We Need More Films Made By Comedy Teams, Legitimate Friends

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One of the great things about Time Bandits—and there are many—is how it’s seemingly an honest-to-God, mainstream comedy created by a bunch of real-life friends. I love John Cleese’s extremely chill and unrushed Robin Hood in the movie, and for some reason I love it even more knowing his buddy Terry Gilliam is behind the camera presumably pitching jokes between takes. There’s an easy warmth and idiosyncrasy to the humor that reminds me of riffing with my high school friends. And as somebody who still makes stupid stuff with those same stupid friends from high school and college, comedies like this just hit harder.

But let’s put Monty Python aside for a moment and discuss a few more mordern comedy teams nearer to my stupid heart: Lonely Island, Good Neighbor, and Please Don’t Destroy.

For the uninitiated, Lonely Island—which includes Andy Samberg—was one of the first comedy troupes to actually post their crap on the internet. As in, they had to convert their videos to VHS tapes because most agents didn’t have internet fast enough to watch their stuff. They somehow got from stupid internet videos to being hired by Saturday Night Live. And then from THERE they created cult-classic comedies like Hotrod, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and the more commercially successful Palm Springs. Man, I wonder why they inspire me so much.

Similarly, Good Neighbor was just a dumb YouTube channel made up of four friends and watched largely by me as a highshooler. They also all ended up going on to work on SNL. Most interestingly to me, Kyle Mooney and the one always behind the camera, Dave McCary, made one of the most under-appreciated films of the past five years—Brigsby Bear. They two based the film on their shared childhood experiences (which were apparently mildly horrifying?), and again it’s a film made with care and love by two best friends clearly having a blast.

And then finally, one of my deepest desires is that recent SNL hire Please Don’t Destroy (my current favorite internet troupe) pulls a Lonely Island or a Good Neighbor and takes whatever clout SNL provides them to make some incredible film that only I end up seeing. I demand it.

Look, if nothing else, know the main reason Cracked is making videos and podcasts again is, because I’ve been blessed with good friends willing to create stupid shit at a moment’s notice. Friends I’ve known for literally decades. And better yet, I’ve also accumulated a few other, more knowledgeable friends like Monday’s guest, Brian Brushwood from The Modern Rogue (and a million other things), who’ve graciously mentored me from the beginning of this crazy experiment when I had literally no idea what I was doing. I mean, I still don’t know what I’m doing, but thankfully people like Brian and others are still there.

Also, like, I guess please hire me to write a sketch SNL? Apparently that's the only way to get a movie made. My friends are VERY funny.

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