Why are boring comedies considered the best comedies?

To appreciate Chaplin, you have to understand the historical context. He entered movies in 1914 and was way superior to the top Mack Sennett comic at the time he was hired to replace, which was Ford Sterling, whose idea of being funny was to grimace a lot. This was an era where a grown woman, Mary Pickford, mainly played twelve year olds well into her thirties. Chaplin's style owes a lot to mime, while Laurel and Hardly, who didn't team up until near the end of the silent era when cinematic technique was becoming more sophisticated, developed a more natural style. I think Chaplib is funny at times, but I generally prefer Laurel and Hardy as well because, as Graham Greene once said, their clowning is purer and they never tried to better an unbetterable world.

Here is a semi-forgotten comedy team. Some say deservedly so.

I don't think you have to appreciate the historical context at all, will. I'll agree that things can be funny(ier) with that knowledge. I'll also say that tastes change and things you once found funny can stop being so later in life. But I don't think knowing the historical context to a kick up the arse makes it any more or less funny.

For the record, I don't like Chaplin. Neither do I like Keaton, Laurel & Hardy or Harold Lloyd, though I did like L&H and Lloyd when I was a child. But then, I liked Norman Wisdom quite a bit when I was a child, too.

I guess I'd rather watch The Hangover than Chaplin (to answer the question) but I don't want to watch that, either. As some of you know, I'm very picky when it comes to comedy films.

I love the complete nuttiness of the Marx Brothers

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I love The Marx Brothers films, too, though if it weren't for Groucho I don't think that'd be the case. I always speed up the musical interludes.

I didn't mean you would find Chaplin funnier if you understood the historical context, but to explain his phenomenal popularity at the time.

Groucho isn't funny in the movies he did without his brothers. And he certainly wasn't funny when I caught him at the end of his career on television. He's moderately amusing in between as the host of You Bet Your Life.

It did however feature three Academy award Winners. i'm not sure if any other comedy can make that claim.

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Off the top of my head, Sabrina (1954) - Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn & William Holden - and Bedtime Story (1964) - Marlon Brando, David Niven & Shirley Jones - both have three. I can't help thinking there are some others.

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The later Marx Brothers films aren't good. With or without the brothers, IMO. I know that, if it doesn't float your boat, it doesn't, but I would add that You Bet Your Life won Peabody Awards for Best Comedy with those "moderately amusing" witticisms.

nonsense jokes are better than recycled jokes

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