I have a particular enthusiasm – some might say mania – for the campus comedy. Why? I can’t really say, but maybe there’s something about the unbridled spirit of adventure and the unknown (after the prison like environment of high school yet before the prison like environment of adult/cube farm life?), the mystery, the romance, the rude pranks and high jinks of higher education. You can’t beat it.
Therefore, I’ve been compiling in my mind for some number of months my list of Greatest of All Time. Oh, but my friends, it wasn’t easy with so many to choose from.
The Top Five Campus Comedies of All Time
#5
Road Trip (2000)
Successfully combining two of my favorite movie conventions, the Campus Comedy and the Road Trip, this movie manages to balance a rollicking adventure, laugh-out-loud slapstick, and surprisingly strong characters into a hell of a strange trip. Of course, there are some groan-worthy moments (the skinny white dork who learns the ways of hip hop and love from the obese black momma comes particularly to mind) but that's somewhat inherent to almost all capital-c Comedies these days. In fact, I find it perfectly possible that the almost-perfect There's Something About Mary may have inadvertently set slapstick comedy back several decades, but that debate is for another day).
Tom Green and Seann William Scott, who both have the capacity to be great and awful, shine here in wacko side roles. Green is especially great as a zonked out tour guide for perspective freshman at Ithica College. He serves as the film's narrator, and is never funnier than when he swerves his narrative (and, therefore, the film) into horny-guy-T&A-territory. Scott, better known in most circles as Stifler from the American Pie franchise, makes his macho asshole shtick work as he tempers it with a modicum of humanity. However, it's Paulo Costanzo who steals the movie as a thoughtful stoner who's trying to Figure It All Out. These days, you can see him Thursdays on NBC as Herr Tribiani's nephew on Joey, the Friends spin-off.
The core story of the movie - dude travels from New York to Texas to try and prevent his girlfriend from watching a video of him making out with another girl — isn't really the point. It's the diversions (a car trying to make a General Lee-like jump across a broken bridge ends in disaster), the believable reactions (Dad's gonna kill me!), and punchlines (Dude, we are sooo gonna get ass-raped out here...) that make this road trip worth the ride.
#4
Animal House (1978)
The granddaddy of them all, Animal House is so famous now that almost every slapstick comedy involving youngsters since its release pays some level of homage to its signature themes: Scraping Together the Dough to Get the House Back, Will They Get Kicked Out of School?, the Parade/Event/Party Gone Horribly Awry, the Party to End All Parties, and, of course, Pranks, Pranks, and More Pranks (and High-Jinks).
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
great list and explication Eric, thanks and welcome! I would have to put Animal House no. 1 but that could well be generational
2 - Matt Paprocki
Ditto on the Animal house thing. The only one I haven't seen here is Old School, but for it to beat out just John Belushi it would have to be a miraculous comedy.
"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
"Germans?"
"Let him go. He's on a role."
3 - Eric Berlin
Several people from several generations have made the argument for Animal House at #1. I can see where you and the others are coming from, but I still must stand by my comments in the article.
Old School, by the way, *is* miraculously funny. Definitely check it out.
~EB
4 - Sean
Great list. I could quiblle with the order a bt, along the same lines that others have already done, but the hell wiht it. PCU is brilliantly funny. It goes into heavy rotation on cable every so often. I don't recall it ever being released in theaters, and if it was, it was certainly not a huge hit at the time.
Jeremy Piven is the hardest working man in show business. He is EVERYWHERE. I was watching Black Hawk DOwn recently and he is one of the copter pilots who gets shot down.
5 - Eric Berlin
Sean,
I've been a huge Jeremy Piven fan ever since PCU, and you're right, he does show up in a lot of places, such as Judgement Night, Very Bad Things, and even that Ellen DeGeneres sitcom.
He's also got a huge connection with John Cusack, and I've heard that the two are longtime pals. Their credits together include Say Anything (remember the crazed party animal who attacks Cusack as "Key Master"?), Gross Pointe Blank (a friend of mine and I, who live in California and Maine respectively, will often say Ten Years! TEN YEARS! upon greeting), and Serendipity.
Eric Berlin
Dumpster Bust: Miracles from Mind Trash
http://dumpsterbust.blogspot.com
6 - Sean
He played the Key Master guy? I remember the character but never made the connection before. Frankly , at this point, if I see a movie in which he does not appear, I am dissappointed
7 - Eric Berlin
John Cusack was appointed as the Key Master in Say Anything (showing that he was decent, responsible guy, etc.). Piven is a crazed party animal. He tackles Cusack out of nowhere, eventually cedes his keys to the level-headed Cusack (who is trying desperately to find the fetching Ione Sky), and eventually hugs him, saying drunkenly, "... I love you, man."
Say Anything = Great movie. Superior movie. Might be the best 80s comedy. Might have to make that my next epic list...
~EB