The King of Comedies

Mrs. Frazier and I were re-watching Talladega Nights the other night ("Why, if it isn't our mangy, transient grandfather"). By the way, I know my brother Beer-on-the-Girl is not a Will Ferrell fan. I do maintain that Talladega Nights is a consistently funny movie, even if its perhaps a bit over the top.

Anyway, afterwards I commented to Mrs. Frazier, "Wow, Will Ferrell's been in a handful of decent comedy movies. I wonder if there's anybody that's been in more than him." She responded, "Oh sure, there must have been. What about Eddie Murphy? How about Bill Murray?"

A good question... "Which actor has been in the most decent comedy movies?"

So we started naming famous actors that have been in a handful of comedy movies and going over their resumes. There is, of course, always some discussion about if particular movies qualify as "decent" or not.

Here are a handful of the first few famous comedy actors we thought of, and what may qualify as their "decent" comedy movies:

Will Ferrell: Austin Powers, Zoolander, Old School, Anchorman, Wedding Crashers, Talladega Nights

Bill Murray: Caddyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters, Little Shop of Horrors, Scrooged, Groundhog Day

Steve Martin: Three Amigos, The Jerk, Little Shop of Horrors, Parenthood, My Blue Heaven, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Eddie Murphy: Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, Golden Child, Coming to America, Boomerang, The (first) Nutty Professor


Certainly, one could add or subtract comedies from each person's resumes, depending on one's opinion of what a decent movie is or not.

But the point: Two things stood out...

1) All of them have been in plenty of shitburger movies. Check out any of their resumes on IMDB. You will see a handful of movies in each person's resume that will have you saying, "Wow, they must have cashed in when they did that movie."

2) Look at the number of movies in each person's resume. What do you notice? They all only have 6 "decent" comedy movies! Why is there not one comedic actor that has 10 good comedies or more? Maybe many of them seem to have lost their comedic touch after they've been around for a while and aged. Bill Murray started doing serious, artsy films. Eddie Murphy got stuck in the kids movie rut and seemed to forget how to be funny.

So who is the king of comedy movies? Who did we overlook? Who has been in the most decent movies? And, what are the best individual comedic movie performances of all time?