Non-existent laughs: the 10 least funny comedies ever made
As a genre, comedies are entirely subjective, and what splits one person at the sides isn’t necessarily going to have everyone else rolling in the aisles unable to contain themselves from laughing maniacally.
However, most folks can agree on what constitutes shitty comedy, with Hollywood providing a number of offenders over the years. There’s something admirable about unintentionally hilarious films, but it’s just sad when a feature supposed to tickle the ribs falls embarrassingly flat.
It sounds incredibly obvious, but the most basic remit any comedic vehicle needs to fulfil is extracting laughter from its target audience and/or paying customers, which is a lot harder than it looks. After all, there’s a reason why so many actors say comedy is exponentially harder than drama.
On the other hand, having 90 or so minutes to play with and rolling the credits without so much as a guffaw is unforgivable, a sin all ten of the following flicks are guilty of.
The 10 unfunniest comedies ever:
10. Holmes & Watson (Etan Cohen, 2018)
Thanks entirely to Step Brothers, there was plenty of anticipation over Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly reuniting for another comic romp, this time with an anachronistic period-set bent.
Holmes & Watson lingered in development hell for a decade, and it shows. The jokes were beyond dated; the ones that weren’t aren’t funny in the slightest, and at points, it feels as though it can be spied in the eyes of the stars that they knew they were making something truly awful but had to gut it out regardless.
Anyone who laughed even once during the film needs to have their funny bone examined immediately, and what makes it even worse is the incredible array of talent on display. Combined, Holmes & Watson stands out as a low point for not just Ferrell and Reilly, but the star-studded supporting cast, too.
9. Chairman of the Board (Alex Zamm, 1998)
Carrot Top’s entire schtick was that he did the broadest form of prop-based comedy imaginable, and even though he was largely irrelevant by the late 1990s, somebody decided to try and make him a movie star anyway.
The wild-haired, mugging ginger plays a failed inventor and surfer who inherits a billion-dollar company. It’s a standard rags-to-riches plot in every respect, albeit one that’s an absolute chore to even get halfway through.
To underline the wide-ranging appeal of Carrot Top’s big screen ‘breakthrough’, Chairman of the Board cost $7million to make and earned just over $300,000 at the box office. If there was any common sense, every single one of those patrons should have asked for a refund.
8. Inappropriate Comedy (Vince Offer, 2013)
Adrien Brody has an Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’, so he would have been well within his rights asking what the hell went so badly wrong in his career that he ended up here.
Reduced to starring opposite Rob Schneider and Lindsay Lohan in an anthology sketch comedy that couldn’t wring a laugh out of an audience even under the threat of torture, at no point does Brody look like he wants to be there.
That applies to anyone unfortunate enough to see Inappropriate Comedy, too, with the brazen attempt at manufacturing outrage trying too hard to push the envelope. It aims for shock value, but at the end of the day, it’s just woeful.
7. It’s Pat (Adam Bernstein, 1994)
The most memorable thing about It’s Pat had nothing to do with what unfolded on-screen, after it was revealed none other than Quentin Tarantino did some script doctoring before it hit the screen.
For the most part, feature-length adaptations of Saturday Night Live sketches have been consistently inconsistent, but a very strong case can be put forth stating beyond doubt they’ve never come any worse than this one.
An unlikeable protagonist and repetitive jokes that haven’t aged well in the slightest didn’t go down well, and cinema owners quickly saw common sense when they pulled the abomination that is It’s Pat from the big screen after just one week of release, which was less time than it needed to secure a spot at the bottom of the barrel.
6. Sex Lives of the Potato Men (Andy Humphries, 2004)
To illustrate just how bad Sex Lives of the Potato Men was, the British government felt compelled to clarify that it wasn’t wasting taxpayer money by helping to fund the UK Film Council.
The cinematic travesty was singled out for criticism by politicians on either side of the Labour/Conservative divide, with politicos asking why on earth those in power were funnelling funds into productions that could best be described as crimes against celluloid.
Not just one of the worst and least funny comedies ever made, Sex Lives of the Potato Men is a black mark against the name of British cinema in general, and a stark example of what can happen when funding is placed into the wrong hands.
5. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (Bob Clark, 2004)
Common sense would indicate that making a sequel to a film soundly dismissed as being terrible isn’t the wisest move, but the masterminds behind Baby Geniuses nonetheless decided a franchise was necessary.
Admittedly, the opening instalment looks like The Godfather compared to its abhorrent successor, with Jon Voight – who has an Oscar for ‘Best Actor’, it should be noted – lowering himself to the nadir of his career by taking top billing in the cast.
What truly boggles the mind is that despite Baby Geniuses 2 being a truly wretched thing that exists among the worst movies in history, it only went and spawned another three sequels.
4. Son of the Mask (Lawrence Guterman, 2005)
History has shown that making sequels to Jim Carrey movies without Jim Carrey is a fool’s errand, and the worst offender by far was Son of the Mask.
Anyone in their right mind would rather watch Dumb and Dumber prequel When Harry Met Lloyd, Evan Almighty, or even Ace Ventura: Kid Detective ten times over before they had to watch this trainwreck even once, with the Carrey-less follow-up to his 1994 favourite a catastrophe in every sense of the word.
In 99% of cases, casting Bob Hoskins as Asgardian overlord Odin would be an inspired choice, but this was the outlying percentile. Jamie Kennedy is no Jim Carrey, in what might be the understatement of the century.
3. The Love Guru (Marco Schnabel, 2008)
The Love Guru has been pinpointed as the exact moment Mike Myers‘ career as a valuable commodity ended, and it’s hardly without merit given the vitriolic reception to the career-killer.
Winner of Razzie Awards for ‘Worst Picture’, ‘Worst Actor’, and ‘Worst Screenplay’, it’s galling how the mastermind behind the beloved Wayne’s World and Austin Powers movies had managed to miss the mark by such a distance.
Cliched, offensive to many both culturally and spiritually, the biggest sin committed by The Love Guru is that it was allowed to be made in the first place. Not a soul could be heard laughing at any point in what turned out to be a derailing miscalculation on Myers’ part.
2. Movie 43 (Various, 2013)
If all anybody had to go on was the names attached on either side of the camera, then Movie 43 would seem very appealing given the acclaimed auteurs, A-listers, and Oscar winners who feature throughout.
However, Hugh Jackman – who played a guy with a set of balls on his chin – admitted that if he had a time machine, he’d tell his previous self to steer as far away from the anthology comedy as possible. Sadly, time travel doesn’t exist, but the advice applies to the entire filmgoing populace nonetheless.
Among the names to either act or direct include the Farrelly brothers, Bob Odenkirk, Elizabeth Banks, James Gunn, Kate Winslet, Halle Berry, Chris Pratt, Gerard Butler, Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, and Emma Stone. That’s an insane roster, all for the sake of deafening silence at the cacophony of non-existent jokes.
1. Everything directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (2006-2015)
The Hollywood parody movie used to be a thing of beauty in the days of Airplane!, Top Secret!, and The Naked Gun, only for Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer to run it into the ground as a viable enterprise.
It’s impossible to pick which one of their movies could be definitively labelled as the least funny, so in the interest of fairness, the duo’s entire oeuvre is included because every single one of them is irredeemably awful and incapable of generating even the slightest hint of mirth.
Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, Vampires Suck, The Starving Games, Best Night Ever, and Superfast! think rapid-fire pop culture references are a suitable substitute for actual comedy. They are not, but the formula was repeated eight times, with cinema being the real loser at the end of the day.
