Unintentional comedies.

[Svengoolie 3]

Talk about films that were never meant to be be comedies but turned out to be hilarious anyway,  evennif only after a long time.

Birth of a nation.  Yes at the time it was released it was nothing to laugh at. People were murdered because of the feelings it carefully incited. It glorified and revived the ku klux klan.  It lied in ways meant to incite hatred and if you're a Christian you shod be offended by the image of Jesus at the end.

But they say that comedy equals tragedy plus time.  A lifetime after it was made watching it can cause uncontrollable laughter.  Some of the images of soldiers dieing on battlefields are so dramatically overdone as to be impossible not to laugh at.  The sight of white actors slathered in shoe polish,  running around bellowing with ropes of drool hanging from their mouths is comically idiotic. While it may have driven the audiences on 1915 to murderous rage and lynchings,  the most powerful reaction it is likely to produce today is somewhat embarrassed laughter.

Reefer madness.  Meant to horrify unsophisticated and ignorant 1930s audiences,  the fact this movie drove the anti marijuana frenzy that has resulted in millions of Americans being tagged as felons and doing time in prison is nothing to laugh at, but in a world where a very sizeable chunk of America's population has at least tried marijuana and most people know someone who uses it on occasion,  combined with the knowledge that the world record Olympic gold medalist uses it recreationally makes it portrayal of 'murderous,  bug eyed marijuana fiends' nothing short of comedy gold.

The mask of Fu Manchu.  Meant to incite anti Asian passions in the 1930s,  when one looks at Boris karloff's utterly absurd portrayal of the Chinese master villain,  sneering ''I weel send you to your Chreestian heaven! '' and calling on roaring,  screaming hordes of sword and spear wielding mongol horsemen to ''keel the white man and take hees wimmin!'' given the fact the 'white man' of the 1930s had pistols,  rifles,  shotguns,  fully automatic weapons, flamethrowers,  armed and bomb dropping aircraft,  artillery and even poison gas to defend themselves with makes the film laughably bad today.

As powerful and harmful as these movies may have been in their day and the effects they may have had on audiences of decades past,  these movies are mostly bad comedy to modern audiences.