Nearly 30 years ago, a handful of smart people set out with one mission: to make some silly movies. What followed was a true golden age of Hollywood comedy that saw the arrival of megastars still with us today, a commercial explosion, and then, an eventual splintering that changed the genre forever. Welcome to Comedy in the ’90s, a six-part series documenting this decade-defining boom in all of its sophomoric glory.
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October 23, 2019
Comedy in the ’90s, Part 6: Judd Apatow and the Decade That Followed
After a decade of glory for the genre, one man—flanked by a cadre of immature but well-meaning apostles—rose above the rest as blockbuster comedy made one last gasp
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October 8, 2019
Comedy in the ’90s, Part 5: The Rise and Fall (and Rise and Fall) of the Spoof
In the ’90s, a genre that took flight with ‘Airplane!’ reached new heights thanks to the Wayans brothers and a de-frozen British spy named Austin Powers
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September 24, 2019
Comedy in the ’90s, Part 4: ‘American Pie,’ the Raunchy Culmination of a Decade of Family-Friendly Films
As kids in the ’90s grew up, so did the movies they watched—from ‘Home Alone’ to ‘Clueless.’ That maturation continued into 1999, the year that saw the release of one of the dirtiest, most successful comedies of the decade.
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September 11, 2019
Comedy in the ’90s, Part 3: The Bad Boys of ‘Saturday Night Live’
After Jim Carrey’s ascendance, Adam Sandler and Chris Farley emerged in the mid-’90s primed to take over the comedy world. Tragically, only one of them actually did.
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August 28, 2019
Comedy in the ’90s, Part 2: The Year Jim Carrey Arrived
In 1994, a comedic actor previously most famous for his performances on ‘In Living Color’ released three iconic films—‘Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,’ ‘The Mask,’ and ‘Dumb and Dumber’—that changed Hollywood’s approach and pushed a genre to its commercial limits
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August 14, 2019
How ‘Wayne’s World’ Kicked Off a Comedy Renaissance
It may seem like a dumb comedy, but take a closer look and you can see that the highly referential, highly quotable tale about two slackers breaking into the TV business was made by smart people, a formula that helped launch a golden age of funny movies