Ever since I could see, my love for movies made me watch films almost everyday. In fact, when I was younger, my parents would tell me my eyes went bad because I would sit right in front of the television. I still don’t believe that.
Since this “becoming an adult” business has been scaring me lately, I have been thinking about my childhood a lot. And of course, since that’s been going through my head all summer, so have the movies that I used to enjoy as a kid.
Now that I am older, my movie watching goes between many different genres; but when I was young, I was mainly interested in comedies. So I decided to make a list and review the top five funniest movies for children.
This was a difficult task to achieve considering there are too many funny movies from my childhood that I would include. In order to come up with a list of five, I set a couple conditions that the movies on the list had to meet.
- The movies cannot be animated. That’s just a personal thing. I can’t explain why, but I just don’t feel like animated movies should be in the same category as live-action movies. I like animation a lot, it’s actually a hobby, but I don’t consider the two the same.
- The movies have to have been made from when I was a kid to the present time. There are plenty of movies that came out before I was born that are perfect as children’s comedies, but I can’t include them in my list because they aren’t from my time. I will include movies that came out when I was not a child anymore though.
- There needs to be a little bit to none adult content included in the film. That just makes sense to me if it’s a list of children’s films. It doesn’t matter if kids wouldn’t understand the adult content, because it’s still there. Unfortunately, this gets rid of some Chris Farley and Adam Sandler movies that would definitely make my list.
With these conditions met, here is a list of the Top Five Funniest Children’s Films.
5. Heavy Weights (1995) –
This movie is about a couple of overweight kids that go to summer camp expecting to ride go-karts and jumping on a big blob into the lake. They soon find out that they are going to a fat camp that is run with an iron fist by Tony Perkins (Ben Stiller), who has turned the camp into a rigorous fitness facility. After Tony starts going insane, the campers try to escape and fight back. Ben Stiller does an amazing job as a lunatic camp counselor and the kids are hilarious. The movie is written very well and leaves you laughing hysterically and feeling bad for ever making fun of overweight people.
4. Home Alone (1990) –
The movie is about an eight-year-old boy named Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), who is accidentally left at home alone when his family flies to France for Christmas. This movie is a classic 90’s children’s comedy. Throughout the film, Kevin does what every eight-year-old boy would do if left unsupervised, whatever he feels like in order to have fun. The best moments in the film are when Kevin sets traps and scares off two robbers (Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci) that are attempting to get in his house. Stern and Pesci are perfect as the two clumsy and stupid bandits that can’t seem to fight against a small child. This film is the best of its kind and has some of the best slapstick comedy in film. 3. Dumb and Dumber (1994) –
Another 90’s movie that will be remembered as a classic for decades. The story focuses on two incredibly stupid losers that have nothing going right for them, Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels). After losing their jobs at the very beginning of the film, Harry and Lloyd take a trip to Aspen, Colorado to return a briefcase left at the airport by Lloyd new crush, Mary Swanson (Lauren Holly). The film follows Lloyd and Harry’s trip across the country while they are being chased by criminals who are after the briefcase. This movie includes every type of comedy from toilet humor to slapstick. There isn’t one scene that will not make you laugh out loud.
2. Elf (2003) –
This is a movie is about an orphan raised by elf’s who decides to go to New York to meet his real father. Because he has grown up in the North Pole working for Santa Claus, he has no sense of what the world is like. The elf, Buddy (Will Ferrell), falls in love with Jovie (played wonderfully by the very cute and talented Zooey Deschanel), meets his father (James Caan) and a new family, and helps save Christmas by getting people to believe in Santa Claus again. This is Will Ferrell”s best movie. His acting is superb as the always excited and happy sugar loving and syrup eating elf. The film is a great family and Christmas classic.
1. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) –
This movie is considered to be one of the funniest movies to have been made in the U.S. The film is about a father (Robin Williams) who feels like he doesn’t get enough time with his children and decides to dress up like a woman in order to be their nanny when they are at their mother’s house. Robin Williams is hilarious as always in this great family film. His acting cannot get any better or any funnier than it is in this movie. He even does a little bit of ad-lib during the movie. The movie progresses more and more as Williams tries to hide his identity from his own children. In the end, it leaves you thinking about how much you love your own family.
Some information has been used from IMDB.com.
