“It’s Not Easy Bein’ Me”–1982
Starring Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray, Aretha Franklin, and Valerie Perrine.
Excerpt from NY Times review:
You can analyze Rodney Dangerfield’s humor all you want; the plain fact is that he’s so widely beloved because he’s very funny nearly all of the time. There are no wasted words, no obscure concepts, no punches pulled. To wit: ”I told my wife a man is like good wine; he gets better with age. So she locked me in the cellar.” Or: ”I called my doctor last week. I told him, ‘Doc, I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.’ He told me to have a few drinks and get some rest.”
In the first five minutes of his special, he tells no less than a dozen jokes – the same rapid-fire approach he uses in his stand-up act. Indeed, tonight’s special rarely falters. Mr. Dangerfield is funny doing his one-liners. He is funny in hopeless pursuit of his guest star, Valerie Perrine, who informs him, when he leans over to kiss her hello, that she’s sorry but ”you’re not allowed to touch me – it’s in my contract.” And he is funniest in several sketches with Bill Murray, a comic performer whose manic enthusiasm seems perfectly suited to Mr. Dangerfield’s lambent despair.