The Best Medicine
December 28, 2016 9:44 AM   Subscribe

2016 was a very, very bad year no matter how you slice it. In tough times, comedy is often a form of escape that people turn to when they need comforting. With that in mind, [Splitsider] asked our contributors to pick the one piece of comedy in any form that they turn to when they really need cheering up. We’ll be sharing their choices throughout the week in a package we’re calling “The Best Medicine.”
posted by Etrigan (11 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
I am so here for Kate Berlant and John Early.

Aw, but I was hoping "The Critic" would be this "The Critic," Mel Brooks's 1963 Best Animated Short Oscar winner!
posted by little onion at 9:56 AM on December 28, 2016


Oh man, Time Bandits. I am always here for Time Bandits. I saw it first as a small child, and I was terrified and in love. The idea that you could shove on your bedroom wall, and it would keep going, and going . . . RETURN, RETURN WHAT YOU HAVE STOLEN FROM ME . . .

Also, I believe, as a classical archaeology major and lifelong nerd, that the Greece in Time Bandits is still one of the best depictions of the ancient world on film that I have ever seen. It's not even the real destination of the film, but it's perfect, which is to say, it's decidedly imperfect, without attempting to be grimdark at all. It's rough and sunny and colorful, and it isn't very white. It doesn't gleam. The music is harsh and discordant. People without many teeth sit on the roofs of their homes and sort beans. It is a tiny glimpse of what it must have been, I think, to be there.

(Also also, I think there could have been a whole book about the ogre and his wife. Sometimes there are great characters in a work that just make cameos and walk away.)
posted by Countess Elena at 10:26 AM on December 28, 2016 [4 favorites]


at a glance, looks like a lot of these best medicines are looking back to the 90s. can't imagine why
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:32 AM on December 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm waiting patiently for Young Frankenstein.
posted by Cranialtorque at 11:08 AM on December 28, 2016


at a glance, looks like a lot of these best medicines are looking back to the 90s. can't imagine why

...member?
posted by clockzero at 11:42 AM on December 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


99 good things about 2016.
posted by humanfont at 12:00 PM on December 28, 2016 [3 favorites]


that Critic post lead me to the Pinky and the Brain episode with the Brain reading ad copies, inspired by this outtake of Orsen Welles, who the Brain is based on, reading the same ad copies. The Brain's voice, Maurice LaMarche, had memorized that outtake and got the Animaniacs team to reproduce it in the cartoon, and here he is delivering it live.

that's all been on the blue before, but for me it definitely falls into "best medicine" category.
posted by numaner at 12:52 PM on December 28, 2016


Personally I don't like to watch comedy alone, so I will turn to something super escapist, like Sci-Fi.
posted by Brocktoon at 1:40 PM on December 28, 2016


This is so great. Especially that SNL Gerald Ford bit.
posted by bunderful at 4:02 PM on December 28, 2016


99 good things about 2016.

Re that Medium list, I quite liked this Tumblr post commenting on it:

> They’re also really important. Why? Because almost every single one of the things on this list came from a huge fight against really bad odds.

[...]

Actually, a lot of stuff is working. That doesn’t mean we go “oh, it’s all okay then, let’s all go home.” But it does mean that no, the world is not an endless hopeless shithole inevitably going to collapse into grim dystopia. There is nothing fucking inevitable about that. And in fact the most likely thing to cause that is if
people stop fighting to make things better.

And the most likely thing to make people stop fighting is them getting the feeling there’s no point. There is a point. We actually win a lot. The fights are hard and unglamorous and don’t come with a Hollywood soundtrack swell on The Moment Everything Got Fixed. They take place over lifetimes, they’re gradual and full of compromises, but they happen.

posted by sciatrix at 7:10 AM on December 29, 2016


Anyway, that's a bit of a derail. I'm looking forward to wallowing in these--most of them appear to have aired before I was old enough to appreciate sketch comedy, so I don't think I've seen a single one of these before.
posted by sciatrix at 7:11 AM on December 29, 2016


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