Why Monty Python ?

[BAYLOR]

I agree. I've never found Milligan very funny, but some of Monty Python is great. Unfortunately the hit rate isn't that high: perhaps a third of the show is really good, whereas (to my mind) all of Blackadder except the first season is very high quality. Obviously there's a lot less of Blackadder than MP, and the comedy is much more disciplined. The Monty Python films, especially The Life of Brian and The Holy Grail feel tighter and more consistently funny. Being silly well is difficult.

Some the cultural reference stumped me a first . The Skit revolving around Biggles . It wasn't till years later that I found out what that one was all about.

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

Yep, I’ve been saying for a while that the comedy of Monty Python is destined to fade into obscurity just like that of The Goons before it. When people doubt me, I challenge them to quote anything by The Crazy Gang. (Precursors to The Goon Show)
And thus it goes, after Python were the Comic Strip (plenty can quote from The Young Ones) and anything featuring Rowan Atkinson (“Bob” will cease to be automatically hilarious someday) and thence on to…..I don’t know the next equivalent generation - Peep Show maybe?

Fred Karno, anyone?

Just discovered Fred Karno -seeming it's a saying 'all gone Fred Karno' as I heard someone using it and looked it up. Great stuff altogether from the bits I could find on YT. The pie in the face one is classic ...did it a few times as a result of the seeing it in the Karno stuff and it's always a winner -everyone knows what's gonna happen, but somehow it never fails to be a bit of craic

Not sure why MP -was very different to the generic 'mother in law' stuff so I think it blew our minds back in the day (Life of Brian was banned when I was young so watching the video had an added 'this must be seriously good if they've banned it' edge ...'Fr.Ted' later went on to capture the vibe in the 'Passion of St. Tibulus' episode).

 

[Karapace]

Yep, I’ve been saying for a while that the comedy of Monty Python is destined to fade into obscurity just like that of The Goons before it. When people doubt me, I challenge them to quote anything by The Crazy Gang. (Precursors to The Goon Show)
And thus it goes, after Python were the Comic Strip (plenty can quote from The Young Ones) and anything featuring Rowan Atkinson (“Bob” will cease to be automatically hilarious someday) and thence on to…..I don’t know the next equivalent generation - Peep Show maybe?

Fred Karno, anyone?

I can quote the Goons (though not as you say the Crazy Gang)
He's fallen in the water
Yes It's a tradition amongst drowning men

(incidently My Father used to go on about Fred Karno's circus)

 

[Karapace]

No. It's too easy to say that it's just the guys channeling their memories of Spike, just as it's wrong to say that Rowan Atkinson, or whoever else, is just channeling his memories of Cleese. (Although it's often done.)

Python was certainly influenced by Milligan, and lots of other people and shows, like Hancock or even Arthur Askey and other vaudeville and radio shows. And The Young Ones, and Not the Nine O'clock News, and many others were influenced by Python.

But in all cases they took what they saw of their predecessors and created something new.

It's interesting but I can't think of any current series that does anything like Python, Goons, etc

 

[Ursa major]

(“Bob” will cease to be automatically hilarious someday)

'Fr.Ted' later went on to capture the vibe in the 'Passion of St. Tibulus' episode).

Careful, now.

He's fallen in the water

One of my favourite bits from the Goons is "What time is it, Eccles?":

 

[Karapace]

I have the whole show on dvd and on occasion I pop in a dvd sit back and watch the silliness unfold . One thing that becomes very clear is how brilliant and larger then life and unique each one of them truly were..


Thought?

I agree that some sketches were a bit of a miss, especially the last series in the 70's but when they landed they landed well. I remember seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the cinema and literally screaming with laughter to the point where I couldn't breathe. At one point it was my most seen film.

 

[BAYLOR]

I agree that some sketches were a bit of a miss, especially the last series in the 70's but when they landed they landed well. I remember seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the cinema and literally screaming with laughter to the point where I couldn't breathe. At one point it was my most seen film.

The Coconut and the Sparrow. They left question unanswered.

 

[Karapace]

The Coconut and the Sparrow. They left question unanswered.

African or European?

 

[farntfar]

I've never found Milligan very funny,

No. Milligan was brilliant in the Goons and elsewhere. But like many others, he lost his edge when he was too aware that everyone loved him for it.
The various Qs (Q5 and Q6 and later) just became worse and worse as he believed in his own brilliance more and more.
There have been a number of tribute programs to Milligan. They all speak in glowing terms of the Goons and many other things. Few mention the Qs.

The same happened with others.

 

[Harpo]

I can quote the Goons (though not as you say the Crazy Gang)
He's fallen in the water
Yes It's a tradition amongst drowning men

(incidently My Father used to go on about Fred Karno's circus)

“He’s fallen in the water” was deliberately added to scripts to demonstrate that audiences will come to love any old random phrase if it’s done repeatedly in a silly voice.

I’ve used the same method on Facebook for many years (though I don’t type in a silly voice) with “Kettering onions” and “shut up, hippy”

 

[paranoid marvin]

Monty Python was very hit and miss. But when it hit, it struck gold. The benefit of a sketch show is that you can have lots of experimental stuff in there, and it's fine because it isn't on screen for very long.

But unlike more modern sketch shows, pretty much all the sketches were unique. Very few recurring characters and catchphrases. It must have been exhausting having to vome up with so many different characters and scenarios to place them in.

As for its lastability, it probably helps that most of the material is still usable today. In an era where much of the comedy would be frowned on today, MP's humour was almost always inoffensive.

Unless you were a member of the Spanish Inquisition. But I suppose no-one would have been expecting them to be watching.

 

[pogopossum]

I appreciate all of the above, but am perhaps I am too old and set in my ways to admit to Harpo's premise that it all fades away.
I do remember the Goons.
I take my handle from perhaps the greatest comic strip ever, Pogo. Reading about Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbs and Gary Larson of The Far Side I was pleased that they said pogo was a major influence.
So perhaps the memory lasts with people who continue the creativity?
The American Saturday Night Live was never as good as MP, but was inspired by it. and had its excellent moments. Looking at both their old and even moreso their new shows, they have aged greatly and don't stand the test of time
MP however seems timeless. Even my six and ten year old grandchildren like it.
So how to continue the word?

 

[Harpo]

I appreciate all of the above, but am perhaps I am too old and set in my ways to admit to Harpo's premise that it all fades away.
I do remember the Goons.
I take my handle from perhaps the greatest comic strip ever, Pogo. Reading about Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbs and Gary Larson of The Far Side I was pleased that they said pogo was a major influence.
So perhaps the memory lasts with people who continue the creativity?
The American Saturday Night Live was never as good as MP, but was inspired by it. and had its excellent moments. Looking at both their old and even moreso their new shows, they have aged greatly and don't stand the test of time
MP however seems timeless. Even my six and ten year old grandchildren like it.
So how to continue the word?

You do remember The Goons, but my premise example is The Crazy Gang.

 

[BAYLOR]

African or European?

I don't know that AAAAAAHHHHHHH !!!!!!

Baylor gets launched from the bridge and falls into the Gorge of Eternal Peril

 

[Karapace]

You do remember The Goons, but my premise example is The Crazy Gang.

I realise that while I don't really know the Crazy Gang that well I do know Flanagan and Allen. Underneath the Arches, Run rabbit run, etc. (Hard to find a full discography though)
Also I remember Round the Horne

 

[Harpo]

I realise that while I don't really know the Crazy Gang that well I do know Flanagan and Allen. Underneath the Arches, Run rabbit run, etc. (Hard to find a full discography though)
Also I remember Round the Horne

Same for me. It’s like a young person today knowing bits of Fawlty Towers and “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life”, but they don’t believe you when you tell them the origin of ‘spam’

 

[paranoid marvin]

I still listen to old radio episodes of Hancock's Half Hour. The Sunday afternoon one is pure genius.

 

[Harpo]

I still listen to old radio episodes of Hancock's Half Hour. The Sunday afternoon one is pure genius.

Stone me, what a life.

But for every old radio comedy that we do still enjoy (I like The Navy Lark too) there are probably dozens that we have forgotten and which rarely get repeated these days.

I just tried googling The Crazy Gang, and the Wikipedia page for some 1980s football team of that name comes up before the comedy group.

 

[farntfar]

I loved The Last Page.

Maybe we should start a Hancock nostalgia page, like the Python ones. But I suppose it would soon be completed.

 

[BAYLOR]

And Monty Python gave us the Killer joke , and as result , Joke Warfare was banned by a special session of the Geneva Convention.This is one of their best Skits.

And an honorary mention and nod to The Batley Townswomans Guild's reenactment of the Battle of Peal Harbor.