By Megan Bianco

Thirty-four years ago Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy was the respected director’s second big flop at the box office a little over 10 years into his career. Seven years earlier in 1976, he found a critical darling with Taxi Driver—but then one mere year later, had one of the biggest bombs of the 1970s with the big-budget movie musical New York, New York.

Then Scorsese regained his acclaim in 1980 with Raging Bull—only to follow-up with another flop in The King of Comedy. The New Yorker seemed to be stuck in a hit-or-miss pattern for almost a decade—to the point where it was effecting him emotionally.

The King of Comedy was Scorsese’s fifth film with his on-screen alter ego Robert De Niro, who plays delusional and obsessed fanatic Rupert Pupkin, whose target is a super-famous talk show host named Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis). Rupert thinks he can get his imaginary talk show that he acts out in his mom’s basement to come to reality if he just becomes friends with Jerry. But Rupert discovers he has a rival obsessive fan in Masha (Sandra Bernhard).

The film has a rather dark and sardonic tone that could easily be felt as uncomfortable or “cringe worthy,” to choose an overused Millennial term. In 1983, when 20th Century Fox dropped the film into theaters on Valentine’s Day week, audiences were used to filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas or Ron Howard providing endearing, lighthearted studio movies that appealed to all ages.

Scorsese’s satire was not only a dud with viewers, but even got a mixed reaction from critics. Some called it too humiliating, while others thought it was mean-spirited. Roger Ebert even gave it a lukewarm reception. Scorsese, who had recently beat a drug addiction and was still personally sensitive to harsh criticism even admitted at one point that he “probably shouldn’t have made the film.”

It wouldn’t be until a decade later that cinemaniacs would slowly begin to appreciate the black comedy as a feature truly ahead of its time. The financial hit thriller Single White Female (1992) would show some similarities with Jennifer Jason Leigh being the Pupkin to Bridget Fonda’s Langford. Even more obvious would be Ben Stiller’s comedy The Cable Guy (1996)—which also under-performed by the standards of Stiller and lead actors Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick. In that film, Carrey plays the title character who becomes committed to being a part of a client’s life. More recently Dan Gilroy’s acclaimed thriller Nightcrawler (2014) had Jake Gyllenhaal as an unhinged amateur freelancer desperate to impress a TV executive (Rene Russo) so he can take over LA’s late-night crime journalism.

In theaters right now is the indie satire Ingrid Goes West, in which Aubrey Plaza plays a mentally unstable stalker who moves to LA to impress social media icon Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) and become her new BFF. Ingrid and Taylor are a 2017 equivalent of Rupert and Jerry.

Fortunately in their later years, Scorsese and the cast of The King of Comedy have embraced the cult following of their overlooked character study has found long-overdue appreciation.

Megan Bianco is a Southern California-based movie reviewer and content writer with a degree from California State University Northridge.