But the Boomers’ defining television comedy has to be Saturday Night Live, a breakthrough show that started out as a blasphemous, defiant troublemaker, morphed into loud, sweaty, sexist, and obnoxious, and finally settled into a safer, smugger version of its younger self.  Sound familiar?

Related: Fox Out-Boomers Everyone, Wants To Make ‘OK Boomer’ A Show

Boomer Comedy Movies

And once again, not (necessarily) the best comedy movies but the ones we believe best embody all things Boomerdom. 

Ten Contenders

* Monty Python and the Holy Grail

* The Graduate

* Annie Hall

* Animal House

* A Hard Day’s Night

* Barbarella

* Blazing Saddles

* The Rocky Horror Picture Show

* This is Spinal Tap

* When Harry Met Sally

Barbarella is a perfect encapsulation of Boomer comedy contradictions–outspoken war critic and feminist icon Jane Fonda takes on an evil scientist in her peek-a-boob latex spacesuit.  And though it may seem like an entirely different kind of movie, The Graduate also exploited the coo-coo-ca-choo of counterculture angst with the promise of weird sex. 

Annie Hall is probably Woody Allen’s best synthesis of lovelorn laughs with psychoanalysis and modernism; When Harry Met Sally is the same movie for Boomers who don’t want to think too hard about the whole business. 

Blazing Saddles tickled the funny bones of Boomers who dared to venture out for a night of risque humor; Monty Python and the Holy Grail did the same thing with an accent.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show took it a step further, providing an actual, lipstick-stained taste of the emerging sexual counterculture.