Madeline Kahn

Celebrate the ultimate frogs-to-riches story with the one that started it all - The Muppet Movie. Laugh along with the mostly-true story of how the Muppets got their start. From the very first "plunk!" of Kermit's banjo playing "The Rainbow Connection" (Oscar nominee, Best Original Song, 1979), to the hysterical road trip that brings our fearless frog together with Fozzie, Gonzo, Animal and most importantly of all, Miss Piggy, join the jam-packed heartwarming hilarity, outrageous antics and big-shot Hollywood cameos.

Mel Brooks' monstrously crazy tribute to Mary Shelley's classic pokes hilarious fun at just about every Frankenstein movie ever made. Summoned by a will to his late grandfather's castle in Transylvania, young Dr. Frankenstein (Wilder) soon discovers the scientist's step-by-step manual explaining how to bring a corpse to life. Assisted by the hunchback Igor (Feldman), he creates a monster (Boyle) who only wants to be loved.

Director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) tipped his hat to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s, and especially the most glorious of them all, Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby. Barbra Streisand plays a charming flake who distracts a self-absorbed musicologist (Ryan O'Neal). He's engaged to be married, but soon Streisand's character has him chasing after stolen jewelry and getting into one madcap fix after another.

Ryan O'Neal teams up with his daughter Tatum in this very bright, very warm and very funny period film for which Tatum won an Oscar in her first film role. Ryan O'Neal plays the smooth-talking con man Moses Pray, driving through depression-era Kansas with a carload of deluxe bibles, a gold tooth behind a convincing smile, and a list of newly widowed prospects for his line. Addie (Tatum O'Neal) is a cigarette-smoking, nine-year-old orphan who hooks up with Moses and manages to show the master con man a trick or two.

Mel Brooks's 1981, three-part comedy--set in the Stone Age, the Roman Empire, and the French Revolution--is pure guilty pleasure. Narrated by Orson Welles and featuring a lot of famous faces in guest appearances (beyond the official cast), the film opens well with Sid Caesar playing a caveman, then moves along to the unlikely but somehow hilarious juxtaposition of Caesar's soldiers (the other Caesar, not Sid) with pot humor, and ends on a dumb-funny note in the French bloodbath. This is a take-it-or-leave-it movie, and it works best if you're in a take-it-or-leave-it mood.

Mel Brooks scored his first commercial hit with this raucous Western spoof starring the late Cleavon Little as the newly hired (and conspicuously black) sheriff of Rock Ridge. Sheriff Bart teams up with deputy Jim (Gene Wilder) to foil the railroad-building scheme of the nefarious Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman). The simple plot is just an excuse for a steady stream of gags, many of them unabashedly tasteless, that Brooks and his wacky cast pull off with side-splitting success.