Stan & Ollie (Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel) acted together in about 200 films, even as far back as the silent film era. Whatever the duo - much beloved as "Fat and Stupid" in Germany - is up to, it inevitably ends in disaster. America's most successful comedian pair were undoubtedly masters of slapstick.

Charlie Chapin didn't skimp on slapstick, for instance in "The Tramp," but he also wove social criticism into his films. In the 1925 film "The Gold Rush," poverty is the theme, and his character is so desperately hungry that he eats shoe soles. The 1936 "Modern Times" takes on capitalism, and "The Great Dictator" in 1940 lampooned Adolf Hitler.

Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo - the Marx Brothers - were the first to really focus on language in their films, taking turns with visual and verbal gags. Groucho's irreverent remarks in particular had people roaring with laughter. As a rule, the film's story would take place in a confined environment, like an opera house, where the brothers would wreak havoc with their trademark anarchy.

Goggle-eyed with a jutting chin and a sly grin: Bob Hope's facial expressions were funny. Critics also loved his timing and his jokes in the tradition of the Marx Brothers. They gave the popular actor and comedian the nickname "Midas of Comedy."

The audience adored Louis de Funes, the short French actor who exploded into fits of lunacy, the choleric character who kowtowed to authorities but bullied everybody else in his films in the 1960s and 1970s. Funes' films - in France, he was known fondly as "Fufu" - were international box office hits.

For 10 years, Rowan Atkinson developed the character of Mr. Bean before he made his debut in 1990 in Britain. Hilarious, silly, selfish, but a likeable buffoon all the same, Mr. Bean comes up with the oddest, most awkward solutions to everyday situations. He rarely says a word in the sketches, but he certainly makes up for it with rolled eyes and grimaces.

Monty Python-style humor is absurd, surreal, anarchistic and inky black. The above scene from the 1979 film "The Life of Brian" is legendary, with crucified men happily singing "Always look on the bright side of life." The British comedy group's humor is also intelligent, combining slapstick with philosophical and historical references in its films and many sketches.

For decades, Vicco von Bülow alias Loriot had millions of Germans in stitches with his sketches, cartoons and feature films. His humor often centered on miscommunication, and he typically ridiculed middle-class family scenarios. He was a prolific humorist, writer, actor and talented cartoonist.

The role of police lieutenant Frank Drebin catapulted Canadian actor Leslie Nielson to international comedy fame in the late 1980s. What amounted to a veritable fireworks of slapstick in the "Naked Gun" crime comedy trilogy got more than a few laughs. The actor was also adept at imitating the exasperated look Oliver Hardy would give his partner - a clear homage to the comic duo.

Nobody does extreme facial expressions like Jim Carrey. He lent his trademark talent to his characters in "The Mask" and "Dumb and Dumber," giving them an unmistakable look The 2004 romantic comedy "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" demonstrates the breadth of Carrey's skill.

Using accents and guises to portray fictional characters Ali G, Borat or Brüno, British actor Baron Cohen asks interview partners absurd questions studded with racial cliches. Cohen's mockumentaries - a combination of documentary and fiction - are revealing snapshots of society.

Mel Brooks, made his film debut with "The Producers," which became an instant hit in 1968. The parody on Hitler and the Nazis, embellished with ribald jokes, music, dancing and bitter punchlines, broke all taboos just 23 years after the end of World War II. To what extent the Nazi era may be parodied continues to be an ongoing point of discussion, particularly in Germany.

His third film, "Blazing Saddles," firmly established Mel Brooks as a master of parody in 1974. The film marked Brooks' starting point for poking fun at all kinds of film genres. In "Blazing Saddles," he parodies the most American film category of all: the Western.

Brooks produced yet another hugely successful film that same year, the horror film parody "Young Frankenstein," shot at the locations used in the famous "Frankenstein" movie of 1931. Like the original, it was also produced in black and white. Mel Brooks, at the peak of his career, got the whole world to chuckle at his version of film's most famous monster.

In the 1970s, Brooks was so well known in Germany that his name was incorporated into the title of one of his hits. The German version of "Silent Movie" was entitled "Mel Brooks' letzte Verrücktheit: Silent Movie" (Mel Brooks' ultimate craziness). Following his earlier success with a black-and-white film, he had now produced a soundless film which was a loving homage to the silent film genre.

In 1977, Mel Brooks even dared to poke fun at cinema icon Alfred Hitchcock, the master of psycho thrillers. Alluding to various Hitchcock works, in particular "Vertigo," Brooks created an intensely funny film with "High Anxiety."

In the early 1980s, Mel Brooks tackled the genre of monumental film with "History of the World, Part I," offering a wild tour through the history of mankind starting with the Stone Age, and ending before the outbreak of World War II. Here, the main victims of Brooks' parodies were the Bible and historical films.

It was high time Mel Brooks took sci-fi to task as well. Following the global success of the first "Star Wars" films, it was almost to be expected that the master of parody wouldn't spare these box-office hits. More than anything else, "Spaceballs" was intended as a parody on the space epics of George Lucas, while also alluding to other popular science-fiction films like "2001" and "Aliens."

Mel Brooks' films were, however, not always rewarded with success. His1991, parody on melodramatic romantic comedies, "Life Stinks," flopped at the box office. It seems that the "originals" - such as "Pretty Woman" for example - didn't really lend themselves to being made fun of.

Parodies on films set in the Middle Ages proved to be more successful. In "Robin Hood - Men in Tights" (1993), Brooks poked fun at the famous friend of all those suffering from poverty and persecution: Sherwood Forest's own Robin Hood. Just two years earlier, the umptienth (serious) film adaptation of that story, starring Kevin Costner, had been a worldwide success.

In 1995, Mel Brooks turned back to the horror film genre, this time to the world's most famous vampire. However, "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" lacked some of Brooks' earlier humor. It became his last film as a director, though he was go on to write and produce a remake of "The Producers" in 2005.