TV Guide's 50 Greatest Comedy Moments of All Time
Not surprisingly, some of the greatest comedy minds who acted in Ghostbusters were named for the 50 greatest comedy moments not once, not twice, but three times. Here now, are the excerpts and rankings of the 50 Greatest Comedy Moments of All Time:
31. SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE December 9, 1978 The hair, the clothes, that high pitched and tremulous voice, the tall and blocky build moving awkwardly, as if the kitchen were too small to hold her-Dan Aykroyd has Julia Child down pat. "It's time to bone the chicken," Julia.Dan warbles. "For this, you need a very sharp knive, and you cut along the backbone like so... Oh, now I've done it. I've cut the dickens out of my finger." The blood does not mearly trickle; it gushes, it flows, her arm flops about, spurting crimson like some out of control firehose. "Oh God, it's throbbing," Julia/Dan announces and makes a tourniquet from cheesecloth and a chicken bone- always the proper, resourceful foodie. Finally, steeped in liquid, she wonders, "Why are you all spinning? I think I'm going to go to sleep now," and collapses across the chicken. The Cordon Blood School of Humor reaches its high point here with Aykroyd's unforgettable, landmark sketch.
13. SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE March 18, 1978 This "commercial" for Royal Deluxe II is a parody of the 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis ads featuring a diamond cutter, using sharp presision tools, shaping a gem in the backseat of the smooth-riding luxury sedan as it maneuvers sharp hills and hairpin turns. In SNL's outlandish version, a rabbi performs a backseat circumcision on an 8-day-old boy to illustrate the stability of the Royal Deluxe's power disk breaks and rack-and-pinion steering. Dan Aykroyd, the deadpan narrator, describes the rabbi's 40-mile-an-hour odyssey from Temple Beth Shalon in Little Neck, New York, as the car's grinning driver (Garrett Moris) negotiates rough roads, bumpy potholes, and precarious contruction cones. When the ride finally comes to an end and the rabbi returns the baby, who has only yelped once, to his adoring parents, he echoes the tag line of the Mercury commercial, solemnly declairing both the ride and the religious ritual just "poi-fect."
6. SCTV October 7, 1980 You want "Casablanca"? "Forget about that one," says SCTV station manager Edith Prickley (Andrea Martin), glaring at us through her cat's eye glasses. "We've got a film classic for you tonight that you're gonna love: 'Play It Again, Bob,' starring Bob Hope and Woody Allen. You'll love it!" In a brief but gloriously funny run that began in the late 1970s, SCTV consistantly skewered pop culture, never more adroitly than in this sketch, which featured Dave Thomas, doing his peerless Bob Hope imitation, and Rick Moranis, dead-on as Woody Allen. Premise: Allen dreams of finally seeing his idol in a good movie- a Woody Allen movie, for instance. The two clash immediately: Woody wants Diane Keaton to costar, Hope is thinking Joey Heatherington and complains that Keaton doesn't have... He holds two imaginary cantaloupes. Allen cringes. "What's with the hands? You want an actress with arthritis?" Even the intercession of a ghostly Bing Crosby (Joe Flaherty, also terrific) can't smooth thinks over. It's an altogether outlandish and inspired collision of comic sensibilities. in the end, Allen comes around to Hope's way of thinking, and they're off to entertain the troops together. You were right Edith. We love it.