The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians (1970)

Originally I was going to review the Wacky World of Mother Goose, but there’s no complete film of it available on youtube and in stores.  So I exchange a collection of different stories to a collection of comedians and their “stories” with The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians. 

There are about five short stories, and I mean short for less than 4 minutes in a 25 minutes project.

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Flip Wilson tells a looser story of Christopher Columbus, as looser as the Magic Voyage.

Jack Benny and George Burns have a conflict with a cop at the tollbooth. This is about on par with Fox and Crow at a tollbooth.

Groucho Marx of The Marx Brothers is the emperor, Napoleon and his empress Josephine. She’s cheating with Alfredo (played by Chico), Francois and Gaston (played by Harpo).

Paul Frees as W.C Field and Rich Lady at a snow ski with a snow dog.

The Smother Brothers are at the medieval time to sing to the maiden in a castle.

Henny Youngmen and Phyllis Diller did a scene that went nowhere as Jackie Leonard and Georgie Jessel appearance as it mostly chat to segway to the performers.

Perhaps I can get some good stuff from these skits, and there’s a few to name.

This is the first time in this review order for three things in this film. The first is Mushi Studios. This was a major step up from the previous traditional animation, The Tale of the Wizard of Oz and Return to Oz. While it’s not as good as most of the best animated tv shows, but it still looks great to look at, even at times they are considered Awkward Animation. The earlier films the production did were Frosty the Snowman, which I couldn’t review due to Holiday deal of the review.

The second is Paul Frees. Paul Frees is known to play certain quack of both meanings. He would become a staple for Rankin Bass films as he started in Cricket on a Hearth as mostly side characters and/ or villains. Him playing W.C Field, the rich lady, the royal caller, and the cop (who I swear is the same cop from Frosty the Snowman) sound distinct with each other. Why W.C Field in this film? I don’t know, maybe they were going to bring him back as an unknown playing him forever since the real one is dead since 1946, just like how Henry Calvin played Oliver Hardy as Dick Van Dyke played Stanley Laurel, or they needed to test Paul to see if he can do impressions for more than two characters. Strange that Rankin Bass had a W.C Field impressionist with the Wizard of Tales of Wizard of Oz, voiced by Carl Banas. Maybe he was busy with other Mushi Studios animated films around the time.

The third is Joan Gardner. This is her first role in Rankin Bass, and she does decent as the straight woman to Groucho. She’s best known as side female characters in a few other Rankin Bass films such as Tanta Kringle in Santa Claus Comin’ To Town in months later after this special, and Bonnie the Bonnet from a better film I’ll review next. She had experience voice acting, including Tiny Tim/ Ghost of Christmas Past in Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.

Now to talk about the negatives and boy there’s so much it’s simply obvious.

Stand up sketches in TV or movies are either a hit (Caddyshack, most of the original MAD TV and Wayne’s World) or miss (Master of Disguise and most SNL movie), but The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians is definitely a miss.

Animated films based around comedians are mostly misses with films such as Rover Dangerfield and 8 Crazy Nights, and this film is one of them. It’s one thing to include laugh track; it’s another to literally draw attention to laugh track. Including Popeye? For TV animated comedy at the 70’s, there’s no chance for any of the comedians to use their “A” Game with the swearing or roasting, or good slapstick without easily offending the censors /parents/ soccer moms at the time. Tom and Jerry in the 70’s has suffered badly when they lost their best traits of slapstick, and only got some of it back in Tom and Jerry Kids in the 90’s.

Now let’s to judge the comedians in this film and not in general, and sadly they’re not close to mad. Flip Wilson is very annoying with his high pitch impressions. He can redeem himself with his own show shortly after this special. Jack Benny can work as the straightman as he has experience including in Looney Tunes, but George Burns isn’t quite the funny man to balance off. Maybe he needs to be older than 60 to be funny, or maybe the script or writer.

“Buh-Buh-Buh, Oh the sunshine on my old Kentucky home. Buh-Buh-Buh! Trust me, it’ll be funny when I’m an old man.”

-                                                                                                                                                                                      -Young George Burns in The Simpsons.

W.C Field, Smothers Brother, and the rest are just there and not funny. The only actors that can be funny are Groucho Marx. Groucho is one of those few actors that can be both sophisticated and (lack for a better word) Mad, along with actors such as Jerry Lewis, Mel Blanc, and too little to name a few.

   

The rest shows how unfunny they are, and show why mostly audio from live performance are a dead art, as 2010 animated Alice In Wonderland proved it won’t work now. I would most of the sketches a “Boo!”, or in George Burns’ case, a “Boo-urns!”

Now I can’t be a complete expert of comedy, but what makes me laugh shows they’re doing comedy right or drama wrong enough to be unintentional comedy. Even I did something funny, but more on physical comedy and timing. I’m not going to write anything funnier as I focus on the film to review.

If you have little kids, they might laugh, but mostly about anything on the screen. If not, this is one of many comedy shows I can change the channel away from.