Before Spaceballs, before Blazing Saddles and even before the original (good) Producers, Mel Brooks made this funny short film called The Critic. It’s a satire of pretentious animated “art” shorts, with the voice of Brooks playing an old man poking at the movie as it goes on.

What I love is how hilariously unforgiving Brooks is of these types of films, suggesting the director could have done something useful with his life, like “make a shoe.”  Even though the lead character is supposed to be considered rude for talking through the movie, the old man is ultimately pretty wise in his critiques.  That provides a nice balance – like on South Park, when the writer’s “truth” is delivered in the closing monologue by a foul-mouthed child, here the pretentiousness is being called out by a cranky old man.  An unreliable lead character can deliver the writer’s point in a funny, off-handed way.