Rollicking Role Models: Nine Idol-Worthy Movie Comics for Kids

By Martha Brockenbrough
MSN Cinemama

A few weeks back I wrote a column about Miley Cyrus that generated a comment or two -- thousand. Though I didn't use the expression "role model," the headline asked whether she was a good one. My conclusion? No, not really. Kids can do better with their time and energy.

That said, there are celebrities who do deserve our admiration -- the ones who have spent a lifetime honing their craft, and who are every bit as skilled at what they do as brain surgeons are at their work. They're pros who have consistently shined for years. Our lives might not depend on their work, but they enrich our lives in other ways, ways we often fail to appreciate.

I'm talking about comedians. For kids, they're often the most powerful performers around. They almost never get their due. The Oscars, for example, don't go to the funny movies. If you're funny, you don't win the trophy; you host the show. Best Actor awards sometimes go to comedians -- Robin Williams and Tom Hanks have won, for example -- but only for their work in serious roles.

Yet when I think about the movies and performances that made my childhood, it's the comedies that gave me the most joy. Here are nine comedians worth introducing your kids to, with funny roles kids will love, along with more serious roles kids will later appreciate.

Steve Martin: My first introduction to Steve Martin was an audio recording of him reading one of his short stories. His talent for vivid language and storytelling hit a home run with me right away. Later, when I saw "The Jerk" and "The Man With Two Brains," my admiration for him was complete. Neither of these movies was made for kids, but what I loved about both was the same thing that I adored in that short story: absurdity and love of language, tempered with Martin's undeniably gentle nature. I later saw him on "The Muppet Show," and even at the movie theater on my first date -- watching "All of Me," which co-starred another idol-worthy comic, Lily Tomlin.

Then, as an adult, I bought his novella "Shopgirl," which later became a movie, and while I didn't love it any more than I loved "Parenthood" or the "Father of the Bride" movies, he impressed me as a fearless creator. He'd do outrageous slapstick, soppy sentimental stuff and even moody novels. Here's a man who could have retired from earnings he made in his early career, and yet he didn't. It's clear why when you hear his philosophy of excellence, forged while working as a stand-up comedian, which he shared with Smithsonian magazine.

"I learned a lesson," he said. "It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the circumstances."

These are words worth living by no matter what we do. This can be hard to do in our throwaway entertainment culture, where people achieve fame and are forgotten within months. (Ruben Studdard, anyone?) But it's a lesson our kids can learn, in part, by watching a performer with a lifetime of varied experience.

Lily Tomlin: Many kids will recognize her as the voice of Ms. Frizzle on "The Magic School Bus," one of the better educational series on TV for kids. Where they will love her, though, is in the 1988 comedy "Big Business," where she co-stars with Bette Midler as one of a pair of twins mixed up at birth. She's also terrific in "9 to 5," one of the all-time great office comedies. Teens who at one point admired Lindsay Lohan might be heartened to see her perform as Tomlin's niece in Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion."

Bette Midler: Speaking of Bette, she's another performer to admire. She does stand-up. She sings. She's even taken on serious roles. "Beaches" gets knocked for being cheesy, but it's a great friendship tale for adolescent girls that will leave them weepy and ready to treat their own friends better. She's won Grammy and Tony Awards and has been nominated for an Academy Award, and in her spare time has helped revitalize poor neighborhoods in New York.

Ellen DeGeneres: Once dubbed "America's Funniest Person," DeGeneres has gone from stand-up to TV, to movies, and back to television, where she uses her platform to stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians. Indeed, she was one of the first openly gay performers in Hollywood, something that has no doubt helped make the world a safer place for an often-abused minority group. Kids will adore her performance as the forgetful Dory in "Finding Nemo," her best film role by far. She's also charming as a bookstore owner in "The Love Letter," but not quite a good enough actress to pull off having a crush on Tom Selleck.

Tom Hanks: Kids today might think of Tom Hanks as that puffy old guy who's in a lot of serious movies. Poor things. They never got to watch him with Peter Scolari on the TV show "Bosom Buddies," where he played a guy who dressed in drag in order to get into an affordable apartment. His performance in "Big," the story of a 13-year-old boy who grows up overnight, is still fresh and compelling 20 years later. And, of course, he's amazing as Woody in the "Toy Story" movies. His serious work is what gets recognized, but his range is what's incredible. It's not just that he has won two Oscars -- comedian Chris Rock says Hanks is one of the funniest stand-up performers he's ever seen.

Bill Murray: The Bill Murray adults love is darkly comic and generally completely misanthropic. Guess what? So's his best work for kids, "Groundhog Day," a movie about a man who wakes up facing infinite Groundhog Days until he's learned the lessons he needs to be a decent human being. (Note: This is a better choice for tweens than elementary schoolers -- immortality can make a man bathe with toasters and other deadly things.) Kids who love him in "Groundhog Day" will grow up to admire his performances in Wes Anderson's wonderfully quirky, detailed movies, such as "The Royal Tenenbaums," which are full of foul language and some sex, but are so artfully crafted they're fine for teenagers on up. Later this year, Murray is scheduled to play the mayor in "City of Ember," a middle-grade novel by Jeanne DuPrau about a society forced to live underground. Without revealing too much, I can say he's perfectly cast. What he lacks in range, Murray makes up for with nuance. No one except maybe Peter Dinklage communicates more with his eyebrows.

Will Ferrell: Ferrell spent nine years honing his comedy chops on "Saturday Night Live" and has been a fixture of the comedy film scene ever since. Movies that would be utterly stupid in anyone else's hands -- "Blades of Glory," for example -- are hilariously guilty pleasures. He's been in two gems for kids: "Curious George," where he plays the Man With the Yellow Hat, and "Elf," where he plays a human raised by kindly elves. (He even sits on the lap of Bob Newhart, another incredible comic all kids should know.) What's especially intriguing about Ferrell, though, is how good he was as Harold Crick in "Stranger Than Fiction," an oddly engaging movie about a man who realizes he's the protagonist in someone's novel and the author is about to kill him off. Emma Thompson, always fantastic, plays the novelist in this movie, which is rated PG-13 for some sexuality and disturbing images (one of which is Dustin Hoffman eating yogurt).

Chris Rock: Kids might recognize Chris Rock for his voice work in "Bee Movie," "Madagascar" and "Dr. Dolittle." He's had a monster career outside the kid-world, though: He's acted, written, directed and performed hosting duties for a number of shows. Like Bill Cosby, he has also said courageous and controversial things about the black community. His work is full of foul language, but his insights are often profound -- just the sort of thing that would appeal to high schoolers. With the right serious role, he could be looking at an Oscar from the other side of the podium.

Tina Fey: Of all these comics, Fey might be the one to inherit Steve Martin's mantle. She writes and acts, the latter better than Martin himself. Another "Saturday Night Live" alumnus, she made a name for herself by writing the Lindsay Lohan movie "Mean Girls." And she's the funniest woman on TV in her Thursday night comedy "30 Rock," which perfectly captures the angst of successful 30-something women who can't seem to find a decent guy to date. She definitely has a sense for this sort of thing. She stars in next month's "Baby Mama," about a high-powered career woman who hires a surrogate to bear her child. Now that she's a mother in real life, her fans can hope she'll turn her talent to writing comedy for kids. Given the world they're inheriting, they could probably use a few laughs.

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Martha Brockenbrough is author of "It Could Happen to You: Diary of a Pregnancy and Beyond." She's also founder of SPOGG, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. She writes a fun-with-kids column for Cranium.com, as well as an educational humor column for Encarta. Check out her Web site.

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