The Changing Face of Comedy

In honor of my new favorite comedy, 'I Love You, Man' I would like to take a look at the past 20 years of comedy. I won't be looking at all the trends but just the most popular.

Looking back, the 90's most successful comedies were because of SNL. Thanks to SNL we were given comic geniuses: Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Chris Farley and David Spade, and Will Ferrell (who flourished in the 2000's) Let's break it down further. In the 90's we saw

Wayne's World
Austin Powers
Tommy Boy
Black Sheep
Billy Madison
Happy Gilmore
The Waterboy
Big Daddy
There's Something About Mary
Dumb and Dumber

You can see what the tones of these comedies tend to be. They are your typical, dumb but loveable lead character fighting for something good. The humor tends to be a bit on the crude side and dim-witted. But it's not over the top. This will change.

The 90's was easily the decade of the SNL star. But the 2000's is certainly the decade of Judd Apatow, his filmogoraphy of Writer/Director/Producer credit should be convincing enough.

Anchorman
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Talladega Nights
Knocked Up
Superbad
Walk Hard
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Drillbit Taylor
Step Brothers
Pineapple Express

And that's just Apatow, there have been many more comedies that were very successful in the past few years. But this is the trend of comedies in this decade. Raunchy and Vulgar. Apatow will stop at nothing and he will raise the bar to get a laugh.

But in my review of 'I Love You, Man' a film with no creative input from Apatow, we are given a film that goes against the norm. While still an R rated comedy, this film treats its audience with decency and respect, making it genuinely funny. It's my hope that this can be the new trend for the next decade.