole series ticked all the right spots for me, but this is the episode I could watch over and over again. Apart from Tyres' inability tos top dancing,m even if it's just to the sound of a kettle, it was the whole "pilled up sincerity" and bonhomie that got me.
Curtis and Elton taking Blackadder to the blasted fields of WW1 was a controversial move. Many felt it was cheapening what was a particularly tragic and ugly war; my grandmother, who had a brother who was killed at Arras, hated the show on principle.
However, the pair's comedy chops won through, coming up with a series that didn't just bring the funny but provided a pointed and well-versed commentary on the insanities of that war, personified by Stephen Fry's loveable-yet-sociopathic General Melchett. For six episodes Blackadder had managed to scheme, connive and beg his way out of having to go 'over the top', until the series reached its climax and the order was finally given. What followed was a masterclass in melding comedy with tragedy, and one of the most memorable sequences in British comedy:
