Photo Credit (Greety Images)

Humor is one of the most subjective things in life. Comedy in particular is the ultimate divider; the movies that people enjoy can either bring your closest friends together or make them laugh at you for days. You can’t help but make fun of that one friend who still finds Frasier hilarious or the guy who is obsessed with Gerard Butler’s romantic comedies. Indeed, there are people like that.

Not that we follow the advice of rigid critics or eminent cinema historians to the letter, either. The majority of our favorite comedies are really films that were criticized harshly when they were first released in theaters. We present Kingpin, the vilest comedy of 1996, which was directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly (Dumb And Dumber, There’s Something About Mary), for your approval. The foul-mouthed, R-rated film, which starred Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Bill Murray as bowling competitors, barely made $25 million at the box office despite a barrage of unfavorable reviews.

But for our humorous tastes, Kingpin has held up rather well, much like that lovely dame Helen Mirren. And you’re not alone. We’ve put up a list of 25 underappreciated ’90s comedy because this is as good a moment as any to give other films from the decade their long-overdue, rightful credit. Do you share our inclinations?

Beach Phat

If reruns of Boy Meets World continue to air daily to this day, then old episodes from after Vincent Chase’s ascent to Hollywood fame will undoubtedly reappear in syndication. Doug Ellin, the creator of HBO’s Entourage, has made a contribution to popular culture that will probably stay in the public subconscious for years, if not decades, to come. However, we believe Ellin deserves recognition for more than just Entourage—will we ever overlook the masterpiece of directing that is Phat Beach? Hell no.

Should you be fortunate enough to discover Phat Beach late one evening on a good cable network, you should do yourself a favor and watch. As a fast food chef who, against his parents’ wishes, goes to a beach in Southern California to pick up women with his witty boy (Brian Hicks, the original Mike Epps), Jermaine “Huggy” Hopkins (the black Jonah Hill of his day) holds it down.

Although Ellin’s shoddy film is terrible, it is still incredibly entertaining. It is a far cry from the beach pictures of the 1960s, such as those lively Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello collaborations. Phat Beach more than deserves its hate-yourself-for-loving-it stripes, whether it’s because of the blatantly contrived humor or co-star Claudia Kaleem’s amazing bikini figure.

Just trouble

Rap aficionados only know it for its crucial part in Tupac Shakur’s musical career (Digital Underground’s “Same Old Song,” which included 2Pac’s first line, was on its soundtrack), while critics detest it. But in our opinion, Dan Aykroyd’s idiotic comedy Nothing But Trouble is a peculiarly captivating clusterfuck of a high-concept comedy.

When a smitten moneyman (Chevy Chase) invites his crush (Demi Moore) to a trip to Atlantic City, they are arrested after ignoring a stop sign on the New Jersey Turnpike. Instead of being taken to police headquarters, they are taken to Valkevania, a strange village where a strange-looking Justice of the Peace (Aykroyd in unsightly makeup) tortures and murders traffic infractions.

Nothing But Trouble has a brilliantly odd element that works to its advantage, even though the plot is a steaming pile of nonsense. There are unneeded appearances by Shock G and Pac, the late, great John Candy portraying a silent overweight woman, and Aykroyd playing repulsive pig-like twins who are obsessed with breakfast cereal. What is the meaning of it all? Nothing at all. Is it a fun failure? Yes.

How to Be a Player by Def Jam

Admittedly, the primary reason we listen to Def Jam’s “How to Be a Player” again and again is solely hormonal. The 90-minute How to Be a Player has more sexy tail in view than a month’s worth of HBO programming, as any straight man who has ever watched Bill Bellamy’s long-forgotten leading man debut—which is more well-known for its hip-hop all-star soundtrack than its cinematic merits—will understand.

Regarding the film itself, How to Be a Player is amusing enough to merit a fair commendation. The primary womanizer is played by Bellamy with tolerable slackness, while his clumsy sidekicks, Anthony Johnson, Jermaine “Huggy” Hopkins, and Pierre Edwards, frequently contribute catchy one-liners.

The film’s legion of stunning beauty queens, who are all ordered to do little more than steam things up, is the only reason it made our list, though. No, we don’t currently feel proud of ourselves.

The Encino Man

Alright, so some of the people on this list make us really unimpressed, especially this encounter between the legendary actors Brendan Fraser and Pauly Shore. Fuck it, though; we’re bold enough to confess it—and stupid enough to wager that you’re just as likely as we are to watch Encino Man on cable.

This countdown’s goal isn’t to only highlight a film’s artistic merits or underappreciated genius; sometimes we’re here to praise films that make us chuckle in spite of the general consensus, and Sean Astin’s pre-Rudy attempt for post-Goonies fame isn’t much better.

Encino Man established a new standard for guilty pleasure entertainment, but it did not propel the future Samwise Gamgee to A-list fame. Fraser plays a defrosted caveman who befriends two social outcasts (Astin and Shore) and then wins their high school popularity contest. What’s not to love about that? Yes, there are many things to dislike about it, particularly the way that Shore’s never-funny “weasel” shtick is overdone to the point of sadism. Unfortunately, though, we are consistently taken aback by Encino Man’s mind-tainting foolishness. We’re certainly not alone in feeling this way. Closeted Linkavitch Chomofksy fanatics, get a life.

Keep the babysitter’s death a secret from Mom.

Christina Applegate is one of the funniest actors in the business, and she should be given far more credit than she has. She would have been fantastic in a film like Bad Teacher, for instance; she would have been far more suited to play a rude, potty-mouthed, and extremely attractive grammar school teacher, but sadly, Cameron Diaz was cast in the part. It’s past time for the former Kelly Bundy to make her A-list debut.

Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, a post-Home Alone experiment in “parent-less kids gone wild” comedy, showcased Applegate’s early skills outside of Married… With Children. She portrays the eldest of five siblings, at the age of seventeen, who must find employment after lying about her age when their elderly live-in caregiver passes away and the children’s single mother leaves town for the summer.

Working with an uneven script, Applegate displays her charms as the sophisticated straight woman to the varied eccentricities of her co-stars. Even at its most ridiculous, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead succeeds as a teenage girl’s fantasy vehicle; for us, it offers both innocuous laughs and Applegate-specific eye candy. However, the jokes in the show miss almost as frequently as they connect. The success is gender-neutral.

Big Dad

Even while his supporters continue to support him at the box office, Adam Sandler seems pleased these days with ridiculously lowbrow comedies that offend people who used to like his much smarter films. While movies like Grown Ups and Just Go With It depict a man worth $100 million merely going through the motions, Sandler took his act to new heights more than ten years ago in Big Daddy, which is undoubtedly the actor-producer’s most heartfelt picture.

Since we are discussing Sandler, Big Daddy’s portrayal of teenage anguish is far from Spielbergian, but it is still far more mature than most of Sandler’s work. Living off a $200,000 cash settlement from a car accident, he portrays an underachiever who, when he is tasked with caring for a brilliant orphan, learns about responsibility and, sigh, love. There are the usual sight gags, such as a pee session on the side of a fine restaurant and rollerbladers tripping up in a public park while holding sticks.

It’s difficult to criticize the man who more frequently creates brain-sullying garbage like Little Nicky for pushing his material into sweeter territory, but Sandler strikes a good balance with believable tender surrogate father-and-son moments amid the sophomoric tomfoolery (jokes about an older man’s nutsack, running jokes about Hooters).

It’s also important to note that Rob Schneider’s only humorous role in Big Daddy is in any of his more brilliant and giving friend Sandler’s (the Memphis Bleek to the Sandman’s Jay-Z) films. That in and of itself is a minor miracle deserving of praise.

The Class Act

Film experts are naturally ready to dismiss rapper-led films as incompetent and worthless; after all, cinematic classics like Killa Season and MP Da Last Don have never received any accolades from reviewers. However, occasionally a hip-hop film defies the norm, and in 1992, Kid ‘N’ Play’s role-reversal comedy Class Act succeeded in doing so, in spite of what the general public said about it at the time.

Christopher “Kid” Christopher “Play” and Reid portray nerdy genius Duncan Pinderhughes, who must pass gym in order to graduate. Martin, on the other hand, is Blade Brown, a criminal who will go to jail if he doesn’t complete his education. Blade’s life becomes Duncan’s due to a transcript error, and vice versa. Blade pretends to be a bookworm in order to win over a gorgeous straight-A student (Karyn Parsons from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), while Duncan turns into a thug who steals the hoodrat with a golden heart (and the derriere of a Stairmaster model).

Since Class Act hasn’t prompted any critics to go back and give Kid ‘N’ Play’s funniest film its long-overdue, rightful credit, let’s do it. House Party is given all the credit when it comes to the rap duo’s filmography, but Class Act is at least as good, if not better, in our opinion. More so than any of Kid ‘N’ Play’s tracks, for sure—we’re daring you to name one of them without looking it up on Wikipedia.

Danny DeVito, Gregory Hines, Mark Wahlberg, Stacey Dash, Kadeem Hardison, Lillo Brancato, Richard T. Jones, Khalil Kain, and Cliff Robertson are the stars of Renaissance Man.

In that sense, the inspirational comedy directed by Penny Marshall is a little too ambitious. Renaissance Man so obviously aspires to reside in the same domain of admiration as movies like Dead Poets Society. It frequently deviates into outright schmaltz, adding to the clichés of the “underachieving teacher enlightens a classroom full of younger misfits” while shamelessly appealing to the emotions of the audience.

With Danny DeVito in one of his more charming roles and a cast of characters who are both hot as hell (Stacey Dash), ancient (Kadeem Hardison), and soon-to-be-huge (Mark Wahlberg), Renaissance Man is a delightful film when it’s not overflowing with cheese.

DeVito’s character, a jobless and recently divorced schlub, meets with an unemployment office agent and is then transported to a nearby Army post to work as a civilian instructor. His students come from the lowest intellectual strata of the base; DeVito gains their trust by using William Shakespeare’s works as his main teaching tools and guiding the group of lost causes and previous troublemakers in more sensible directions.

It’s helpful that DeVito has a number of one-liners, the students’ banter is equal parts sardonic and quotable, and Stacey Dash looks the way she does because, as we mentioned, Renaissance Man’s thoughts are generic.

The Airheads

Airheads, a heavy metal take on Dog Day Afternoon, is one of those comedies that you can’t help but watch on cable TV; you put the remote control on the closest table, your mind goes into automatic pilot, and the foolishness both amuses and delights.

Nor does it take an Ivy League psychologist to figure out why exactly. Airheads mocks hardcore rock-n-roll types without disparaging them; in fact, director Michael Lehmann and his cast find long-haired rabble-rousers in torn jeans cute. This was made back when Brendan Fraser was genuinely funny and Adam Sandler was still a Saturday Night Live standout on the rise to greater things.

Fraser, Sandler, and a superbly maniacal Steve Buscemi portray three dimwitted rockers who break into the local metal radio station, kidnap the on- and off-air staffers with realistic-looking water pistols, and draw large audiences and hordes of coppers as they attempt to broadcast their demo. The film’s colorful cast of supporting actors, including Joe Mantegna as the station’s sardonic DJ, ensures that nothing falls woefully flat, and the three stars have a loose, lively rapport. And it’s hard not to enjoy a film that makes a lot of money off of naked Bea Arthur pictures. Never again was Golden Girls the same.