The Top Five Comedy Triple Threats

5 - Buster Keaton

4 - Jackie Chan

3 - Mel Brooks

2 - Woody Allen

1 - Charlie Chaplin

I would've thought there would be more qualified triple threats, but we saw a lot of the same names: Kevin Smith, Zach Braff, Danny DeVito, Albert Brooks, Christopher Guest, Ben Stiller, Ron Howard...got a George Clooney vote, which is surprising because he's only made three movies, and the one outright comedy was not even funny. Harold Ramis' name came up, as did Rob Reiner's.

One of our loyal readers reminded me that in addition to Ben Stiller having a new film in theaters that he wrote, directed, and stars in, Woody Allen has a new film, too, although he doesn't make an appearance in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. So this list fit twice in one week!

Woody was always going to finish in second place, though. He's been too prolific - and let's face it, too good - to be any lower than he already is: 21 Academy Award nominations and three wins, and nearly a movie a year since the late 1960s.

However, there will never be another Charles Chaplin, arguably the first filmmaker to bring a delicate kind of poetry to directing, writing, and acting, often in the same film. Chaplin made Hitler funny...in 1940. And really, he's the yardstick for anyone who wants to write, direct, act, produce, and run a studio. And for anyone who wants to sleep with Randolph Hearst's mistress, but that's another story. That other story, by the by, reveals what "Rosebud" really means.

If Chaplin's first and Woody is second, then we've got to make room for Mel Brooks. True story: His crowning achievements, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, were released in the same year. How crazy is that? Two of the ten great comedies ever made, both co-written and directed by the same man, came out ten months apart? Both even received Oscar nominations in 1974, which is quite a feat.

I love when we get a pick that's completely out of the blue like this; I never would have thought of Jackie Chan on my own. However, there's no overestimating his importance to Chinese cinema and to American action films. Because of the available audience in his homeland, he's very likely the most successful movie star of all time. What sets Chan apart, and has for nearly 20 years, is the amount of comedy he typically throws into his action movies. His writing's not anything special, but his direction and his physical acting is as good as it gets in his genre. He's a true triple threat, and because of his disregard for his own safety, he's also a threat to himself a lot of the time.

We're not purposely overshadowing Buster Keaton with the presence of Chaplin, but that just tells you how great Chaplin was. In his own right, Keaton was wildly inventive and undeniably influential. His best work is concentrated in the 1920s, and he did not adapt well to changes in the industry or to rampant alcoholism, which sapped much of his creativity around the time of his greatest glory, 1927's The General.