Would "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" count as the granddaddy of the 'time travel' science fiction comedies? Of course, most of us know it from the Bugs Bunny version better than the story.

I think you should follow-up with an "unintentional science fiction comedies" blog.

I think part of it is, comedy is comedy. When you do it right, all of the trappings are just window dressing. So why would the people who do comedy spend all that money and time on all the crazy window dressing?
I mean, The Big Lebowski could certainly take place in a SciFi context (This here story took place...just about the time of our conflict with Kel-al and the the Alpha Centauris) but why would it?

Oddly enough, I think that books have the same problem. The funny SF books I can think of are for the most part sendups of famous SF tropes or cliches.

Come to think of it, this whole situation might actually be connected to the niching of SF as a genre. People look to it either for action or for deep moody stuff, not lighthearted romps, so that's what Genre creators are putting out. When they turn to comedy, it's niche comedy, for the fans--and fandom likes in-jokes. A lot. It makes the nerd juices feel all slick and smooth. Character based comedy is too plebian, to mundane--too accessible for the norms. So then, nongenre creators think that SF is off limits for outsiders, and they don't try to make their SF comedies, they just make regular old funny movies.

Man, I dunno if I make any sense at all anymore.

Interestingly, the first science fiction talkie was a comedy (and musical!), "Just Imagine" (although it doesn't stand up very well, see my article in the forthcoming issue of Some Fantastic). Like the films John mentions, it was a fish-out-of-water time travel story (the main character is brought back to life in the future year 1980 and must come to terms with things), as well as making references to the modern world.

I feel like I'm being set up, but someone should mention that our host here has written an incredibly funny science-fiction comedy short novel, containing several visually stunning and totally filmable passages, and which might still be available for optioning if you hurry.

(You're welcome. Small bills, this time, please.)

I think part of the issue is that much of Hollywood doesn't get SF, especially in past decades. For many producers, it needs lasers, spandex bodysuits, or dinosaurs, turning it into a sci-fi film. Such fare is rarely funny except in the MST3K sense.

To be funny without relying on satirical reference, it helps if the movie doesn't realize that it's science fiction and doesn't present itself that way. An example of this is The Man in the White Suit with a youngish Alec Guinness. It deals with possible downsides of technological innovation but does so without making use of stereotypical trappings of 50's scifi.

Ghostbusters is in essence a science-fiction comedy that doesn't rely on anything outside itself to bring the funny.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, while certainly appealing to the meta-ness of it all, does so within a framework that seems to allow for that.

I think the problem is one of familiarity and expectations.

Humor relies on surprise - the viewer has an expectation which is suddenly contradicted. We expect that the guy in the dark helmet will be an impressive Darth Vader type, and then he's Rick Moranis. In a "mundane" comedy, the expectations are those of the world we're familiar with, so we have enough of them to be punctured. Time travel also has real-world expectations, and parody has the expectations based on the original work.

Other science fiction, generally speaking, creates a new world with new expectations that the viewer is not familiar with. Someone who lives in that world might be really surprised and amused when the gobulator turns a freen into a blonk instead of a groodle, but we're not familiar enough with it to laugh.

I can think of lots of SF films with comedic moments, but very few that are primarily comedies. I wonder if this is a problem inherent in the classification: once a thing becomes too comedic, I stop thinking of it as science fiction? For example, Earth Girls Are Easy springs to mind (don't ask me why) as a movie about aliens and spaceships and all kinds of decidedly science-fictional tropes, but because it's a broad 80's comedy cast with comedians (Jim Carrey, Julie Brown, Damon Wayans) and goofy musical numbers, it stops being "real" science fiction in my mind. Because it's not about the science fiction elements; they're just used to create funny situations. A more recent example is Mike Judge's Idiocracy, which posits a future very much in the tradition of Kornbluth's "Marching Morons". It's actually a smart movie and entirely science-fictional, but since all the SF ideas are played for laughs, it doesn't quite fully push those "Science Fiction: I know it when I see it" buttons.

When does something cross over into being Not-SF? If it tends to happen when the non-SF elements, like comedy, outstrip the ideas and what-ifs and atmosphere and tech and so forth, then no wonder the movies we think of as science fiction are not so much the funny ones.

(Though I totally agree with you on Buckaroo Bonzai as a fine example of SF that's hilarious. I'd also include Shaun of the Dead, though a) it's absolutely in the category you describe of trading off existing constructs, and b) what it's playing off is more horror than SF.)

Wall-E is science fiction that gets to its comedy through another genre entirely, the animated kids' movie, which has a long history of mixing SF and comedy. I guess what makes Wall-E a bit different in genre terms, besides its appeal to adults, is that the science fiction is so thoroughly pervasive. Unlike previous animated movies about giant robots or cute space aliens, Wall-E really revels in the things SF does best: the setting, the imagining of future society, the tech, the "otherness" of the robots' approach to life. Science fiction isn't just included in service to a funny plot, but is essential to the story. It *is* the story. Which is also a really funny story, while taking itself seriously.

David beat me to the punch with the obvious - Ghostbusters - one of the most quotable movies, ever.

I'll go back to my well and say They Live - as Black Comedy it works pretty well.

Rob B, David:

I don't count Ghostbusters in the science fiction camp because it's all about ghosts and demons and such. Yes, they have unlicensed particle accelerators on their backs, but the science fiction elements are not the main thrust of the story, the fantasy elements are. Yes, you can call me a nit-picker for this.

I think They Live works better in theory than in practice, alas, although it has some great one-liners.

While "Science Fiction" can be a genre, it's almost always more of a "setting". Comedy is a genre. Action is a genre. Drama is a genre. All of those can be put into a Sci-Fi setting.

Serenity, while not actually a "comedy" had lots of comedic elements.

5th Element? That was a comedy, right?

Ice Pirates. Not the best comedy in the world but I don't think it falls into the "farce" or "time travel" traps.

Dr Strangelove - Dark comedy to be sure

I think there's more sci-fi comedy on TV than in the movies.

Reaper - freak of the week with character comedy
Chuck - Spies and gadgets with funny incompetence
Eureka - Weird Science meets "Aw shucks sheriff"

Great picks @MikeT. I'd also add movies like

Night of the Comet - plus it has pseudo-zombies
The Incredible Shrinking Woman - mixing in the social commentary of the original with a bit more farce
The Incredibles - unless tights and fights should be considered its own genre
A Boy and his Dog - and I'm only partially kidding. LQ Jones adaptation was pretty damn funny

I also think there are a lot of SF actioners that have a lot more comedy than they're given credit for. I'm strongly tempted to classify Robocop as a dark comedy.

To be clear, I think a lot of science fiction has comedic elements or (intentionally) funny moments. However, that's different than saying that they were conceived and (importantly) marketed as comedies. In the case of Robocop, for example, I think it's got a number of very dark, funny satirical moments, but it's not a comedy. It definitely wasn't marketed in that direction. Likewise, for Fifth Element.

Ice Pirates was a comedy, sure. But it stank.

While reading, the movie K-PAX came to my mind, but I don't really think they were trying to be as funny as they were trying to make a social point. I have to agree that the 5th Element is Comedy it made me laugh a lot yet was warm and sweet in other places and lotsa action, just like WALL-E. Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is very funny! True it's black comedy and has serious undertones but I laughed, a lot. I can't really see hollywood spending the kind of money making a Funny SCI-FI movie would take, unless it was a sure thing.(once again hurting the final product). Hollywood rarely takes chances on anything unproven. Then there is the question Is SCI-FI suppose to be funny? I don't mind comedy in my sci-fi movies but mostly i want to be blown away either visually or mentally. Whatever you do, do it well. I do expect any sci-fi animation from Pixar to be not just funny but great and WALL-E was both. Easily in my top 10 best sci-fi movies of all time.

(not the same MikeT that commented above)

I think the comedic elements in Firefly and Serenity largely came from playing against our expectations of the genre by walking right up to the edge of cliche, then playing against it, which is very much a Whedon trademark.

What I think of as classic sci-fi comedy is what Scalzi pegs as farce (Hitchhikers, Earthgirls, Galaxy Quest, etc.), and even that plays against the 50s/60s trope of "wisdom from the stars" by having the aliens/future be so much weirder than we expect.

Basically, humor plays against our expectations either by being directly contrary to them or being an exaggeration of them. But you can't really have humor without context of some kind, whether their are spaceships involved or not.

And breaking the fourth wall is an established feature of comedies going all the way back to medieval dramas, if not further. I think most comedies depend on meta-humor to various degrees. If they didn't have some means of reminding us we're watching fiction, and we actually took seriously the things happening to the characters on screen, it wouldn't be comedy, it'd be tragedy.

There are three things at work, here.

One, people tend not to look to sci-fi movies for humor. Perhaps one can blame genre for this. You're not looking for humor in The Matrix, a cyberpunk story, but you're not surprised to find it in Star Wars, a space opera. Sci-fi films can have humor if the directors / screenwriters don't get so bogged down in genre limitations that they miss the gems staring them in the face. One genuine laugh at the right moment can really liven an otherwise dark project. There were moments of wry humor in V For Vendetta that were as delicious as they were surprising.

When humor is done well, as with Star Wars IV: A New Hope, it's organic, it's fun, and it provides a lively diversion from Deep, Dark Things. Firefly (the series) was full of lively humor and smart writing, and while Serenity (the film of the series) had its humorous moments, it was moving too fast and edited too tight to allow for as much humor as was allowed for in the series.

When humor is done poorly, you have Jar-Jar Binks. The humor from the original Star Wars was in the dialogue, it was situational, it was organic, and it was genuinely funny. "Let the wookie win." That's funny. None of that felt like it was played for laughs. Rather, it was humor of the moment that felt right for the characters and the situations. Jar-Jar was played for pre-teen laughs, and was not only not funny, it was painful, and it jarred a lot of people out of that fragile 'suspension of disbelief.'

Two, people forget that the best humor is character-driven, not shoe-horned in. Humor is one of those elusive things that the harder you try to grab it, the harder it is to get. It is skittish, it is fragile, and it is authentic.

Character-driven humor is not only funny, it makes for greatest character depth. When captain Mal Reynolds talks to Jayne the dim mercenary about how to handle cattle, the dialogue reveals personality and amuses at the same time:

MAL: You know... they walk just as fast if you lead 'em.
JAYNE: I like smackin' 'em.

Finally, the best humor is frequently collaborative. When you give your writers the freedom to look for humor without pandering, without /trying/ to write humor, it is more apt to work. Some directors seem to have forgotten that, while others really get it. You get the feeling that Joss Whedon nurtured humor on the Firefly set, that it was really fun place to be. And that deliberate decision and freedom pays off when that collaborative energy makes it onto the screen.

Granted, it's trickier to match that kind of on-set improvisation with animated films, but Pixar seems to know how to get that synergy for their projects by hiring impish directors. Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird and John Lasseter all seem very creative, very specific about what they're looking for, but very impish with their sense of humor and finding humor in the strangest situations and environments.

To sum up, you can have humor in sci-fi without making it a Comedy, and for my money, the funniest moments have come in films that weren't labeled as comedies. Character-driven humor can pay off big, and collaborative humor can get you as close to consistently nabbing the elusive lightning in a bottle as anything.

Which brings us back to Pixar and WALL*E. You see all three of these points demonstrated in this film. It is a sci-fi film that allows for humorous situations. I was out to lunch with my wife yesterday and told her about the sight gag with the spork. She laughed. The film keeps revealing new and fascinating characters, bringing them all together at the film's climax. And finally, you know that the Pixar staff is collaborative apparently by design. Their unprecedented track record speaks for itself.

First, Sci-Fi/Comedy is already a cross genre film. And, yes, there are very few. I think that there are a lot of Sc-Fi/Comedy/Action movies though.

I think a several of the newer superhero movies are sci-fi/action/comedies, particularly
- Iron Man
- Spider Man
- The Incredibles

I think Demolition man was a comedy/action/sci-fi movie as well, but that was time-travel / farce / audience getting the in jokes (Rob Schneider answering the phone and saying 'Press 1 if you would prefer talking to a computer', the toilets etc).

The Man in The White Suit is near-perfect as both a comedy and a science-fiction film. Alec Guinness is the alpha and omega of boffinitude.

At the risk of embarrassing myself completely, I offer "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307109/). It is a send up of 50s horror/scifi films, but it is played totally straight. I didn't feel winked at by the creators. I recall no modern cultural references. The humor comes from them taking the genre itself to an absurd place. It is hilarious. The stilted acting, horrible dialog and poor production values make it a really funny movie.

I have a friend who makes a reasonably convincing case for Singing In the Rain as a science fiction film – the impact of a new technology on a society and all that. I'm not all that sure I buy into that, but just thought it deserved its turn in the limelight.

I'd stick up the original version of The Absent-Minded Professor as a sf comedy. I'd also say that The Great Race certainly has sf-tional elements (well, kinda steampunk-y, really).

Definitely have to agree with those who have mentioned The Man in the White Suit – a great movie that deserves a wider audience.

Who can forget Real Genius? One of the greatest movie celebrations of intellectual nerdly coolness, a fine coming-of-age film, and a hilarious college movie! Also, a rare comedy that assumes the intelligence of the viewer. It has to count as SF: it has giant honking space lasers.

- Ron Avitzur
Pacific Tech
www.PacificT.com

"Produced in an era before stupidity was widely celebrated via characters like Homer Simpson, this homage to smartness continues to delight almost 20 years after its release. Science buffs should especially take note as Kilmer delivers one of the most memorable movie-science monologues of all time: “It is possible to synthesize excited bromide in an argon matrix! Yes, it’s an excimer, frozen in its excited state … As soon as we apply a field, we couple to a state that is radiatively coupled to the ground state.” Pure poetry, best quoted around others who understand that unabashed celebration of real science in the movies happens all too rarely." - Chemical Engineering News

It's been a looooong time since I saw it, but what about Innerspace?

Red Dwarf?

Okay, so it's technically a time-travel show, and it's not actually a movie. Seems like it still should get partial credit, though.

I have to agree with the time-travelling hijinks... for example, Star Trek IV: Kirk is trying to curse- "Well, double dumbass on you!" Pure comedy gold.

Also, on Buckaroo Banzai: "BigBooTAY!" /flicks the bird. Nothing like seeing an alien flicking the bird because his last name keeps being misprounounced BigBooty.

But seriously, I think one of the reason that sci-fi comedy is well-nigh an oxymoron is that sci-fi has a deep and abiding geek-focus on the SCIENCE portion of sci-fi, and it's sometimes difficult to make that funny, if you even want to.

Good SF comedy that relies on personalities of characters instead of anachronistic or in-jokes?

What about Rocky Horror? Sure, it's time travel, but the humor doesn't rely on anachronisms.

Regarding Singing in the Rain -- my understanding of SF is that when it deals with technology's impact on society it is dealing with future technology - prediction and extrapolation are necessary components which aren't there in Singing in the Rain. If Singing in the Rain had been written in the 19th century, it would have been SF, though.

A parody of Singing in the Rain could be produced where someone with extreme body-odor can't get a job when movies add the dimension of smell. That would be SF.

I could totally have an argument with you over whether Ghostbusters is sci-fi. Yes, ghosts and demons, but they're treated as natural phenomena (phenomena no one managed to notice before 1984, apparently, but anyway) and dealt with in a scientific and empirical manner. And unlicensed particle accelerators DO SO count.

Ahem. But, as to the actual question - if we must exclude time travel, parodies, and unintentionally funny sci-fi films (as well as, it seems, anything with fantastical elements), then you're left with... not much.

The only thing that leaps to my mind, really, is not a film but a novel: A Civil Campaign by Lois Bujold is a comedy of manners in a sci-fi setting.

But I can't think of anything in the film medium that compares. Brazil, maybe, though I personally find that one more unsettling than funny.

What about Rocky Horror? Sure, it's time travel, but the humor doesn't rely on anachronisms.

Time travel? Rocky Horror is a farce of sorts and relies upon at least some knowledge of 50s sci-fi movies, but I can't remember any time travel in it. But I totally agree that the humor is character driven (or perhaps actor driven) rather than relying on its references.

What about the Honey I Xed The Kids series? I haven't actually watched any of them but it seems they might fit the criteria. And thinking of Real Genius, you'd have to include Weird Science as well... but My Science Project fails on the time travel tip.

I can't believe no one has mentioned Dark Star yet. And does the flying saucer scene in Life of Brian make it a scifi flick?

Wierd Science is strictly fantasy where "science" is invoked in lieu of the traditional fairy tale wish-granting entity.

Dark Star is a firm SF comedy. Any movie with a CW song about near-light speed travel on a love affair deserves consideration.

Another little gem is Heartbleeps, a tender romantic comedy about a love affair between two robots as played by Andy Kauffman and Bernadette Peters. (It ends happily, they make a little robot.)

John Scalzi : Are there some examples that I'm missing that will totally invalidate my theories here?
No recent example comes to mind, but your axioms don't seem to have been valid yet in the 50s : SF premisses could then yield pure slapstick comedy : see Howard Hawks' Monkey Business , for instance ; or result in a comedy of manners, such as Walter Lang's Desk Set...

I think the problem, John, comes from trying to limit the categories ... or trying to relegate a movie to just one category. Fifth Element is ruled out of bounds because it wasn't billed as a comedy ... but comedy runs all through it. Likewise, one might rule out a comedy with sci-fi elements - such as Real Science - simply because the science isn't "real" or "serious," or it's just not "the point." That just doesn't make sense to me, I'm afraid. It's too easy to rule out everything.

I mean, come on ... what's the point behind Star Wars? Does it really depend upon the science fiction elements? Or does it still work with seven samurai? Does Howard the Duck count as sci-fi comedy, or does it miss the cut for not being funny? And where the hell do we fit 12 Monkeys or Brazil?

Another question: can there really be comedy without farce? Even slapstick is farcical violence. Doesn't matter if it's a couple of Ewoks beating up a storm trooper or Tony Stark being slammed into the wall. (And his robot shooting him in the face with the fire extinguisher totally cracked me up.) Is Chevy Chase too serious to count the Invisible Man as a comedy, or is he too funny to count Spies Like Us as science fiction? Does Wall-e work because it's a robot playing with a paddle ball, or is that just a different kind of incongruity, like Chekov searching for nuclear wessels.

You know, the funniest, laugh-out-loud moment for me in A Bug's Life was when the kids painted a picture of Heimlich, cut in half "for dramatic effect." Oh, the look on his face! But that's character-driven, not caterpillar-driven. And making Spock eat Italian food is just as funny, whatever the color of your blood.

Cheers,

Ted

Dr. Stangelove is comedy so black it's almost film noir.

As for sf and comedy, you can't beat Repo Man.

I'm a big Buckaroo Banzai fan. I think the reason so many hate it is because it's very subtle in its humor and the campiness is the first thing that you see.

The quotes alone make it worth watching. "The man's been through solid matter, for crying out loud. Who knows what's happened to his brain? "

I thought Dark Star would fit the description, too. Wall-E reminds me of the robot in Short Circuit, too.

Is Wall-E a comedy? It is definitely sci-fi, a children's film, and has comic moments, but comedy is tertiary, behind the distopic sci-fi and the romance stories. Aside from that minor point, I agree with Scalzi. ;-)

The list of SF movies is going to very short indeed if we must leave off parodies and Time Travel.
One of the reasons that SF film has so few true comedies in it is that SF film tends to be either adventure or Big Idea. Adventure will often have comedic moments -- which Joss Whedon is the master of -- but over all it will not be comedy because that dilutes the adventure too much. The Big Idea movie - much more common in SF film, is a message movie of a sorts and no one wants there 'message' laughed at. (Doesn't mean it can't be good. The Day The Earth Stood Still is a message film as is GATTACA and both are fine films.)
Where you do find SF comedies is in the real of social SF film that are made with satire as the comedic theme. Both the Original Death Race 2000, and The Truman Show are examples of funny, SF, comedies. Not hard sf of course, but SF just the same.

The only funny non-parody or time-travel one I can think of is that "Evolution" movie with David Duchovny a few years back. It's nowhere in the league of "Ghostbusters" or "Wall-E", but it's certainly worth renting or TIVOing. The evolutionary "science" in the film is wretched, but it's not any worse than the nonsense, faux-physics in Star Trek.