The King of Comedy was billed as a "dark comedy," but it didn't reach the levels of absurdity needed to be genuinely comedic. The movie had tremendous potential to be either very funny or very suspenseful, but it maintained a much too moderate approach to be either.The character of Hubert Pupkin was intended to be comedic; Pupkin instead was written and played as fairly likable and moreover, relatable. Yes, he's an adult living in his mother's basement (something that wasn't trendy in 1986) and yes, he has an elaborate fantasy life that motivates his actions, but there were moments in which many viewers could empathize with him. His repeated efforts to get his comedy routine heard by Jerry Langford, followed by the repeated brush-offs by Langford's staffers are very reminiscent of many job applicants' attempts to get an interview, only to be e-mailed a form letter stating "Although your credentials and accomplishments are admirable, we have chosen to pursue applicants who are better suited to the position...." The audience is led to both pity Pupkin for his lack of insight, but admire him for his persistence. Pupkin isn't so comedic when he looks like a great number of people in the audience who have succumbed to the popular message of "follow your heart.... follow your dreams..." without regard for the consequences.The character of Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) is sadly underdeveloped in the movie as well. The character isn't given a lot of lines, so there is no way the audience is led to either like him or hate him. Other than the "mob of fans" scene at the start of the movie and the interaction he has with the obnoxious woman on the telephone, we don't see Langford as being continually oppressed by the demands of a voracious audience. Langford is shown as attempting to be gracious to Pupkin and his other star-obsessed fan, Masha, both of whom take his polite responses as invitations. Even though he has little material with which to work, Jerry Lewis transitions from comedian to serious actor very well in this role.The ending is also not all that satisfying. Pupkin gets his wish - to appear on Langford's program - by kidnapping Langford using a toy gun. He delivers his comedy routine, which is primarily a recitation of an abusive, dysfunctional childhood, to the incomprehensibly wild applause of the audience, and he is arrested. His fame ultimately comes not from his performance, but from the book he writes about kidnapping Jerry Langford and the media focus on that event. Pupkin is neither a hero, nor is he a villain. All in all, The King of Comedy was unfulfilling. Had Pupkin been written to be a little more sinister, obsessive and driven, this would have been an excellent thriller. Had Pupkin been less likable and without the pathos, it would have leaned more toward the comedy it was intended to be. As it is, it merits the audience reaction it received when first released: "What was that we just watched?"In many ways, the movie was ahead of its time. The theme of "fame at any price" is much more relevant in today's "Youtube" and "reality TV" environment, where people with no noticeable talent become "stars" through unabashed self-promotion (the Kardashians) or feats of incredible stupidity (the criminals who post their criminal behavior for all to see). With a little retooling, a talented screenwriter could redo this movie for today's audience and develop it to fulfill it's potential.

A great movie about television late night celebrity that stays totally & brutally under control & within the small screen context of both its subject & medium. Achingly crafted by Scorsese with DeNiro conquering both stand up & talk show personality plus an epic, transcendent performance by the late great Jerry Lewis. Lewis' performance is one for the ages! I've always enjoyed his comedy, but it was expected--even the $ two billion bucks he raised for MD Research. He did it. It's a fact.This movie deserves every consideration as a beyond honest portrayal of America's The Medium is the Message. Brilliant! Jerry Lewis will never die because of it & his honest personal accomplished portrayal. God Bless.

This prominent actor and acclaimed director have worked on several films together and they're all great. But this one seems to get forgotten which is understandable given some of the other movies they've done. This is just more proof that these two can do any kind of movie together not just violent ones. This a must see for fans of dark humor.

The film opens and closes on shots of ambiguous reality, the no-man's-land between real life and its representation on TV. The first shot is the grainy image — as off a TV screen — of Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) starting his act. But we don't see the TV set, just the TV graininess full-screen. Do this film's first image — which is usually of life — here is of a TV image. From here on, the media image trumps any reality. The film explores that gap.In the last shot Rupert Pupkin (Robert de Niro) stands at a mike milking the audience's applause (as Langford did earlier). He stands in the darkness with no clear context. He may or may not be on a stage or before a camera. He's pinpointed by lights, in his garish showbiz suit. He's not doing anything but basking in the lights and wallowing in the applause. Pipkin has completed his prison sentence for abducting Langford and he has been paid a million dollars advance for his best-selling confessional book. Now he is celebrated for being a celebrity not for anything he is doing. The act has supplanted the person. The shot seems so unreal it suggests it may be Pupkin's fantasy, an image of the ambition or desire his career has left unfulfilled despite his apparent success. The casting advances that meta-cinema mode. It plays in the grey area between reality and its mediation. Among the minor characters, Johnny Carson's producer Fred De Cordova plays Langford's producer Bert Thomas. The Ed MacMahon role is provided by McMahon's predecessor on the Jack Paar Tonight show, Ed Herlihy, effectively playing the oleaginous McMahon. (Johnny Carson himself was offered the Langford role but declined it.) Familiar guests Dr Joyce Brothers and Tony Randall play themselves. Media figures Bill Jorgensen, Marvin Scott, Chuck Stevens, William Littauer and Jeff David speak as themselves. Producer Edgar Scherick plays the network president. Director Scorsese plays the show's director, with his mother Catherine heard as Pupkin's "Ma-aaa." His father is at the bar watching Pupkin's TV appearance. DeNiro's wife Diahnne Abbott plays Rupert's romance. Other castings play against their familiar image. Comedian Sarah Bernhardt plays the needy, wealthy Masha with an abrasive ardor for star Langford. Her brashness and anger are an extension from her comic persona. Comic pianist Victor Borge appears as pianist in Pupkin's fantasy of his TV marriage — but neither cracks nor plays a joke. Similarly, Lewis is almost exclusively known as a manic comic but he plays this role absolutely straight, without a scintilla of a lapse into the persona that has defined him. De Niro's Pupkin is a dramatic variation on his usual Scorsese role: the constrained savagery of an alienated brute on the make. As Pupkin pulls a comic routine out of his family life frustrations, Scorsese makes this DeNiro character an adept aper of TV's false warmth. In his fantasy patting of "Jarelleh's" cheeks the De Niro and Lewis personae touch and spark. As Pupkin dreams of surpassing Langford, he — like the film itself— appropriates the royal title to which Jerry Lewis has the plausible claim. These castings convey the film's central confusion between role and reality, privileging the former. Artifice is all. Hence the abyss between the friendliness and warmth that Langford projects on air and his bleak solitude at home. There he eats alone. He walks around with a single golf club. He may well golf alone. In his mother's basement Pupkin practices a social glibness that he learned off TV — and criminally contrives to air it. Of course one of the main forms of this false human connection is love. "I'm going to love you like nobody's loved you" opens the film's theme song. Sick loves, twisted loves, abound in this arena of social fakery. In his fantasy Rupert expresses his love for Langford and Liza Minnelli, as if his emotion can bring their cardboard cutouts to life. Masha's passion for Langford has nothing to do with what either is or feels, just her random though total commitment. The theme is concentrated in the street scene where a woman tells Jerry she loves him. When he declines to speak on the phone to her cousin she yells at him, hoping he gets cancer. She too loves him like nobody loves him. But it's not a matter of come rain or come shine. It's a matter of reality supplanted by artifice. In this light the film foreshadows the inflection of American politics into reality TV show.