Among the movie promos screened during the Super Bowl, there were teasers for predictable blockbusters-to-be, such as multi-million dollar toy commercials Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe, and nostalgic ’70s TV throw-back, The Land of the Lost. But there was also a teaser for a new comedy from a much rarer sub-genre, the historical comedy. The Year One, set to release in June 19, is an Apatow-produced buddy comedy starring Jack Black and Michael Cera. They play Zed and Oh, two lovable losers encountering various characters from Biblical history, including Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Abraham. It’s not yet clear how they can meet all these people in a single lifetime (is this a time travel movie?)

But two things are clear: One, Judd Apatow seems to be looking to change-up his formula, at least to a degree. I’m not sure how long I want to watch the aging cast of Freaks and Geeks sit around a bong and talk about sex. Even if The Year One is just Superbad with togas, he’s at least trying to keep things fresh. And two, this film marks the return of a rare breed of comedy. Until now, it looked like historical comedies reached their apex decades ago with the work of Mel Brooks and Monty Python. Now, with the comedy auteur du jour producing a movie set in the distant past, the historical comedy sub-genre could become vogue once more. Or it could just be terrible. There are precedents for both.

Here’s our list of seven notable historical comedies — some great, some utterly forgettable.

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With Danny Boyle’s DGA win over the weekend, Slumdog Millionaire achieved a near-impossible feat; it became even more favored to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Once thought to be an underdog, Slumdog has been pretty much unstoppable throughout the awards season, even picking up the undeserved top honor at the SAG Awards, and has never fallen from its position of frontrunner since it took the lead months ago. Yet last week, the internet was populated by talk of a Slumdog backlash, and for the first time in weeks, other Best Picture candidates were seriously being discussed as slightly plausible victors. The two titles considered most likely to be a threat to Boyle’s film are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Milk, with little concern for either Frost/Nixon or The Reader. However, while the former candidate is probably a sure thing to lose, the latter film should not yet be dismissed.

Before the Academy Award nominations were announced last month, The Reader wasn’t even thought to be a contender for any major category except Best Supporting Actress. Now, among its five nominations, it’s up for three higher-tiered Oscars, including Best Picture. So, we can’t rightly continue underestimating its potential. This isn’t to say that we are predicting The Reader to win Best Picture; Slumdog is still the safest bet for the top prize. But odds for The Reader do need to be adjusted, as its chances are a lot closer to, if not better than, secondary favorites Benjamin Button and Milk. Of course, as the it stands now, the film should be an appealing choice for any gamblers out there, because a surprise Best Picture win for The Reader would pay out big time. So, our immediate apologies to betters if the following seven factors have any influence on professional oddsmakers out there.
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Dan Fogler, who won a Tony for his work in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and who will soon star in ping pong/FBI spoof Balls of Fury, tells MTV he’s currently preparing to play Alfred Hitchcock in a movie about the early life of the famed director. From MTV’s movie blog:

You see Hitchcock for two weeks out of his life in [his] early 20s. He just finished his first movie, which is supposed to be a comedy, but it’s not. So he’s freaking out about it and realizes that if he just switches a few things, it can become a thriller. [And] that’s how he finds his niche… give away your trade secrets. [The movie is] cool if you’re a Hitchcock fan. Just like Shakespeare in Love, you see how he comes up with certain ideas [for future films] from events that happened during the course of the movie.

Fogler’s film is titled after Number Thirteen, Hitchcock’s actual first, never-finished film. Only a few scenes of the original were shot before the production was shut down, and those have apparently never been seen by anybody and are thought to have been melted. Hitchcock rarely spoke of this point in his career, and there’s only one brief mention of the film in Donald Spoto’s definitive Hitchcock biography, The Dark Side of the Genius:

A comedy script was prepared, called alternately Mrs. Peabody or Number Thirteen, and Clare Greet and Ernest Thesiger were singed to play the leads. Alfred Hitchcock undertook the direction, on assignment from the chief of production, but by this time the studio’s dwindling funds were being diverted from production to pay debts and salaries, and the unfinished film was shelved. To this day, nothing else is known about this aborted project apart from Hitchcock’s assertion that it wasn’t very interesting.

So it seems safe to say that, like Shakespeare, this new Number 13 is going to be a work of extremely speculative fiction. I couldn’t find an image of a 20-something Hitchcock, but based solely on my lazy Photoshop composite above, wouldn’t Fogler make a good young Orson Welles?