When Good Boys hit theaters, it was a risky move — an R-rated bad-taste comedy starring kids. The film exceeded all expectations, hitting $105 million with a budget of $20 million, with an impressive 79% Rotten Tomatoes score, with an 86% audience score. That is high for a comedy movie in today’s social landscape and shows that people still want to laugh and don’t mind raunchy humor when done right.
This fact isn’t anything new. The idea of bad-taste comedies is old, with movies in the ’70s reaching a youth movement that wanted to laugh at risque and vulgar situations playing out on the big screen. While the comedies have become a little more sophisticated over the years, there is still a call for something low brow. Here is a look at 10 bad-taste comedies for people who enjoyed Good Boys.
THE HANGOVER
The place to start is with the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all-time, The Hangover. The movie was a massive success, making $277 million domestically and $467 million worldwide. To make it even more impressive, the sequel almost reached the same domestic totals with a $254 million take.
The Hangover tells the story of a bachelor party gone wrong where three friends wake up the next morning with no memory of what happened the night before and realize that the groom is missing. They have to retrace their journey from the night before in Las Vegas to find the groom before it is too late.
MALLRATS
Mallrats was the second movie by indie wunderkind Kevin Smith and was seen by many as a letdown after his amazing Clerks. However, the movie has stood the test of time. Many consider it now to be a film that was ahead of its time. It came out just four years before American Pie and shared DNA with that later movie.
The movie follows a college student named T.S. (Jeremy London), who learns the girl he wants to propose to has agreed to be on a dating game show hosted by her dad. Jason Lee enjoyed his breakout role in the movie, which mostly takes place in the shopping mall the game show will play out in. Jay and Silent Bob are along for the ride.
AMERICAN PIE
Paul and Chris Weitz directed one of the most successful R-rated teen movies and followed the same classic model as the old-school National Lampoon movies. American Pie followed four high school seniors who decide they all want to lose their virginity before they graduate.
The young actors were all great, but the real standouts were Eugene Levy as Jim’s dad, who was always there with sex advice, and Alyson Hannigan, the band geek who had a lot more experience than most of the guys who made the pact. There ended up being four movies in the series.
WET, HOT AMERICAN SUMMER
Released in 2001, watching Wet Hot American Summer now will allow people to see a who’s who of Hollywood talent when they were still young and getting their name out there. The film was a period piece from the ’80s about a summer camp where both kids and counselors alike were involved in all sorts of raunchy debauchery.
Highlights include Paul Rudd as a rebellious and unfaithful boyfriend and Law & Order: SVU star Christopher Meloni in a hilarious comedic role as the chef at the camp. Also, don’t blink or you will miss future stars like Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, and Elizabeth Banks.
BAD SANTA
The best R-rated Christmas comedy hit theaters in 2003 from director Terry Zwigoff in Bad Santa. The film starred Billy Bob Thornton as a department store Santa Claus named Willie, who, along with his dwarf assistant Marcus (Tony Cox), were professional thieves, robbing malls at nights after they close.
However, when Willie meets Sue, a woman with a Santa Claus fetish played by Lauren Graham, he starts to turn his life around. However, he has to answer to his partner and dodge a security guard played by Bernie Mac, and nothing seems to go right.
TED
Released in 2012, Mark Wahlberg starred in the comedy Ted. The film saw John as an eight-year-old who became best friends with his teddy bear Ted when it came to life. As an adult, Ted and John still live together as best friends until John decides he wants to get married and forces Ted to move out.
This happens after John and his fiance Lori catch Ted in the apartment with a group of prostitutes. Add in appearances of Sam Jones and Brandon Routh as themselves while Giovanni Ribisi is the villain, Donny, a man who wants to kidnap Ted for his own son.
ANIMAL HOUSE
Released in 1978, Animal House is the movie that put National Lampoon on the map. The film had a who’s who of ’70s comedic talent. It focused on a frat house at Faber College in 1962 that included the worst of the worst and its conflict with both the administration and fellow frat houses.
John Belushi was one of the top stars in the movie as Bluto, while Tim Matheson was the key protagonist of the story, someone who chose Delta Tau Chi over the more prestigious houses on campus. Kevin Bacon enjoyed an early movie role as a member of a rival house.
SAUSAGE PARTY
Released in 2016 by the same team behind Good Boys, the R-rated animated film Sausage Party was a bad-taste raunchy cartoon movie that was, in no way, meant for children. It was only the second animated movie to get an R rating from the MPAA and the first that was computer-animated.
It was a significant success, making more money than even South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut to become the highest-grossing R-rated animated movie. The film followed grocery items that consider humans to be their gods until they learn what happens to them when they get purchased. It all ends with a grocery store-wide orgy between the food items.
SUPERBAD
A decade before creating Good Boys with young adolescent actors in R-rated roles, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg created a movie with teenagers in similar circumstances. The film was Superbad and was one of the comedy duo’s earliest critical successes.
Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) are high school seniors who are about to leave for different colleges and head to a party at a girl’s house with a third classmate named Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse as McLovin).
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY
Released in 1998 by Bobby and Peter Farrelly, There’s Something About Mary was a star-studded bad-taste comedy that starred Ben Stiller as Ted, a guy who has been in love with his high school crush Mary since he was in school. They were supposed to go to the prom until Ted got his scrotum stuck in his zipper, and had to go to the hospital.
As an adult, he hires a private detective (Matt Dillon) to find her, but that PI lies about her so he can move to Miami to try to date her himself. Sadly, when Ted arrives, he learns he has competition with the PI, a guy named Norm and NFL quarterback Brett Favre. There is also the “hair gel” scene.
