Monty Python is dreadful Page 14

Quote: Chappers @ June 25 2013, 8:47 PM BST

I think that's probably what I meant. And then the films were a lot more disciplined rather than letting sketches tail off without a punchline.

And before that I'd watched Do Not Adjust Your Set as a kid.

(I really must stop starting sentences with "And".)

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I'm a bit late to this one, but I think accusing Python of letting sketches trail off without a punchline is missing the point. Some of the most revered comedy writers were hopeless at punchlines - in the sitcom format, for instance, how many Hancock's Half Hours or Steptoes have a brilliant central idea but end weakly, for instance with Harold chasing Albert round the kitchen table again?

Python's writers were all experienced with this problem and found a solution by freeing themselves from the tyranny of the punchline. Instead we get the good central idea of the sketch, and if there wasn't a strong punchline to hand, the fun was in the ways the team found to link the sketches.

Comedy is a very personal thing and it's perfectly OK not to find them funny, but one should recognise their historical importance.

I always thought if we had a show on TV now with the hit/miss ratio of Monty Python, it wouldn't last the first 10 minutes.

Quote: gon gon @ 25th November 2013, 12:54 AM GMT

I always thought if we had a show on TV now with the hit/miss ratio of Monty Python, it wouldn't last the first 10 minutes.

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What was the last comedy show you watched.

There've been whole series of sketch shows that haven't had one good sketch in them.

And even better ones by proper writer/actors have had repetative sketches from series to series, that have been just tiresome.

Monty Python came first, so of course it was hit and miss. There was nothing like it before, well ok there was Q but that wasn't so great.

In many ways Not The 9 O'clock News was the follow up, and its style is more refined.

But when Python was on form it created many of the sketches that moved from comedy to art.

That's why we're still talking about them now.

I remember the Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch about Life Of Brian. They died for our sins frequently.

Without Python a 6th grade Diceman would have never known squat about British Comedy! I would hazard to guess that would be true for a great many of us here in the States!

Quote: Ian Fryer @ 21st August 2013, 8:58 PM BST

Python's writers were all experienced with this problem and found a solution by freeing themselves from the tyranny of the punchline. Instead we get the good central idea of the sketch, and if there wasn't a strong punchline to hand, the fun was in the ways the team found to link the sketches.

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The problem there is a lot of the time the solution does not work as a smooth way of moving from one sketch to another; a lot of the sketches really do just tail off into drivel.

Quote: Tursiops @ 6th December 2013, 10:52 AM GMT

The problem there is a lot of the time the solution does not work as a smooth way of moving from one sketch to another; a lot of the sketches really do just tail off into drivel.

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Always hated that. They never knew when to just cut to Gilliam's animated fat chicks.

Um .. Monty Python is 45 years+ old. Secondly, this 'no punchline' thing is the whole point. When they started doing that 1969, nobody apart from Spike Milligan had done anything like it. Their whole point was to get away from the usual sketch format. Also this sort of comedy by its nature really only hits the mark maybe 50% of the time. Goon Show was the same, Milligan's 'Q' series were the same, Big Night Out and so on.

Just watched Cheese Shop, Fish License and Conrad Pooh's Dancing Teeth......utter drivel.

Python is wildly inconsistent in quality, but if you are in the right mood for silliness, it's very hard to beat.

Agreed, some of it is badly put over, and the constant over-flowery wordplay and excessive shrill voices often grate.

However here's just a few of the [hopefully lesser known] sketches I reckon rank as good as any comedy by anyone:

The Most Awful Family in Britain

Idle as multiple murderer in court

Palin/Cleese 'want to come back to my place?' gay cop scenario

Various ways of ending the show [sudden ending]

Gilliam animation of Super Charwoman

Unexploded Scotsman

Jones inflating like a balloon in filmed skit [TV series, not Meaning of Life]

Dickie Attenborough introducing celebrity fridge

Jones' Randy Vicar

Sam Peckinpahs' Salad Days

'surrounded by film'

John Cleese admitted it was like the curate's egg, and he shudders at some of the "sketches" they put out.

As someone who is old enough to remember watching the original Python shows let me add my comments.

Trying to understand the original impact of all "art" is very difficult many years later.

Some of Beethoven's music was considered the work of a mad man when they were first performed. Elvis Presley was considered a threat to the youth of the world when he first appeared.

Yet nowadays Beethoven and Elvis Presley are considered pretty main stream.

When Peter Cook did an impression of the then Prime Minister in Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s there was shock because in those days you did not makes jokes about the royal family or famous politicians.

Nowadays we get comedians making jokes about the Queen on the toilet or Tony Blair getting a blow job.

So if you were not around at the time it is very hard for anyone to understand the impact Python made at the time.

Much of what they did was ground breaking, not always funny I agree, and some of the quality of the sets and costumes and camera angles were rather poor compared with what we take for granted today.

Back then most comedy shows were basically variety shows with the opening credits, then a voice over saying "The Arthur Haynes Show" or whatever, then a few individual sketches, and maybe a couple of songs in between. It was all based on the "variety music hall".

As has been stated only Spike Milligan was trying to break away from that and he, poor bloke, was tying to do it all on his own. At least the Pythons had 6 of them to help and support each other.

As an example, in Python, for a show to start with a filmed outdoor sketch (pirates landing on a beach at night) where none of the people in Python actually appeared got me (and everyone else I assume) sitting there wondering if the BBC had put on the wrong program. This went on for 3 or 4 minutes, with no mention of Python or any "jokes" and we all thought, what is going on.

Then all of a sudden John Cleese is there, sitting at a desk in a dinner jacket and says "And now for something completely different". Then we had the opening credits

That sort of thing was unheard of in those days, having a sketch BEFORE the opening credits, whereas nowadays it is totally mainstream.

THAT is why anyone watching Python today has no idea of the impact some of the things they did had. Nowadays it all seems old hat, we have seen it all done in dozens of other shows.

Personally Python made a huge impact on my life, I can remember falling off my chair with laughter when Palin did the flower arranging sketch and hit the flowers in the vase with a hammer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNFZuPYSquY

I can remember falling out of my chair and into the aisle with laughter when watching Life of Brian at the cinema when it first came out.

I just wish I could wipe my brain of all memories of Life of Brian and watch it again without knowing what comes next.

So I would like to say thanks to all the Python crew for making it one the high points of my life. Glad you are still getting some credit all these years later.

I think the fake pirate show was called the 'Black Eagle', Guilbert: it's on Series 3 apparantly: I must locate that one!

Quote: Guilbert @ 14th September 2014, 7:15 PM BST

As

Personally Python made a huge impact on my life, I can remember falling off my chair with laughter when Palin did the flower arranging sketch and hit the flowers in the vase with a hammer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNFZuPYSquY

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Ahhhhh,there must be something wrong with me!That sketch didn't even raise the slightest smile

I've got a feeling that some Python sketches are funnier to Americans than to Britons because of the accent. In my teens I was a rabid Python fanatic, and the Shop Teacher really hated it, insisting on the superiority of LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE and LAUGH-IN.