Dark Whimsy Favorites #11-15

Rick Retro’s Realm, Project #3: 40 Dark Whimsy Favorites in 80 Days, 1980-1982, featuring some serious comedy and a Spielberg spectacular.

The countdown to my next review project continues. I’m doing an overview of 40 of my Dark Whimsy favorites!

I've already revealed the first ten:
#1 (1944) Arsenic and Old Lace
#2 (1959) The Mouse That Roared
#3 (1963) The Pink Panther
#4 (1965) The Sound of Music
#5 (1965) The Great Race
#6 (1968) The Love Bug
#7 (1973) The Sting
#8 (1975) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
#9 (1979) The Muppet Movie
#10 (1979) Being There

The next five films take us into the early 1980s. From here through the 2000s, these are almost all A+ movies that I’ve seen at least twice. In fact, I paid to see #13 through #15 at least twice in theaters:

#11 (1980) Airplane!
In my opinion, this is probably the second funniest movie of all-time. And also of 1980.

#12 (1980) Oh! Heavenly Dog
Nestled between two classics is an underappreciated gem. This one may not deserve an A+. We’ll see. But it’s much better than it gets credit for.

#13 (1980) The Gods Must Be Crazy
The South African film that reaches higher heights than Airplane!

#14 (1981) Arthur
This romcom might not read quite high enough on the Dark Scale to qualify as Dark Whimsy. But I think it will, and the story of a man-child forced to grow up has a lot more Whimsy than most romcoms.

#15 (1982) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Nowadays, they’d probably insist that he texts first.

#16-20 will be revealed tomorrow!

Originally posted to text group 2025-01-11
Last updated 2025-07-02

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