Blenkinsop
Saturday 5th February 2011 10:39pm [Edited]
2,014 posts
I have had a read through all of this thread and the early stages are very entertaining indeed, but on the main point I have to agree with Chappers. In its day MP was innovative and ground-breaking and at its best sublime, but my God there was some monumental dross in there too.
Agreed it was an undoubted launchpad for so much good stuff that followed directly afterwards, and overall I'm still a big fan.
I think the films stand the test of time a lot better than the series and when watching late night repeats of the TV shows a while back I gave it 10 mins before switching off. Maybe because as a spotty teen I had watched them all 40 years ago and back then I thought that the MP team could do no wrong. And yes, at break time we repeated the sketches to one another as best we could remember (pre home VCRs). When VCRs did come in then I had ample opportunity to watch them loads and loads of times, so I know a lot of the material verbatim.
But when I watched on telly recently it had been probably twenty five or more years since I'd last watched them, and now in the cold light of modern and more sophisticated offerings they just looked a bit naff and extremely rickety in places. So I have no desire to own the DVDs or watch the repeats. I'd prefer run them in my mind's eye and that way won't fall out of love with them.
Interestingly and although not strictly a fair comparison, two sitcoms that I have on DVD and that I do watch a lot of (Hancock & Bilko), and that pre-date MP by over ten years, are still as sharp as they were over fifty years ago and probably will be in another fifty.