For all intents and purposes, the ’90s were a widely top-notch decade when it came to comedy filmmaking, with a wide array of memorable and iconic films to choose from. From massive blockbuster hits like Jerry Maguire and There’s Something About Mary to beloved cult classics like Office Space and Dazed and Confused, there is no shortage of exceptional ’90s comedy films. However, the decade was far from perfect when it came to humor, with several ’90s comedies completely failing at making audiences laugh.
For a decade that was rife with experimentation and going against traditional standards, not every attempt at comedic subversion was met with positive reception from audiences or critics alike. Several of these comedies have become infamous and are considered among the worst comedies of all time, while others have entirely faded into obscurity due to their lack of any real impact or memorability. These complete comedic failures serve to only make the truly great comedy films of the ’90s that much better by comparison.
10
‘Exit to Eden’ (1994)
Directed by Garry Marshall
A comedic erotic thriller that falters due to the massive shift and inconsistency with its tones and styles, Exit to Eden is easily among the most forgotten and ignored studio comedies ever released. The film follows various parties, each in hot pursuit of photographer Elliot Slater (Paul Mercurio), who has inadvertently snapped the only existing photos of a prolific jewel thief. Now, while Elliot is on vacation on an S&M island, he finds himself followed by the thief (Stuart Wilson), his partner (Iman), and a duo of undercover police officers (Rosie O’Donnell and Dan Aykroyd).
The mixture of crime thriller stakes, goofy buddy cop antics, and sensual erotic S&M foreplay creates a strange, largely uninviting comedic experience more tiring and overwhelming than funny or even entertaining. Comedy thrillers can work exceptionally well, both before and after this film, even those with a more sexual premise. However, Exit to Eden fundamentally misunderstands what made this genre so effective in the first place.
Exit to Eden
- Release Date
-
October 14, 1994
- Runtime
-
113 minutes
9
‘Bio-Dome’ (1996)
Directed by Jason Bloom
One of many divisive comedies from ’90s icon Pauly Shore, Bio-Dome sees the comedian at the absolute lowest points of his comedic abilities in what is easily the most brainless of his ’90s comedy antics. Shore plays Bud, who, while accompanied by his best friend, Doyle (Stephen Baldwin), wanders into a high-stakes scientific bio-dome, isolated and sealed with no contact with the outside world. It doesn’t take long before the slackers end up completely upending the project, becoming a part of the experiment themselves.
While Bio-Dome finds inspiration from comedies that rely upon the antics and chemistry of a dim-witted duo such as Dumb and Dumber and Bill & Ted, it simply doesn’t have any of the charm or lasting appeal of those films. The duo of Bud and Doyle don’t come across as charmingly idiotic, but actively aggravating in their complete destruction and annoyance to everyone on and off-screen. While Bio-Dome has somehow become a relative cult classic of the era, it still receives widespread vitriol from audiences alike to this day.
8
‘North’ (1994)
Directed by Rob Reiner
While North is more commonly remembered for the scathing review by Roger Ebert, it is just as bad as the review suggests. The film follows eleven-year-old North (Elijah Wood), who, tired of his parents being too busy with their careers to give him attention, decides to search the world to find new parents who would truly care about him. North finds himself meeting a wide array of wild and intricate parents around the world, although each one manages to have a painful flaw.
Considering just how much raw comedic talent is present within North, it’s an absolute shock that the film is as blatantly unfunny and uninteresting as it is, completely floundering its premise and all the on-screen talent. It takes genuine skill to waste a supporting cast that includes the likes of Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jon Lovitz, Dan Aykroyd, Kathy Bates, and many more. A lot of the film’s flaws circle back to the fact that North himself is among the most pompous and unlikable characters in family movie history.
7
‘Kazaam’ (1996)
Directed by Paul Michael Glaser
A persistent trend that always seems prevalent, no matter what era of filmmaking, is the usage of popular, non-acting celebrities in the leading roles of films in an attempt to attract the attention of their already existing fans. While several terrible comedies have been released in the wake of non-comedians thrust into leading comedic roles, none is as largely infamous as Shaquille O’Neal playing a genie in Kazaam. The film sees Shaq as a genie summoned by young Max (Francis Capra) from a magical boombox after having been held captive for thousands of years.
While it isn’t exactly surprising that Shaq isn’t particularly great at comedic acting, the lengths to which Kazaam fundamentally fails what should be a simple, fun comedy are baffling. Instead of feeling like a goofy, highly creative fantasy comedy, Kazaam is largely lost in its execution, focusing on all the wrong details while remaining as formulaic and generic as possible. The screenplay is also especially painful, with lines like Shaq saying “Let’s green egg and ham it,” living in infamy as some of the most painfully unfunny lines of the entire decade.
6
‘Ed’ (1996)
Directed by Bill Couturié
Ed is one of those special types of films whose complete lack of quality is brazenly apparent from the get-go, to the point where it comes as a shock that anyone thought it would be a good idea. The film is exactly as brainless and idiotic as its premise entails, as it follows a professional baseball pitcher (Matt LeBlanc) traded away to a minor league team that features a chimpanzee as one of his teammates. While he attempts to get used to his new team and earn his way back to the big leagues, he forges an unexpected kinship with his primate teammate.
It’s clear while watching the film that Ed is only interested in the goofy concept of a chimp playing baseball, but has no idea how to actually execute it in an interesting way. The film has absolutely nothing to offer outside its premise; it quickly grows tiring and lacks any notable qualities, as the appeal of a baseball-playing monkey wears thin quickly. The film now holds a resounding legacy as one of the worst sports movies of all time, comedy or otherwise.
Ed
- Release Date
-
March 15, 1996
- Runtime
-
94 minutes
- Director
-
Bill Couturié
5
‘An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn’ (1997)
Directed by Alan Smithee
The conception of a film about the elusive Alan Smithee, a false pseudonym that directors used when they weren’t satisfied with the film they created, seems like it would make for a fun, comedic meta-commentary on Hollywood productions. However, An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn managed to be just as disastrous behind the scenes as the films they were poking fun at, creating a chaotic, aimless mess of a comedy so bad that would end up using the Alan Smithee credit.
The film is simultaneously boring and uninteresting from start to finish while throwing as many things at the wall as possible in hopes that at least one of its jokes will land with the audience. The result is a nonsensical mess that grows tiring, as everything interesting about the film is tied to its creation and not the actual story. It was so terrible that it completely ended the tradition of using Alan Smithee as a false pseudonym, being one of the last major films to use the credit.
4
‘It’s Pat’ (1994)
Directed by Adam Bernstein
Among all the different Saturday Night Live films, It’s Pat stands out as what is easily the worst of the bunch, a painfully ineffective comedy about gender norms and stereotypes. The film follows the story of the titular Pat (Julia Sweeney), a person whose indeterminable sex has made them a fascination to all those around them, as they find themselves fostering a relationship with Chris (Dave Foley), another person of indeterminable sex.
While the original Pat sketches were dated and a little corny, they were distinct and short enough to work within the confines of a minutes-long sketch routine. However, it becomes brazenly clear that this premise doesn’t hold any legs when stretched out to feature length, quickly transforming into a nauseatingly boring and dreadful comedic experience. The major problems with It’s Pat don’t even stem from its dated premise, but more from how it fails to do anything truly funny or original with said premise.
3
‘Chairman of the Board’ (1998)
Directed by Alex Zamm
One of the defining pop culture icons of comedy throughout the ’90s as a whole, Carrot Top was one of those strange, flash-in-the-pan celebrities whose apex of popularity was largely within the decade as a whole. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his cinematic leading role in Chairman of the Board, which transformed all the charm he had as a stand-up comedian into an aggressively annoying experience. The film sees Carrot Top as a surfer dude who finds himself unexpectedly heading an acclaimed invention company after making an impression on their billionaire owner before his death.
The likability of Carrot Top as a leading performer is brought to its absolute limits in Chairman of the Board, as each scene proves to be more unfunny and obnoxious to sit through than the last. This is all on top of the film being highly predictable and uninteresting from start to finish; nearly anyone can pinpoint exactly where it will end up from the first few minutes. Chairman of the Board is only remembered nowadays for being one of the most infamous box office bombs that ’90s comedy has to offer.
2
‘Theodore Rex’ (1993)
Directed by Jonathan R. Betuel
A terrible attempt at combining notions of sci-fi and prehistoric storytelling into a single family comedy, Theodore Rex is the type of notoriously bad film that feels like the punchline to a joke about bad ’90s sci-fi. The film takes place in a far-off future and follows cutthroat police detective Katie Coltrane (Whoopi Goldberg), who finds herself being paired with a new, talking dinosaur partner, Theodore Rex (George Newbern). Together, the mismatched duo is tasked with finding a vicious scientist who has been killing off dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures in hopes of creating a new Armageddon.
Even outside of it simply being an outright bad idea for a sci-fi film, Theodore Rex fails to capitalize on the inherent absurdity of its premise, instead coming across as a formulaic and painfully uneventful buddy-cop comedy. It’s a jumbled mess of leftover animatronics, completely phoned-in performances, and an overall lack of care or interest in anything that is happening on-screen. Theodore Rex is about as passionless and disinterested as a family comedy can get, making for one of the worst offerings of the ’90s.
Theodore Rex
- Release Date
-
December 14, 1995
- Runtime
-
92 minutes
- Director
-
Jonathan R. Betuel
1
‘Baby Geniuses’ (1999)
Directed by Bob Clark
It takes a truly terrible film to be released at the tail end of the decade and almost immediately be in consideration not just as one of the worst films of the ’90s, but as one of the worst films of the entire 20th century. Baby Geniuses‘ notoriously abysmal reputation precedes itself, as it’s the type of brainless, no-effort family comedy drivel that can only truly appeal to underdeveloped toddlers and little else. The film’s plot is exactly what its title entails, following a group of hyper-intelligent infants as they fight off against a group of evil adults who are looking to use the babies’ intelligence for nefarious purposes.
It’s difficult to imagine any audience laughing at what Baby Geniuses has to offer, as its attempted jokes are little more than base-level toilet humor, slapstick, and pop culture references. It’s an insult to the very concept of comedy filmmaking, approaching the genre with some of the laziest and bare-bones executions with little care or respect for its audience of young children. The only thing more insulting than the film’s existence is that it somehow received a multitude of sequels following its unexpected box office success.