Monty Python Crap / Not Crap ?

[JohnnyOrange]

I wasn't a kid at the time, but I didn't find Comic Strip funny at all as it aired either. I've never bothered revisiting for that reason; it was occasionally clever (but not very), but not actually funny.

Yes, which is what can be aimed at some of Python's stuff.

Having said that, thanks to Mr Jolly Lives Next Door, most of my family have spent the last two decades answering 'What's X got that I haven't?' with 'Our Fairy Liquid.'

Which is neither big nor clever. Nor, possibly, funny to anyone else.

 

[gentlegreen]

I would have ticked a "curate's egg" option.

It has genius in it, but I can't watch the repeats any more due to there being too many bits that make me cringe. Doubtless some of the clichés make the remaining pythons themselves cringe too.

(I was slightly too young to watch it the first time round).

 

[Detroit City]

Flying Circus is about %30 genius, I reckon. The movies are superb. Not crap. And the Pythons themselves have done all sorts of other superb stuff.

indeed

 

[Maggot]

Rutland Weekend Television - which spawned 'The Rutles - All You Need Is Cash' - was pretty good, and if we can add sort-of Pythons, Neil Innes' The Innes Book of Records was superb. But I still think Ripping Yarns is the best thing done by an ex-Python.

I remember really enjoying Rutland weekend television and the Rutles. But IIRC they were never repeated, were they? Can you get them on DVD?

 

[seeformiles]

Not Crap if even just for this sketch alone:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OpX3XdU-V9o

 

[fogbat]

I remember really enjoying Rutland weekend television and the Rutles. But IIRC they were never repeated, were they? Can you get them on DVD?

Yep - I've got All You Need is Cash on DVD somewhere.

Picked it up for a couple of quid at HMV or Fopp a few years back.

 

[kyser_soze]

Dr Fegg's Encyclopedia of All World Knowedlge, by Terry Jones, is an unacknokedged masterpiece comedy Xmas book.

Agree with crispy - the shows were hit and miss, but then it was almost purely experimental comedy so you've got to expect that but the films, even Meaning of Life which isn't a film so much as a collection of sketches hung together with a sort of main theme, are fucking brilliant, even after you've memorised every single line.

Especially Brian. Brian is, for me, not just a critique of organised religion, but a critique of all organised ideologies and the idiocies they throw up. Plus it has one of the hariest bushes of the 80s in it.

 

[Fruitloop]

When the comedy show was hit though it was absolutely brilliant, fish-slapping dance, ministry of silly walks, ex-parrot etc. It's the perfect example of what there is to English humour that them foreigners just don't get. Apart from Russians, weirdly, who seem to find it hilarious.

 

[Griff]

Always liked it and found it funny watching it as a kid. Still do.

Watched a repeat in the late '80s on acid and it was one of the cleverest things I'd ever seen, everything was incredibly linked by bizarre means in a way I'd never seen before or since.

Love to see that particular one again.

 

[dlx1]

CRAP unfunny rubbish.

a dead parrot hoho

 

[pollypatter]

CRAP unfunny rubbish.

a dead parrot hoho

hmm how much Python have you actually watched apart from that sketch?

 

[Balbi]

Post-python, it's got to be Palin for me. His travel stuff is class

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Dr Fegg's Encyclopedia of All World Knowedlge, by Terry Jones, is an unacknokedged masterpiece comedy Xmas book.

Is that the same thing as the Nasty Book for Boys and Girls? Cos that's an absolute gem.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

The West Bromley Fighting Haddock

 

[Maggot]

Tell me more about the West Bromley fighting haddock. Am from Bromley.

 

[panpete]

people who quote monty python over and over again

 

[kyser_soze]

Is that the same thing as the Nasty Book for Boys and Girls? Cos that's an absolute gem.

The West Bromley Fighting Haddock

Yup, that's the one!!

 

[Kaka Tim]

utterly not crap.

Agreed TV series was uneven - but the amount of genius sketches more than makes up for the stuff that falls flat.

Not mentioned yet - the prianha brothers,the church police, the panel game 'blackmail', the philosophers drinking song.

And 'Life of Brian' is the funniest film ever.

 

[Citizen66]

Movies were A** but i think the TV show was pretty hit and miss with some episodes being completely tosh all the way through.

It was also 'of the time' so some sketches may not make sense nowadays. Also I think they had really short amounts of time to complete scripts and that usually works wonders towards comedies being less funny.

 

[goldenecitrone]

people who quote monty python over and over again

Is that the 5 minute argument or the full half hour?

 

[Sadken]

I love just about all of Python. It's not the funniest bit or anything like that, but every now and then I get the voice going "Dinsdale. Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinssssssssssssdaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" popping into my head and I start to snigger. Generally it'll be in a meeting or during a funeral.

 

[goldenecitrone]

I love just about all of Python. It's not the funniest bit or anything like that, but every now and then I get the voice going "Dinsdale. Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinssssssssssssdaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" popping into my head and I start to snigger. Generally it'll be in a meeting or during a funeral.

I get the same thing with 'albatros, albaaaaaaaaatrosssssssssssss'.

 

[Sadken]

Ah, I had that on an old LP that I wore out

John Cleese just does it for me on many, many different levels. My dad has always had that same manic just beneath the surface thing about him.

 

[goldenecitrone]

I work with a guy who's about 6'6" and always has problems with the photocopier resulting in him bashing all the buttons with a huge pent-up rage. I always imagine him giving it a damn good thrashing with a tree branch.

 

[Sadken]

I am imagining him going "RIGHT! That's it, you've had it now...." and it made me laugh. I saw him turn up to a thing where Michael Palin was being interviewed a couple of years ago. Good to know they're still mates.

 

[Maggot]

I am imagining him going "RIGHT! That's it, you've had it now...." and it made me laugh. I saw him turn up to a thing where Michael Palin was being interviewed a couple of years ago. Good to know they're still mates.

That reminded me of this:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fsHk9WC7fnQ

 

[ebay sex moomin]

absolutely huge monty python fan, ever since I first saw an episode aged around 8...

for some reason, I especially love the sketches that are built to fall apart, like
and the notorious from series 2

 

[Sadken]

I think my favourite one of all time is an optician who can't see, a hearing doc who can't hear etc. etc. and one of the Pythons - can't remember which - might've been Palin? Completely deadpan in the midst of it all. So simple but hilariously chaotic.

 

[editor]

Not Crap if even just for this sketch alone:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OpX3XdU-V9o

The graphics on that are ace.

 

[Yossarian]

It's the perfect example of what there is to English humour that them foreigners just don't get. Apart from Russians, weirdly, who seem to find it hilarious.

Nah, Python was pretty popular in the US and a lot of other countries and I reckon Terry Gilliam managed to get most of the jokes...

I voted 'not crap' because the genius Python stuff more than makes up for the 80% or so that's crap...