Monty Python. An Attempt to Revive a Dead Parrot?

[pplpilot]

I heard a clip on the radio. I was soooo glad I was wearing my corset because my sides would have split.

It was never funny first time around and it certainly isn't funny this time around. It really is the train spotting of the 'comedy' world. I just don't see the appeal.

 

[EltonFrog]

The first episode I ever saw was on the 19th October 1969 2 days after my 12th Birthday. I was looking to see what was on telly in the Evening News newspaper with my mum. I said "look there's a circus on tonight" she said, "it's not that kind circus" but we watched it anyway, just me and my mum, and that was it, as soon as bicycle repair man came on they had me. I loved it, for some reason I "got it", me a poorly educated working class child just starting secondary school just loved the total stupidity, the rudeness, the irreverence (not that I knew what that was then), the farce and the slapstick. I just loved and still do. In later years I got the albums, the books, I learned the scripts, and bored everyone to death at school and at my Saturday job reciting them.

Me and my mum watched them all! She liked it too, not as much as me but she did laugh. Fantastic so it was. Not everyone's cup of tea I know, and a lot of it has not translated well with the passage of time, but I will always be grateful to "the group" for teaching me what a coelacanthe is, who Oscar Wilde was, what neo-Georgian meant and showing me my first pair of tits on telly.

 

[SteCenturion]

I heard a clip on the radio. I was soooo glad I was wearing my corset because my sides would have split.

It was never funny first time around and it certainly isn't funny this time around. It really is the train spotting of the 'comedy' world. I just don't see the appeal.

Fair play.

If it's not your thing then it's not your thing.

I am the same about Tommy Cooper.
A legend in his own tea break.

 

[swee'pea99]

10% hilarious, 10% funny and 80% crap.

Monty Python could be brilliant in small doses, but it was mainly rather boring and many of the running jokes ran for so long they made you want to scream. Despite them all being extremely talented it was really the John Cleese show - the series after he left is never aired anywhere now, and for a reason.

You can pick out some hilarious sketches to prove me wrong, but I'll maintain that if you had to sit through the full spectrum of shows you'd soon be bored stiff.

I think that's probably about right, tho' for my money your figures are a tad on the harsh side. As a big fan, I think I'd go for about 5% hilarious, 15% very funny, 40% funny enough and 40% dross/filler. I looked on YouTube, without success, for the Family Guy clip where Meg is tied to a chair and subjected to whole series, protesting plaintively 'But I'm a girl. I never found even the good bits of Monty Python funny.'

Like I say, I'm a big fan, but I'm not sure I'd want to go and see these latest shows, even if I could. Hero worship is seldom a good foundation for a great evening, and comedy being all about surprise, it's hard to see how 40 year old retreads can really cut the mustard.

 

[ColinJ]

You watched it 45 years ago, as a teenager, Colin.

Blimey 'O' Reilly

You look just like Our Kid on your avatar photo & he's 41.

I always assumed you were the same.

Edit quickly.

Not trying to butter you up for man love.

Ha ha! That photo was taken 8 years ago when I was 50. I have gone much greyer since then and lost a lot of hair.

I am going to switch to a current photo when I have one that I am happy with! (One that makes me look 50-odd rather than the ones I have which make me look 60-odd.)

 

[MarkF]

I saw this pic in a newspaper, got to be one of the unfunniest pics ever, anyway, the funny one died years ago.......

 

[Bobby Mhor]

I saw this pic in a newspaper, got to be one of the unfunniest pics ever, anyway, the funny one died years ago.......

Is that Adolf, Eddie's uncle on the far left

 

[Over The Hill]

Clear off and retire!

Music, comedy and most art forms are of their moment. That moment has passed.

We are overrun with sad old gits plugging away at whatever they did 40 years ago. Cliff Richard, Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, Ronnie Corbett (most comedians seem to have died off though).
It is not funny to pull a silly face when you are 70.

Clear the stage for something new please.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

2% funny, 98% crap. The 2% is probably pushing it, but I'm in a generous mood.

 

[EltonFrog]

Clear off and retire!

Music, comedy and most art forms are of their moment. That moment has passed.

We are overrun with sad old gits plugging away at whatever they did 40 years ago. Cliff Richard, Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, Ronnie Corbett (most comedians seem to have died off though).
It is not funny to pull a silly face when you are 70.

Clear the stage for something new please.

I agree with you.

Where is the new stuff?

I'd love to see something new, innovative, groundbreaking and funny. That would be ace.

About two hundred thousand folk are going to go and the these shows, even more will see a live viewing at cinemas on telly later on in the week, and no doubt it will sell on DVD.

It would appear MP and the like are having another moment.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

2% funny, 98% crap. The 2% is probably pushing it, but I'm in a generous mood.

Although that would still be 2% funnier than Miranda.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Clear off and retire!

Music, comedy and most art forms are of their moment. That moment has passed.

We are overrun with sad old gits plugging away at whatever they did 40 years ago. Cliff Richard, Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, Ronnie Corbett (most comedians seem to have died off though).
It is not funny to pull a silly face when you are 70.

Clear the stage for something new please.

If you get the chance try to go and see Romesh Raganathan live. Crawley boy. Sri Lankan parents. I reckon he will end up being huge. Not entirely my cup of tea but he reduces that vast majority of his audience to tears. Saw him do a Edinburgh Preview show last evening.

He'll make more money from comedy than from teaching maths I reckon.

 

[Rezillo]

I wouldn't want to go and see them now, and much of what they did do in the past no longer works - either their material was poor or it has lost its context and sense of breaking ground. However, I can forgive them almost anything for their legacy of the Holy Grail dialog. One of my favourite bits:

King Arthur: I am your king.
Peasant Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Peasant Woman: Well, how'd you become king, then?
(cue angelic music)
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king.
Dennis the Peasant: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis: You can't expect to wield supreme power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you!
Arthur: Shut up!
Dennis: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
Arthur: Shut up, will you? Shut up!
Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.

 

[SteCenturion]

Ha ha! That photo was taken 8 years ago when I was 50. I have gone much greyer since then and lost a lot of hair.

I am going to switch to a current photo when I have one that I am happy with! (One that makes me look 50-odd rather than the ones I have which make me look 60-odd.)

Keep the one you've got & call it 'artistic licence'.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

I'd rather they stayed retired, big fan when I saw it in the late 70'd and I love the films but time to move on.