'Airplane!' & 'The Naked Gun'

The reason why American entertainment -- no matter how ridiculous it gets -- works is because we're perpetually making fun of it. One thing is counteracted by something coming from the other direction.

I don't immerse myself in the media and entertainment of other countries, but, for many, they don't have the resources or desire to be as ridiculous because they have nothing coming from the other direction, knocking it on its ass.

Filmmakers like the David Zucker-Jim Abrahams-Jerry Zucker triumvirate helped put American media and entertainment in its place. Along with the likes of Mel Brooks and spawning the Farrelly Brothers, the "South Park" creators, Seth McFarlane, Seth Green and others, we're able to take the super-serious films, music and art and counter it with the surreal, with satire.

We probably don't realize it, but shows featuring Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and any of these talentless socialites are no different. We watch them because their manufactured lives are far more interesting than our everyday lives and because these people are jokes. They're lampooning themselves and Hollywood in general and we enjoy this.

However, the Zuckers invented it. Airplane! and The Naked Gun being their centerpieces. One pokes fun at every film noir and police show or film in the history of the moving picture.

The other presents the ridiculous notion of the disaster movie: From terrorists, natural disasters, aliens, mythical monsters and everything in between.

As long as directors, actors and producers keep taking themselves too seriously and fans keep taking it all too seriously, there will always be a place for the Zuckers and folks like them.