Comedy

Comedy is a genre (or type) of film that is very popular with young audiences. How do film trailers make the most of the funny aspects of a film to make audiences giggle?

Humans have been trying to make each other laugh for hundreds of years. Filmmakers have been doing the same since the first silent movies of the early twentieth century. Comedies take everyday aspects of life and shine a light on the funny side of things. Quite often, a comedy deals with something really familiar and puts a twist on it to make us laugh.

Download the Comedy Trailer Spreadsheet, watch the comedy trailers and fill in the missing information. Which trailers are the funniest and why?

The Queen’s Corgi
Shaun the Sheep Movie
Spies In Disguise
Playmobil: The Movie
Horrible Histories the Movie: Rotten Romans
The Queen’s Corgi
Universal

Features of comedies

Most comedies have the following ingredients to create the humour:

  • A comic hero: someone who is funny by nature or someone who is put in a funny situation, e.g. the ‘revolting’ British in Horrible Histories the Movies: Rotten Romans.
  • Disorder: something funny happens to disrupt the normality of the situation, e.g. the Queen’s corgi ends up in a dog rescue home.
  • Exaggeration: the language, action and characters are larger than life, e.g. Lance Sterling from Spies in Disguise isn’t any old spy, he’s the ‘World’s Greatest Secret Agent’.
  • Genre: there are different types of comedy, e.g. Shaun the Sheep is a ‘screwball/crazy’ comedy. Other types include slapstick (like Playmobil) and spoof (like the spoof historical movie, Horrible Histories the Movie: Rotten Romans).
  • Language: comedies (especially trailers) make use of puns, jokes and funny phrases. Quite often, the character’s names are a clever play on words, like Rex Dasher in Playmobil and the ‘I’m Farticus’ scene in Horrible Histories the Movie: Rotten Romans!