What makes a great comedy movie plot?

[Actual God]

I just saw Cheryl from Curb Your Enthusiasm out my window zomg she's adorable!

Also peaked into some curb audition yesterday, and (SPOILER ALERT) this little black kid was performing a hilarious dance.

[Aloysius]

Guys - maybe if we start naming some great comedies, we'll see some commonalities? I donno also I think that there are like "sub-genres" (slapstick vs. romantic comedy) so drilling down might help too. I'm also curious as to what AG has to say about this.

Comedies I have LOL'ed @:

Something About Mary
Ghostbusters
Midnight Run
Tommy Boy
Happy Gilmore
Planes, Trains Automobiles
Bad News Bears

Here is the AFI Top 100 Greatest Comedies List

-Al

[Aloysius]

AG - Are you gonna pitch stuff there? I have a buddy who pitches Curb things to LD. One of the things he suggested turned into a plot element couple seasons back.

-Al

[Kamakaze22]

alright I'll give a serious answer(even though I think the train scenario would be funny). some form of huge seemingly impossible task for the main character(s) to overcome/complete (i.e. Rat Race, Dumb & Dumber, Harold & Kumar j/k...sorta). Take this journey and throw in obstacles and mishaps along the way. Add or subtract sexual/crude/slapstick humor to your liking. End with hero proving the odds wrong and being victorious.

[Actual God]

[ QUOTE ]
AG - Are you gonna pitch stuff there? I have a buddy who pitches Curb things to LD. One of the things he suggested turned into a plot element couple seasons back.

-Al

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd love to pitch stuff to Larry - I might think of a couple ideas, and just drop them off I guess. Does your friend work for the show or just storm them with ideas?

[Aloysius]

AG - he actually wrote a really good spec for the show years back, that I believe LD ended up reading and liking alot.

So that got my buddy in touch with LD - and they developed a relationship of sorts, where my buddy calls him / e-mails him with ideas (one of which got used in a show as mentioned above). He's staffed right now (though think he's on hiatus at the moment) so must do it on his downtime.

-Al

[Actual God]

[ QUOTE ]
Boobies.

More seriously, I'd say that just about everything that I find particularly funny doesn't really involve much plotting as much as it involves people unaware of their incompetence and just acting "normal." (EDIT: Incompetence is a little too narrow; a better way to put it would be that I like characters that don't know why they're weird, and frequently that manifests itself as incompetence.) I'd say that kind of theme unifies two otherwise disparate movies like Dr. Strangelove and This is Spinal Tap, both among my favorite comedies. It also applies to shows like Arrested Development and, to a lesser extent, The Office.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is my favorite comment so far. I wonder if it's more true for TV than movies.