Quintessential Baby Boomer Humor

This is something I?ve been mulling over for some time, possibly in reaction to the relentless advertising lately for the rather transparently BB-targeted rom-com, Hope Springs. I think the attempt that it represents to draw Baby Boomers back into the theater will prove futile.

Here?s my question: what?s the quintessential Baby Boomer movie comedy? Let?s start by defining our terms. By ?Baby Boomer? I mean an American born between 1946 and 1964. By ?Baby Boomer movie comedy? I mean a movie written, directed, and starring Baby Boomers for mostly a Baby Boomer audience, generally from 1978 to 2000.

I think there are basically three strains of Baby Boomer movie comedies: Abrahams and Zucker; Landis, Ramis, and Aykroyd; and the Coen brothers.

Landis, Ramis, and Aykroyd

Animal House (1978) is, arguably, the first break-out Baby Boomer comedy. The team of director, writers, and actors that made it went on to produce more than a dozen movies including Caddy Shack, The Blues Brothers, and Ghostbusters. Some of the team, Landis (1950) and Belushi (1949), are Baby Boomers, other are ?Baby Boomer adjacent?, i.e. either they born just outside the timeframe of my definition or they?re Canadians. e.g. Dan Aykroyd (1952) and Harold Ramis (1944). This is the team that specialized in ?slob humor?, sort of a combination of hipster humor with the Bowery Boys.

Abrahams and Zucker

Jim Abrahams (1944) and David Zucker released their breakout hit, Airplane! in 1980. These were followed by the Hot Shot and Naked Gun pictures and continue right to the present in the Scary Movie movies. These pictures are broad parodies, filled with movie references and sly humor.

The Coen Brothers

Joel and Ethan Coen released their first comedy, Raising Arizona, which starred Holly Hunter (1958) and Nicolas Cage (1964). Their comedies include Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, and O, Brother, Where Art Thou?. Like the Abrahams and Zucker movies their pictures tend to be filled with references to movies, television, and popular culture but they?re generallya bit more sophisticated than the A&Z movies.

For my taste Raising Arizona is the acme of Baby Boomer humor and I suspect that their O. Brother, Where Art Thou? is probably the last great Baby Boomer movie comedy. It?s possible that someone may produce a great BB movie comedy about aging but, somehow, I doubt it.

This isn?t encyclopedic. I don?t consider Nora Ephron?s pictures to be Baby Boomer pictures. The actors who star in her pictures, e.g. Billy Crystal, Tom Hanks, and Meg Ryan, are Baby Boomers but she wasn?t and I think her humor and that of romantic comedies more generally hearkens back to older influences like Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.

Thoughts? What do you think is the best Baby Boomer comedy? What characteristics do you think typify Baby Boomer comedies?

Update

As I wrote above, this isn?t encyclopedic. I suddenly realized that I omitted a major strain: the Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Spinal Tap strain. While I think that This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind are brilliant, these are mostly virtually cult pictures. Interestingly, I know a bit about the inner side of all of the subjects of these movies (except rock music, i.e. community theater, dog shows, and folk music) and for my money they?re slightly toned-down documentaries.

Source: http://theglitteringeye.com/?p=17530

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