Last night after work my coworkers and I sat over the boss' beer and the stink of stale cigarettes discussing, among various dead air filling topics, the death of the comic straight man.  No more succinctly embodied in the embalming of Ted Knight years ago.

Who could deny his poker faced antics in Caddyshack brought the performances of his fellow actors to legendary heights?  His deliberate stutter, the tight-assed walk no black comic could mimic, the reined in rage going eyeball to Adam's apple with Chevy (where'd my career go) Chase.  Ted Knight had it all; and sadly he took it all with him when he went.  Seems the last pie in the face was on comedy itself.

Since the eighties I can't really remember a movie funnier than Caddyshack or it's contemporaries: Animal House, Meatballs; just to name two.  And those two had very good, can't wait to see what they do to them next, straight guys.  Respectively Dean Wormer, and Morty (both actor's names I don't know.  And isn't it always the way with the set-up guy.  Thus making Ted Knight's star shine that much further.)  A very far second, that's how it was said last night, is the droning, monotoned office manager in Office Space (insert actor's name here.)  His selfless performance to set up, titilate, and eventually pay off with his own embarrassing showdown loss is nothing short of watching Errol Flynn slay Basil Rathebone in one of those old, men in tights, swashbuckers of the thirties. (A more than just movie pop-up factoid: Basil Rathebone was a superior swordsman than Flynn ever was.)

So, comedies of late take heed.  The absence of that unfunny, too old to be this week's newest starlet, dedicated guy with teflon for a complexion in today's comedies is what's not funny at all about comedy today.