"Just a flesh wound."

Last night I came across a video compilation of old Road Runner cartoons. I hadn't seen any of them in years, so I kicked back and watched the whole thing. It was just like old times -- I swear I laughed for a solid 55 minutes. My stomach hurt and my eyes watered. All I had to do was see the name "Acme," and I lost it. That and Wile E. Coyote's facial expressions before plummeting down yet another steep ravine. I laughed just thinking of questions that never occurred to me as a child. Where did he get all those devices? Where exactly was his mailbox? How did he pay for them? I'd like to see their catalog. It got me thinking of every truly historic laugh I'd ever had. I'll only stick to movies and TV, since my personal memories wouldn't translate as well.

All I have to is write "Holy Grail" and most of you will get it right away. The "Black Knight" scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail was a tactical error because it came too soon in the movie. I got a cramp from laughing so hard, and as funny as the rest of the movie was, it never reached that height of hilarity for me. The king wants to pass through a forest, but the Black Knight blocks his way. They draw swords, and right away the king lops off one of the knight's arms, with much gushing of the group's patented fake blood.

King Arthur:    Now, stand aside, worthy adversary!
Black Knight:   'Tis but a scratch!
King Arthur:    A scratch? Your arm's off!
Black Knight:  No, it isn't!
King Arthur:   Well, what's that then?
Black Knight:  I've had worse.

This goes on, with the king lopping off limb after limb ("It's just a flesh wound"). He insists there's no point in continuing, but the knight keeps baiting him. When the knight finally ends up on the ground, without arms or legs but still upright, he demands the king come back and threatens to bite his legs off. Kills me every time.

It seems no one can agree on just which scene from This is Spinal Tap is the funniest. The Stonehenge number? The band trying to find the stage? I pick their grand entrance as they emerge from lifesize pods onstage, except one of the pods malfunctions and the Derek Smalls character can't get out. As the other two proceed with their opening number, you see the crew noisily trying to extricate him in the background.

I wasn't old enough to watch Your Show of Shows in the 1950s, but I did see the compilation movie Ten From Your Show of Shows a few years later. I was still young enough to literally be rolling on the floor in front of the TV set, and one sketch did it: a parody of the old hit show This is Your Life called "This is Your Story." Carl Reiner plays the show's host and Sid Caesar the unsuspecting audience member who has to be chased and carried onto the stage. I just checked, and you're in luck -- it's available on YouTube! If that opening doesn't grab you, watch as Caesar is reunited with his childhood mentor "Uncle Goofy" (Howard Morris). It's a master class in physical comedy.

The original Honeymooners was and is my favorite TV show (again, I wasn't old enough to remember when it first aired). My favorite episode is "Pal o' Mine," in which Kramden and Norton have a falling out after a ring Ed has bought as a gift for his boss gets stuck on Ralph's finger. In what I call the funniest sequence of the whole series, Ralph is told that Ed has had an accident in the sewer, and so he rushes to the hospital, where he volunteers to give his pal a blood transfusion, only it's for another patient, not Ed. Here's perhaps the greatest double-double take ever: Ed walks over to the nurse's station, not seriously hurt after all. He's standing there waiting for the doctor to discharge him when Ralph is wheeled past him on a gurney. They acknowledge each other casually as he disappears into a room for the transfusion. Then we see Ed's face as he realizes who that was, and a second later Ralph comes storming out of the room in his hospital gown. For me, it's a great TV moment in any comedy genre. There's also a bonus, a perfect last line: Ralph realizes he has to do the right thing and go through with the transfusion. They shake hands, and, as Ralph walks away with the doctor, Ed says, "And hey, doc, can you see what you can do about getting that ring off of his finger?"

Silent Movie wasn't Mel Brooks' masterpiece, but it did have my favorite Mel Brooks moment (even moreso than the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles). Brooks himself, Dom DeLuise, and Marty Feldman are trying to raise capital for the silent movie they want to make. To do so, they pursue a number of celebrities who play themselves (and, in several instances, poke fun at their own image). In Liza Minnelli's scene, she's having lunch in a film studio commissary, and the trio decide to raid the costume department so she won't recognize them right away. So they enter the commissary dressed in big, clanking suits of armor, and Minnelli looks on with a straight face as they try to sit down on plastic chairs at her table. That's all there is to it, and it's a gut-buster, believe me. (Oh, and the only word spoken in the entire movie is "No," when Brooks calls Marcel Marceau to ask for the money.)

Stanley Kramer, who isn't known as a laugh riot, made one of the funniest comedies I've seen, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. This is one movie where it's practically impossible to select one single scene as the best, but I have two: Jonathan Winters singlehandedly demolishing an entire filling station, and the little Mexican boy waving goodbye to Phil Silvers as Silvers' car slowly sinks into the river.

Then there's Jack Lemmon dressed up as "Daphne" in Some Like It Hot. Joe E. Brown's last line of the movie, delivered to Lemmon in a motorboat, has been called the greatest last line of any comedy film. Brown, as the millionaire Osgood, has an answer for every argument as to why Lemmon can't marry him, until an exasperated Lemmon yanks off his wig and says, "I'm a man!" Brown just continues smiling and says, "Well, nobody's perfect." But I also like the hotel room scene between Tony Curtis (as "Geraldine") and Lemmon after Osgood (Brown) has proposed marriage. Shaking a pair of maracas as he moves around the room (still swooning from a night of dancing), Lemmon is oblivious to Curtis's insistence that he can't go through with a wedding. "Why would a guy want to marry a guy?" he says finally. "Security," Lemmon replies with another shake of the maracas.

I could cite so many more wonderful comedy moments -- Elaine's dance in Seinfeld, Latka Gravis's alter ego Vic Ferrari in Taxi, Sigourney Weaver trying to seduce Bill Murray while possessed by a demon in Ghostbusters (Weaver: "I want you inside me." Murray: "It sounds like you've got at least two or three people in there already") , the Marx Brothers trying to get off a ship by impersonating Maurice Chevalier in Monkey Business -- I'm sure you can think of your own favorites, too.

So finally, because I have to wrap this up somehow, there's Kevin Costner's immortal line in Bull Durham, a film filled with immortal lines. Costner's catcher, "Crash" Davis, has just told the batter what ball Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) is about to pitch because LaLoosh has been shaking off his signals. Sure enough, the guy hits a high flying homer out somewhere beyond the ballpark. The dumbfounded pitcher stands there staring into space where the ball disappeared as Davis walks up to him.

Davis: Man that ball got outta here in a hurry. I mean anything travels that far oughta have a damn stewardess on it, don't you think?