Since I live in a suburb of Boston where most of the residents qualify to be on Wilard Scott’s "Centurial birthdays" segment on the Today Show, it came as no real shock that the video store this Saturday was flocked as if John Lennon was giving a free concert in the porno room. Since the new release shelves only held one remaining copy of Dude, Where’s my Career?, I was forced to revisit some old favorites. Marijuana every scene...infidelity...cheap beer...nope, not the creative genius of The Clinton Story. I’m talking about the great 80’s comedies.

So, if you also happen to also live in Colonostomy Central, I have provided you with a list of the five top 80’s comedies worth a revisit on a lazy Saturday afternoon...

5) AIRPLANE:

You know it, you love it. Perhaps the greatest parody of all time, Airplane delivers the goods. I’m not talking about the gratuitous naked boobs shot though the film’s rated PG (which has about as much likelihood of happening nowadays as Blue Crush winning an Oscar.) I’m talking about the hard stuff (if the boobs were fake, they might be considered the hard stuff, but I digress...). The jokes keep shooting up as fast as any random member of a 60‘s band. While many, many other parodies were made, none held up quite like this one. The cast is brilliant and the script comes fully loaded. Revisit this one again. Much like Dick Van Dyke, this film never gets old.

Do you want to hear a sex joke every 6.9 seconds but don’t like cheap beer enough to join a bowling league? Never fear, my fine-beer-drinking friend, all you need to do is rent Porky’s. The teen sex comedy to end all tee sex comedies, this film is the only 90-minute sex joke you’ll ever need. Feeling in a particularly retro mood? Then, play the Porky’s video game. While it’s a great game, it was made by the computer graphics genius of Atari. You were not allowed to purchase it unless you were 18 years old. All that seemed very pointless to me, as the computer effect people at Atari ensured that I played the game for 20 years before realizing that the peach slug that was chasing after me with two plump antennas was really suppose to be a naked girl in a shower.

Known as the teen comedy that most accurately depicts teen life in the 80’s, Fast Times was a step up from most of the high school slice-of-life films. Dealing with taboo issues like teen sex and abortion, this film is just about the best there is. With the exception of the nursing-home worthy Judge Reinhold, all of the characters actually looked like they could be in high school dealing with these issues, instead of dealing with issues such as laugh lines and occasional irregularity. The movie deals a star studded cast such as Sean Penn, Phoebe Cates, and many, many others. Not to mention, it has more celebrity cameos than a methadone clinic. So, what are you, on dope???? Go rent this one!

Many people went to see Heathers expecting it to be a normal 80’s teen comedy. Those people ran out of the movie theater faster than you can tell your landlord, "No, sir, there was always a crop circle etched in the living room‘s shag carpet." The few of us that realized that this movie was the blackest comedy ever made, launched it into cult movie status. Heathers is a "slap in the face" comedy about popularity, the lack of popularity, and teenage suicide. The school "girlie clic" is made up of three girls named Heather (who are basically clones of each other) and a Veronica (Winona Ryder). Then Jason Dean comes to town (played brilliantly by Christian Slayter) and wins over Veronica’s heart. In a fit of rage caused by the Heathers, Veronica and Jason become a teenage Bonnie and Clyde and initiate a killing spree (cleverly masking the killings as teen suicide). The writing and direction is absolutely brilliant and the originality of this film smashes any other teenage comedy of the day. When the dialogue gets to the point that its almost too dark to be funny, the audience is dealt a great piece of dialogue like "Well, f*ck me gently with a chainsaw!" as a subtle reminder that this movie is for the most part tongue in cheek. The cast was a perfect pick (Shannon Doherty plays one of the bitchy Heathers, nuff said). All together, it’s one of the best films of the day.

The highest grossing comedy for almost a decade, this film is as good as it gets. The casting couldn’t be better. Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd were at the cutting edge of their comedy game. Harold Ramis was a young comedy writer. Sigourney Weaver had enough assets to keep the males in the audience entertained. Not to mention, Ernie Hudson...well, ok, he was roughly as useless as Beef of the Month membership to a tree hugger.

Originally, this film dealt with a lot of heat from the Christian sector due to its religious undertones. However, these views were expelled from society as quickly as they were made. After all, Ghostbusters made no real judgment on religion, much like the Lord makes no mention of a giant smores’ bar ingredient being a biblical sign of the Apocalypse.

The movie still blows me away with how beautiful it was shot. Ghostbusters has a very timeless feel to it, and it is very conceivable to think that it was just filmed 6 months ago rather than almost 20 years ago. Also, the soundtrack is arguably one of the best movie soundtracks of the 80’s. The theme song could not have been written better. To this day when someone asks "Who are you going to call?", you’d be hardpressed to find someone who can resist blurting out "Ghostbusters!" Unless of course you’re in the middle of Boston because then you’d hear, "AAA because my $40,000 yuppie-mobile’s espresso cup holders are jammed!"

I stand with many Ghostheads (that is what Ghostbusters fans are called, and it has nothing to do with our oral pleasing abilities to the members of the supernatural) in praying the rumored third movie and the new cartoon will come to pass However, I also know that the icon of Ghostbusters is strong enough to stand on its own without a rejuvenation. Parents will continuously pull the movie off the video shelves and show it to their kids, so they can be just as mesmerized as I was back in the early 80’s. Revisit the movie and indulge in one of the greatest comedies ever made. I dare ya. Get slimed.

Filmography links and data courtesy of The Internet Movie Database.

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