MovieChat Forums > It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) Discussion > How many of you....

How many of you....

posted 5 years ago by AmeriGirl26 (14392)
11 replies | jump to latest

...watched this as a kid, thought it was funny, but when you watched it as an adult, didn't find it funny?

See, I first saw this movie when I was a kid, and at my grandparents' house. I happily laughed alongside them and though it was a very funny movie :).

Flash forward 20-ish years, and I try watching it again with my parents, and frankly, I don't find any of it funny. A lot of the characters are annoying (I really wanted to shoot that mother-in-law with the shrill voice, and her stupid beach-bum son), or extremely dumb, or not memorable. And when the firemen gave up on trying to save the lot of them, because they wouldn't listen about the ladder's weight capacity, I was thinking they deserved everything they got.

What's really crazy is, $350,000 is still a lot of money, even today. I can't imagine what a fortune it was in 1963.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

No, I love it even more now as an adult.

I think the problem with this movie is that it keeps getting marketed as pure slapstick (as in a movie in which you're supposed to be guffawing every second whenever someone pratfalls or acts goofy), but it's more a farce that mocks a particular human failing (greed).

Another problem is that because we've become the society that the movie is making fun of, the point is lost in translation. Back in the early 1960s, the movie had comedic impact because people were more civilized then. They didn't act crazy for money. Now we do, and we will do worse things than the characters did in this film, like eat bugs or humiliate ourselves on national TV. So, it's very hard for us in modern times to get why we're supposed to be laughing at all of these people acting so stupid and reckless. It was funny back then to see the Jim Backus character (the pilot) get drunk on a plane because that never, ever happened but with people crashing trains and even tankers while drunk or texting, his behavior comes across as normal, not absurd.

[–] R_Kane (15828) 5 years ago

Good points, and I congratulate you. Historical farce has become modern reality. I recently was obliged to take a sales teaching course by a guy named Grant Cardone. Among his lessons were “be UNREASONABLE in your demands” and “Don’t be happy until you have reached your financial goals.” And millions of robots follow this guy. It’s called UNREASONABLE for a reason! You push for greed, and you push away a lifelong relationship. You’re not happy UNTIL. . . ? Then you will never be happy, because you have not learned how to be happy during the course of your journey.

[–] duckofprey (1557) 5 years ago

350 big ones from 1962 (when it was filmed) is roughly 2.94 million today.

[–] hyperjet (720) 5 years ago

"2.94 million divided into eight shares..."

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Agreed. 100%.

[–] hyperjet (720) 5 years ago

I like it much more as an adult. One of the things I appreciate most is the consistency in the details.

[–] chilidoggg (14275) 5 years ago

I had the exact same experience as Amerigirl26

[–] Doghouse (447) 5 years ago

I still find it funny, but for different aspects than I did at the age of 10, when some of the subtler verbal humor sailed right past me while I concentrated on the slapstick.

Sid Caesar's mounting exasperation as he tries to explain the "shares to everyone and for everything" plan, for example, is gem-like in its crafting, and lines that got drowned out by laughter in theatrical showings are fully appreciable on home video, such as Jonathan Winters's offhand postscript to Buddy Hackett's suggestion that Ethel Merman "just drrrrrrop dead:" "Alright, we all agree on that," earning a skillful double-take from Caesar.

Where it was the big, spectacular stuff that appealed to me as a kid, it's now the little things that keep me engaged 56 years on.

[–] JaqenHgar (729) 5 years ago

Not me. I loved this film as a kid and I still love it as an over 40 year old adult. Same with the film "Scavenger Hunt."

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Yep, watched it in the early 70s as a child. I think it was The Saturday Night Movie on ABC.