Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox opening lines to her poem "Solitude:, first published in 1883. I think Ms. Wilcox knew what she was talking about. The question is, just what makes us laugh? From before the days of radio comedy was king. The golden age of TV gave us shows like Your Show of Shows with Sid Ceaser and Imogena Coca; Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz ( the most famous Cuban of all time. Sure there's Castro but I can't quote him but give me a drum and I will sing bobalu).

Movies have always looked to comedy as a genre. From the days of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to the Blues Brothers we go to the movies to laugh. It's still hard to find that one thing that makes you laugh. The basic is football ( baseball, basketball, hockey puck, fist, foot, stick etc. ) to the groin. Is it the misfortune of others that makes us laugh? Even comedy itself doesn't know. That's why there are different kinds of comedy. Slapstick, the heart and soul of The Three Stooges, make men laugh out loud while women just don't understand. Black or Dark comedy is hard to define. I don't think it should be considered comedy, you don't laugh out loud but merely shake your head. Black or Dark comedy isn't funny it's more humorous. Then there's the Romantic comedy, the way love should be. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, boy lies to girl, they fall out of love, boy begs forgiveness, they fall back in love. The romantic comedy also has a subsection, the Coming of Age film. The same thing but with younger actors. Satire, Parody, Deadpan, Screwball, Farce. Spoof, Lampoon, the list goes on and on. So how, with all these different types of comedy do you list the best comedy films of all time? The American Film Institute (AFI) did in the year 2000. After publishing their list of 100 movies and 100 top movie lines and 100 top American movies and the list of their lists goes on. In 2000 they gave us AFI's 100 laughs. The top 100 comedy movies, sitting at number one is the Billy Wilder classic, Some Like it Hot. Now I'm not going to tell you that this film doesn't deserve to be number one, it's a good choice, but what followed was strange, numbers 2-5 were: Tootsie, Dr. Strangelove, Annie Hall, and Duck Soup. If I was to make my list none of those four would have made the top five. As a matter of fact I think I would have to have had a five way tie for first. Animal House, Arthur, Blues Brothers, Caddyshack and Some Like it Hot. A tie for second with the Mel Brooks films, Blazing Saddles, The Producers (the original) and Young Frankenstein. Third place is Monty Python's The Holy Grail. How does my list compare with AFI's, other than Some Like it Hot, the only movie I choose to make AFI's top ten is Blazing Saddles at number six. The Holy Grail didn't make the list but their criteria was American films. So just what movie or movies do you put at the top of your list?