The comedy movies Eric Andre calls “works of art”
There are a handful of creatives who have helped to curate the strange comedy landscape we enjoy in the contemporary world, with the likes of Jim Carrey, Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy having informed culture more than meets the eye thanks to their innovative work in the 1990s. But, these days, it is the comedy of Nathan Fielder, Tim Heidecker and Eric Andre that has truly carved out an innovative niche.
Whilst Fielder and Heidecker have thrived with respective TV shows and stand-up tours, Andre became a viral sensation thanks to his irreverent Eric Andre Show that started on the late-night slot of Cartoon Network, otherwise known as Adult Swim. A surreal piss-take on late-night talk shows, the programme would see real-life celebrities unwittingly going on to speak to Andre, only to come face-to-face with a range of peculiar jokes.
With a total of over 60 episodes across six seasons, The Eric Andre Show featured such guests as LaKeith Stanfield, Macaulay Culkin, Seth Rogen, Jack Black, John Cena and Stormy Daniels, the show gained a considerable cult following. As a result of its success, Andre later took roles in Disney’s The Lion King and 2022’s Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
As a pioneer of comedy himself, Andre was inspired by a number of genre classics, revealing that two of his all-time favourites were Larry Charles’ Borat and the bizarre 1989 flick UHF, starring ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, in an interview with Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaking about Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2006 comedy, Andre stated: “When I first saw Borat at 22 years old in the theater, that’s the hardest I ever laughed in a movie theater. Hardest ever. That and Jackass, all of the Jackass movies. That was like, primal, caveman laughter”.
But it was when he was talking about Yankovic’s flick that he revealed a pretty significant statement about the history of comedy: “UHF was the first, like, screwball comedy I ever saw in a theater when I was five years old. And that’s one of my favorite genres. It’s a lost art. They don’t do it anymore. Those movies always got really harsh criticism”.
Continuing, he adds: “But if you go back and watch Airplane! one and two, Naked Gun one through three, and Hot Shots! — if you go back and watch those movies from a filmmaking perspective, they’re like works of art. They belong in the MoMA. Or the Whitney. Every single shot is a gag. To have that many jokes per square inch is a feat. I think those movies were always thrown under the bus by critics, unfairly I think. They age like a fine wine”.
Indeed, in our list of the greatest comedy movies of all time, we placed the David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker film Airplane! at the top spot. The Naked Gun also made the list, but there wasn’t enough space for Hot Shots!, with the latter being the worst of a great bunch of comedies that stuff as many gags as possible into their humble runtimes.
Take a look at the trailer for Airplane! below and bask in the comedy Andre considers a “work of art”.
