10 Classic Comedy Movies That Are Unwatchable Today

Humor is timeless … usually. Smash a whipped cream pie in someone’s face or slip on a banana peel and you’re bound to get people laughing. But make a very timely reference or lean on a stereotype and you’re bound to fall out of favor in a decade or two, as the comedy movies we’re covering for this article have proven beyond doubt — you’re far more likely to cringe and sigh than laugh out loud when watching them today.

The films listed here all contain outdated ideas or storylines. Maybe it’s the tone they present when they approach these topics, or maybe it’s the grating way their characters claim victory over the villains in their lives. They may have been beloved back when they came out, and they might still have their fans today, but these flicks now carry a certain amount of infamy. Here are 10 big-screen comedies that are utterly unwatchable now.

Intended as a geeky answer to “Animal House,” “Revenge of the Nerds” was a big hit back in the ’80s, and it spawned a long-lived franchise with multiple sequels. But decades later, its message of acceptance has been tainted by some pretty poorly aged plot elements. The movie was called out for its sexist, racist, and homophobic issues even when it was a new release. Years later, it’s pretty hard to watch our heroes sexually assault a woman by sin of omission. And while it’s arguable that Lamar Latrelle (Larry B. Scott) was a revolutionary character for bringing gay representation to the group, he and fellow nerd of color Toshiro Takashi (Brian Tochi) are stereotypical to the max — the flamboyant gay man and the quiet Asian, to be exact.

In the film, Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) are two new nerds on the college block who end up pledging Lambda Lambda Lambda — a fraternity otherwise made entirely of Black students — out of desperation. The Tri Lambs quickly become home to anyone who has been rejected by other organizations. They come into conflict with the Alpha Betas, a group of mean-spirited jocks who hazed and rejected Lewis and Gilbert when they tried to join their fraternity. The Tri Lambs gain popularity and start to get a foothold on campus. During this fast and furious prank war, Lewis impersonates one of the Alpha Betas and pretends to be him so he can have sex with his crush, Betty (Julia Montgomery). The Tri Lambs also install cameras in the sorority house of the Pi Delta Pis, where the girlfriends of the Alpha Betas live, and then sell nude photographs of the women they’ve taken surreptitiously. 

The work of John Hughes is mostly unimpeachably good. Though some elements of movies like “The Breakfast Club” have aged badly, his messages are too universal to be ignored and have ensured the longevity of his legend. Yet he appears twice on this list thanks to two memorably awkward entries in his filmography. First up is “Sixteen Candles,” which features one horrendous supporting character. Three words: Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe).

The extremely stereotypical Chinese exchange student is dragged to the Baker household by Sam’s (Molly Ringwald) grandparents. Everyone has gathered for the wedding of Sam’s older sister, Ginny (Blanche Baker), which has resulted in the whole family forgetting Sam’s birthday. Sam is miserable, between that and the fact that school hunk Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) doesn’t seem to know she’s alive in spite of her intense crush on him. Besides Long Duk Dong’s harassment, there’s Ted (Anthony Michael Hall), who tries to look like a big shot with the other nerds by pretending he’s having sex with Sam. It’s treated as a triumphant moment when the twosome bond and Sam gives Ted her underwear to show off to the other boys. Jake’s relationship with his party-hearty girlfriend Caroline (Haviland Morris) is also questionable, to say the least. It dead-ends with Jake basically offering Caroline up to Ted, after remarking aloud that he could “violate her 10 different ways if I wanted to.” Ted and Caroline have an ambiguous encounter while she’s drunk — a messy and uncomfortable plot twist that makes audiences wince to this day. Talk about an ’80s movie hit that hasn’t aged well.

Basing a romantic musical comedy around “The Rape of the Sabine Women” was never going to age well, but “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” has had an impressive legacy behind it. And yet it’s still hard to watch with modern eyes, no matter how many of the songs make your toes tap and how lighthearted the production’s tone. It doesn’t take itself seriously, which helps make it much more palatable than it ought to be — but its central conceit is difficult to swallow so many years later.

Barmaid Milly (Jane Powell) receives an unexpected proposal from frontiersman Adam Pontipee (Howard Keel). She eagerly accepts, anticipating a homestead all her own. What she learns is that Adam has six unmarried brothers, all of whom still live at home and expect her to wait on them hand and foot. Milly rebels but must coax them into taking care of themselves like Snow White with her seven dwarves. The brothers use their newfound manners to attract a flock of girls at a barn raising dance. Though the yearning between all parties is mutual, Adam encourages the brothers to kidnap their brides, which results in an avalanche. This traps the initially traumatized women at the Pontipee cabin with Milly, Adam, and the boys for the rest of the winter. It’s a squirmathon as we watch these girls cry for their mothers while the brothers act like puzzled boobs about their reluctance to be kidnapped. Everyone snaps out of it because it’s a happy musical, but getting there is quite the tough process.

“Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” proved that Jim Carrey had what it took to be a movie star — but its plot is heavily marinated in ’90s-era transphobia, which ought to be left in the past. Sadly, the film and others like it have continued to inform transphobic language and stereotyping in modern television shows like “South Park” and “Family Guy,” leaving behind an unfortunate impression that continues to haunt the film’s reputation years later.

The titular pet detective (Carrey) is called into action when Snowflake, the mascot of the Miami Dolphins, is kidnapped from Joe Robbie Stadium. Ventura — in spite of his terrible reputation with the Miami Police Department — is hired due to his special set of skills. He teams up with the Dolphins’ publicist, Melissa Robinson (Courteney Cox), to track down the culprit. Along the way, he’s mocked and belittled at every turn by Chief Lt. Lois Einhorn (Sean Young), whom he kisses.

But Ventura then discovers that Einhorn is a trans woman, a plot point that’s used to make fun of her as well as double-underline her villainy when she turns out to be one of the people behind Snowflake’s kidnapping. Both he and Einhorn’s fellow officers vomit uncontrollably when they learn about Lois’ original gender. The entire plotline is supposed to be a parody of “The Crying Game,”  but that film managed to handle the notion of a trans protagonist with a modicum of dignity. No one expects an Ace Ventura movie to have grace or class, but this was beyond the pale even for a film of its caliber.

“National Lampoon’s Animal House” is a towering, legendary comedy that’s got plenty of good things going for it decades later. It might be one of the funniest movies of all time. It’s definitely impossible to ignore the legacy it’s left behind — and also pretty unwatchable in some aspects, years after its party-hearty, slobs-versus-snobs ethos has faded from public view. It’s fun in its anarchic views — but let’s face it, it’s got some themes that have aged pretty poorly over the years.

Chief among those uncomfortable plotlines is Otter’s (Tim Matheson) date with Clorette (Sarah Holcomb), who is revealed to be 13 and with whom he makes out while she’s drunk. Thankfully, he doesn’t rape her while she’s passed out, though it’s implied he considers it. Bluto Blutarsky (John Belushi) peeps on girls — a fairly minor sin compared to the mess that is Boon (Peter Riegert) and Katy’s (Karen Allen) romance. Watch it for the food fights, toga parties, and wild parade disruptions — but you might be surprised when you find yourself turning it off midstream. 

A number of Woody Allen films have become retroactively unwatchable over the years, thanks to several uncomfortable themes that continuously resurface in his work. Said themes are most prominent in the highly decorated hit “Manhattan” — and in spite of its reputation, the years have not been kind to it at all.

In the film, 42-year-old comedy writer Isaac David (Allen) dates 17-year-old high school student Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), who is set to go off to London to attend an acting program. Isaac becomes intrigued by Mary (Diane Keaton), the girlfriend of his married buddy Yale (Michael Murphy), and dumps Tracy to date Mary. He falls in love with Mary but comes to regret his choice due to Mary’s continuing and complicated feelings for Yale. He realizes his fear that Tracy will lose her charm and become corrupted by the wider world is probably unfounded. That’s a whole lot to unpack, and when one considers how much we allegedly know about Allen now, one can only cringe at the movie’s sweetness and light treatment of its central inappropriate union.

Modernizing “Taming of the Shrew” for new audiences is never an easy thing. “Overboard” updated the Bard’s work for the ’80s, but it still had plenty of flaws in spite of its continued status as a lovable rom-com and a much-adored hit from that era.

At the heart of “Overboard” lies one simple fact — our hero, Dean Proffitt (Kurt Russell), lies to our heroine, Joanna Stayton (Goldie Hawn), that she’s his wife and the mother of his children when she ends up with amnesia. He tries to claim revenge on her after she stiffs him on a payment when he fails to build her a shoe closet that meets her ridiculously high expectations. Joanna is mean, snobbish, and intemperate, so the audience is supposed to root for her to improve as a person, then turn the tables on Dean. She does manage to do that, but for the entire first half of the film, Dean holds the woman he comes to love in service bondage until she proves her worth to him as a wife and mother. There’s a reason why Anna Faris’ attempt at dragging the movie into the 2000s with a 2018 remake bombed with critics; it’s hard to get modern audiences to swallow such a fairy-tale setup these days.

While some ’80s sex comedies have aged even more poorly than “Porky’s” — “Private Lessons,” we’re looking at you — “Porky’s” helped define an entire era of teen sex comedies, causing an entire cottage industry of imitators to spring up in its wake. But these days, it’s little more than a fond Gen X memory of that time when you had to learn about teenage life from scrambled Cinemax broadcasts or illicitly rented VHS tapes. 

Set in 1954 and following a group of high school seniors from Angel Beach, Florida, “Porky’s” is about the boys’ quests to lose their virginity. They make an enemy of the titular Porky (Chuck Mitchell) by trying to solicit strippers working at his club for sex. He takes their money and dumps them into the swamp outside his door. When one of the boys, Mickey Jarvis (Roger Wilson), is bold enough to return to the club, he’s beaten for his troubles, starting up a feud between the two parties. The sheer tonnage of underage sexual activity here — not to mention the sight of Kim Cattrall howling like a dog as her character has semi-public sex in a high school supply closet — is enough to give even the least discerning comedy fan pause. There’s a reason why it’s a movie franchise that will never be rebooted.

And here’s our second John Hughes entry. While it’s hard to deny the ironclad appeal of Kelly LeBrock’s Lisa, “Weird Science” is thematically awkward, and there have been hundreds of productions that have taken better advantage of the notion of artificial intelligence run amok. 

Teenagers Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) and Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) decide to boost their popularity to earn the attention of two popular cheerleaders who are romantically entangled with their bullies. Out of desperation, they use their geeky skills to create their dream woman out of a doll and hack information from a government computer system. They get way more than they bargained for with Lisa, who bends reality to her will and will do absolutely anything for the both of them. Two teenage boys get what amounts to a genie in a bottle — and they naturally throw a party, try to win the girls, and have their revenge on the kids who were mean to them. Lisa manages to develop a personality and a will of her own, which is about all that saves the film from its own creepy premise.

Last in line is “Never Been Kissed,” which is both a modern rom-com classic — and hard to watch because of the student-teacher relationship it centers. While this is no “To Die For” situation, and Josie (Drew Barrymore) is an adult roughly Sam’s (Michael Vartan) age, it’s still kind of skeevy to watch these two flirt and fall in love because Sam doesn’t know that Josie is a grown-up, too.

Josie is a copy editor with the Chicago Sun-Times, and a socially awkward 25-year-old who’s never had a relationship thanks to the teasing she suffered as a teenager. Her boss assigns her an article to write about the goings-on at the local high school and finds herself struggling with social castes, the pressure of her job, and her burgeoning crush on Sam. Josie has to develop the courage to be herself, which means leaving her old reputation as “Grossie Josie” behind her and discovering who she really is at heart.