This weekend is all about wacky people in a madcap race around the county. Set the mood on Friday, May 23 at the Eureka Theater with a big-screen showing of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World at 7 p.m. ($5).

Hard to fathom how the same director who chiseled out Judgment at Nuremberg rediscovered his funny bone, but Stanley Kramer managed it. Spencer Tracy stars as a cop on the trail of a crook, played by Jimmy Durante, who kicks the bucket in a traffic accident. With his last breath, he utters a clue to the location of $350,000 (inflation, folks) from a tuna factory heist. Witnesses on the scene get greedy and take off on a race to find the loot, with Tracy right behind them.

Be careful when you sip your beverage — comic greats Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Winters, Mickey Rooney, Phil Silvers, Don Knotts, Carl Reiner, Ethel Merman and Buster Keaton are all in the fray, basically teaching the history of American comedy in two hours and 40 minutes of panic, slapstick and logistical nightmares, finally ending with the oldest laugh in the book.