For me A&C were a million percent funnier before Costello’s child died. After that he was just going through the motions, the joy was gone. None of the A&C “meet” movies compare to their first six or eight. I introduced my five year old to them and by now (he’s seven) he knows them by heart...they just don’t get tired.
I could probably hold to that assessment, the films had become formula by that point (just as the Bowery Boys movies became formula).
Imagine if Hollywood had just numbered those films “Bowery Boys XXII, The Boyz R 8ack!”