The folks out at Warner Brothers just re-released Caddyshack on Blu-ray Tuesday, and as such, they also put out a new version on DVD.  How do I know?  They sent me a copy, and I’m reviewing it for you right here.  Today we’re talking Caddyshack, folks, an example of that great eighties comedy.

Caddyshack revolves around what I’m guessing is typical times at the Bushwood Country Club.  The greenskeeper’s assistant has declared a shooting war on the gopher population.  The son of the club’s founder is in the midst of losing his mind and firing off incredible trick shots.  And a loudmouthed newcomer that looks a lot like Rodney Dangerfield–hey wait, that IS Rodney Dangerfield!–has come in and is busily shaking up everything the staid, straitlaced golfers of Bushwood have come to stand for.  So when a coalition of the grumpy led by Judge Smails wants to get rid of the new misfit, the only way they can think to do it is with a massive golf competition.

Can Dangerfield and company take the day?  Or will he be packing it up for elsewhere?  Will the gophers survive to annoy another day? All this and more in Caddyshack!

There are so many disparate plot threads going on at once here that it’s actually pretty difficult to get bored with any of it.  Sure, it’s not very deep at all–Dangerfield’s forte has never been in cerebral humor, and when Bill Murray might well be the smartest comic in the movie, you know they’re not exactly pushing for an Oscar.  But still, it’s a very rapid and downright frantic comedy, with lots of good laughs.  Sure, this is the kind of thing that seems dated, but that’s only because it’s been parodied so many times that it seems like it’s been covered more than once.

But this is the original property from which all the knockoffs and ripoffs and parodies and homages sprung.  It’s the Patient Zero of comedies, and this hilarious, if wildly crass, Ur-Comedy is filled with laughs and groans, if not necessarily depth and substance.  The Screenhead Ten Scale gives this highly effective comedy an eight of ten.  It may be too crass and light to be a maximum quality piece, but it’s more than sufficiently effective to do the job.