What happened to the funny?

I mean, at least since 2018?

Movie poster from One Battle After Another, which is a lot of things but “a comedy” isn’t one of them.

Last month, the Golden Globes gave the award for “Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy” to One Battle After Another.

My wife and I watched it. It’s well made, but if it’s a comedy, it’s a very dark one.

I haven’t actually seen the other movies that were nominated, but if One Battle After Another won, it suggests the pickings in the comedy genre were kind of slim.

It reminds me when I got the prize for being the third-best 7th grade French honors student in Rhode Island way back when.

I was proud, but this wasn’t exactly an enormously populated category.

(It’s Rhode Island, right? Also the first- and second-place winners were my classmates, which means I was both third-best in the state, and also third-best French student in Madame Parker’s class.)

Mais je m’égare.

I recommend Death by Lightning

The point is that I can’t remember the last thing my wife and I sought out to watch that was designed to make us laugh. (In fairness, we don’t watch a ton of TV. If something’s on in the background while I’m writing, it’s almost always the NHL. Outside of the Toronto Maple Leafs, there’s not a lot of comedy.)

When I think about the shows we’ve actually chosen over the past few years, the list looks like this:

– The Pitt
– Andor
– The Last of Us
– Tehran
– Death by Lightning (which I watched solely because my number-1 favorite president of all time, Chester A. Arthur, is in it—and is played by Nick Offerman)

All excellent, but none that you’d call a comedy.

Actually, when I asked my wife, she reminded me that we watched Derry Girls, which is hilarious, but that premiered in 2018, although we only discovered it later.

Also: Fleabag and Catastrophe. Maybe we’re only into Anglo-Irish comedy?

Regardless, again: 2015 and 2016.

Happiness shocks

Five years ago in this newsletter, I wrote about a study on something researchers charmingly called “happiness shocks.”

They showed people short funny clips, measured their mood, and then measured productivity. The happier people were more productive—by a lot.

For the image that day, I used a still from There’s Something About Mary (1998). I also listed a bunch of other movies that I had thought of using instead, which included:

A Fish Called Wanda (1988); Airplane! (1980); Anchorman (2004); Annie Hall (1977); Back to School (1986); Barbershop (2002); Best in Show (2000); Beverly Hills Cop (1984); Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989); Big (1988); Blazing Saddles (1974); The Blues Brothers (1980); Borat (2006); Bridesmaids (2011); Caddyshack (1980); Coming to America (1988); Crazy Rich Asians (2018); Dazed and Confused (1993); Elf (2003); Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986); Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); Friday (1995); Galaxy Quest (1999); The Graduate (1967); Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004); Heathers (1988); His Girl Friday (1940); Idiocracy (2006); Monty Python and the Holy Grail(1975); Napoleon Dynamite (2004); Office Space (1999); Old School (2003); Parenthood (1989); Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987); Shaun of the Dead (2004); Some Like It Hot (1959); Spaceballs (1987); Team America: World Police(2004); Stripes (1981); The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005); The Hangover (2009); This Is Spinal Tap (1984); Tootsie (1982); Trading Places (1983); Trainwreck (2015); Wedding Crashers (2005); Weekend at Bernie’s (1989).

Yes, Young Frankenstein

Then, I asked readers to suggest ones I’d missed. Here’s what readers came up with, with how many people named each one:

– Caddyshack (1980) (3)
– Young Frankenstein (1974) (3)
– Christmas Vacation (1989) (2)
– Dodgeball (2004) (2)
– Dumb and Dumber (1994) (2)
– Step Brothers (2008) (2)
– There’s Something About Mary (1998) (2)
– Airplane! (1980) (1)
– Tommy Boy (1995) (1)
– Animal House (1978) (1)
– My Cousin Vinny (1992) (1)
– Fletch (1985) (1)
– The Princess Bride (1987) (1)
– Hot Fuzz (2007) (1)
– Rat Race (2001) (1)
– Overboard (1987) (1)
– Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) (1)
– Arthur (1981) (1)
– The Big Lebowski (1998) (1)

What strikes me now is not just how funny those movies still are. It’s how old they are.

Most of them are from the 1980s, 1990s, or early 2000s. Very few are from the last decade. Almost none are recent.

Which leads to the uncomfortable question:

What’s happened?

Tell me something funny

Have we lost the communal ability to laugh?

Or, alternartive theory: have I just missed what’s funny now?

There’s a temptation to say it’s because we’re living through a rough time. But the first time I asked this question was during the height of the pandemic, so …

So I want to put the same question back to you, updated for 2026:

What’s going on? Have we lost something? Or have I just been looking in the wrong place?

And if you think I’ve just been looking in the wrong place:

What’s something genuinely funny—preferably recent—that we should seek out?

Science says happiness shocks work. But what if you can’t find the funny?

Bonne soirée, Madame Parker, wherever you are.

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Other things:

• A U.S. intelligence whistleblower alleged wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Problem: the complaint is so highly classified it has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress, dating back to last May. Gabbard has been an enigmatic figure in the Trump administration, sidelined from major national-security matters and tasked with investigating the results of the 2020 election that President Trump lost. (WSJ)

• President Trump on Monday called for Republican lawmakers to nationalize voting — claiming a power explicitly granted to states in the U.S. Constitution. Speaking to right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino, Trump again falsely alleged that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and he urged Republicans to “take over” elections and nationalize the process. (The Washington Post)

• This next article has four bylines but is based entirely on unnamed intelligence sources. So, put in the “Gigantic ... if True” category: Jeffrey Epstein was running ‘the world’s largest honeytrap operation’ on behalf of the KGB when he procured women for his network of associates, intelligence sources believe. The release of more than three million new documents ... gives credence to incendiary claims made by senior security officials: that Epstein was working on behalf of Moscow, and possibly Israel, when he facilitated assignations for some of the world’s most powerful men. (Daily Mail)

• CBS News is expected to cut ties with new contributor Peter Attia, a wellness expert, after he appeared more than 1,700 times in the recent Epstien file dump, “making crude jokes, offering to help Epstein live longer ‘for the ladies,’ and gushing about Epstein’s ‘outrageous’ lifestyle.” (The Wrap)

• A political row has erupted in Spain over the government’s decision to grant residency to about 500,000 undocumented migrants. Spain’s population has increased by 1.5 million in the past three years to 48.9 million, with nearly all the increase down to immigration. Latin Americans make up 70 per cent of the recent arrivals. But with about 90 percent of new jobs going to immigrants, income per person has barely grown. (The Times)

• Utah’s governor signed a bill expanding the state Supreme Court from five justices to seven as frustration has mounted among Republican lawmakers over a string of defeats before the tribunal. Once he fills the new seats, Gov. Spencer Cox will have appointed five of the seven sitting justices. (AP)

• Five days in the office is the least popular way to work. Bosses are mandating it anyway. (CNBC)