Even though I've been in a surprisingly good mood lately, I started out this morning working on a piece intended for this site that was another of my occasional sojourns into fiction writing, a story of a misunderstanding between a married couple that started to spin into some darker areas than I intended, and I wound up abandoning it, at least for now.
So I went out and did stuff instead, and now that I've returned, it seems the weekend is winding down. What better way to prepare for the coming drudgery of the working week than to relax and have a few laughs? Here are a few of the things that make me laugh the most.
I'm not a big fan of the movie Ghostbusters; I saw it on its opening weekend in 1984, found it moderately amusing, have never felt the need to revisit it. Except...it does feature one of the best one-liners in movie history, perfectly set-up, growing plausibly out of the situation at hand and expertly delivered by Bill Murray, truly a comedic god among men.
Sure, his presence in a movie now is often cringe-inducing (and his new one, Little Fockers, looks truly unbearable), but there was a time when Ben Stiller was not just funny, but downright inspired. Any number of clips from The Ben Stiller Show could prove my point, but we'll let Tito Gallegos stand as a perfect example.
That brief snippet of American Pie at the end of that segment segues nicely to this. I could pick any Weird Al bit at random, and in fact, this particular number isn't even all that funny, more like a snarky telling of the actual storyline of The Phantom Menace ("some ships exploded and some pilots fried") than a full-blown parody. I'm just including it because I love the damned thing so much, and you have no idea how often I find myself singing this one. No, seriously--you have no idea.
Finally, Mike and the Bots offer a thorough take-down of a terrifying social engineering short from the 1950s. Is Mystery Science Theater 3000 the greatest thing in the history of the world? Yes. Yes, it is.
