Monty Python Appreciation Thread

[mozmic_dancer]

Has anyone been watching the Python-a-thon on the Independent Movie Channel? Part four airs tonight:

http://www.ifc.com/

Great stuff. I haven't seen some of these skits in over 20 years. Love seeing them uncensored as well. The background stories are intriguing. They're still pissed at Graham Chapman.

 

[MindlessRuffian]

I have! I love Python!

 

[still I cling]

Has anyone been watching the Python-a-thon on the Independent Movie Channel? Part four airs tonight:

http://www.ifc.com/

Great stuff. I haven't seen some of these skits in over 20 years. Love seeing them uncensored as well. The background stories are intriguing. They're still pissed at Graham Chapman.

I've been watching it...well, recording it anyway. Python makes me happy.

 

[mozmic_dancer]

After the documentary, they had been showing the old episodes. It was late at night and I woke Mr. Mozmic up with my laughing.

They did the skit of the man who wanted to change into his bathing suit, but couldn't find a place to change in private, so he ended up doing a striptese in front of a theatre of people.

It's a man's life taking your clothes off in public. Just too much.

PS Russel Brand was part of the commentary in the documentary and mentioned Morrissey for no reason whatsoever, as well as the sexy Steve Coogan, who shocked me by knowing one of the sketches word for word.

 

[Worm]

After the documentary, they had been showing the old episodes. It was late at night and I woke Mr. Mozmic up with my laughing.

They did the skit of the man who wanted to change into his bathing suit, but couldn't find a place to change in private, so he ended up doing a striptese in front of a theatre of people.

It's a man's life taking your clothes off in public. Just too much.

What I appreciate most about "The Flying Circus" is how many flat sketches there were. You can't get a full appreciation of how brilliant the Pythons really were unless you watch a bunch of their TV episodes to see what worked and what didn't. They tried everything in the book and then some. Even when the sketches are only mediocre, they're never uninteresting because of how smart and off-kilter they were as writers. Everyone rightly loves the dead parrot sketch or the Minister of Silly Walks, but it's the forgotten sketches that are (almost) equally enjoyable, in my opinion. You get the full scope of their daring and their dementia. "They tried what?"

It's the same with Saturday Night Live's last thirty minutes. SNL isn't half as good as the Pythons were but, like the Pythons, some of the show's most inspired moments occurred in the throwaway sketches aired after 12:30 am.

 

[mozmic_dancer]

...It's the same with Saturday Night Live's last thirty minutes. SNL isn't half as good as the Pythons were but, like the Pythons, some of the show's most inspired moments occurred in the throwaway sketches aired after 12:30 am.

What I found interesting was that Python wasn't really that innovative, because people like Spike Milligan and the Goon Show guys Peter Cook and Dudley Moore did similiar comedy and Python was smart enough to combine and perhaps expand on the two.

Funny you mentioned SNL, because the Python connection became apparent when Eric Idle showed parts of his Rutles documentary on SNL. So, yeah Lorne Michaels and Dan Aykroyd on the documentary talked about the Python influence on SNL.

Watch "Life of Brian" last night. These guys were just too smart for their own good. As a little girl, I remember the brouhaha over that movie.

One of the Dominican sister at the Catholic college I went to said that the movie was blasphemous, but said it was funny, too!

 

[Anaesthesine]

I've been watching the Python-a-thon every night.

I was a Python FANATIC as a child; I've seen every show, I had most (if not all) of the albums, and I can probably summon up much of the dialogue from their films. I had something of a schoolgirl crush on Michael Palin for at least a decade or so.

My favorite sketch is the Philosopher's Football Match. Like so many people, I got a pretty good education just from watching them in grade school. I was the only kid in my 5th grade class who knew who Heidegger was (OK, I knew he was a boozy beggar, but it was a start).

Thank goodness for the Pythons, they practically raised me.

I hope they talk to Eddie Izzard a bit more - I'm always glad to hear what he has to say.

Has anyone been watching the Python-a-thon on the Independent Movie Channel? Part four airs tonight:

http://www.ifc.com/

Great stuff. I haven't seen some of these skits in over 20 years. Love seeing them uncensored as well. The background stories are intriguing. They're still pissed at Graham Chapman.

 

[mozmic_dancer]

Thank goodness for the Pythons, they practically raised me.

I hope they talk to Eddie Izzard a bit more - I'm always glad to hear what he has to say.

What the hell? They had Eddie Izzard on for about three seconds while everyone else just blabbed on forever.

Oh yes, I agree you can get a first rate education on English and World History just by watching Python. The Spanish Inquisition, Attilla the Hun, Proust, Trotsky and countless other stuff they learned at school and laughed about and decided to make the focus of their sketch comedy.

That is just one of the subversive elements I love about Python. There was a great moment when Eric Idle recalled how his headmaster referred to him as "Idle, in both name and deed" and yet, he received a full scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge or one of those farty universities.

These guys were smart and very middle class and they did this crazy kind of humor. It's just a joy to watch.

 

[anon x]

Why can't Americans pronounce the Python bit properly?

 

[mozmic_dancer]

Why can't Americans pronounce the Python bit properly?

Hello, Anon. What bit are you referring to?

Please reply. Your response is important to us.

 

[Anaesthesine]

These guys were smart and very middle class and they did this crazy kind of humor. It's just a joy to watch.

Yep.

They really do transcend comedy; there is just a brilliance, a joyousness and a deep subversiveness to their humor, and such a profound sense of the absurd. They were clearly the smartest guys in the room, but they never came off as arrogant of pompous. As noted in the documentary, they skewered the upper classes, the lower classes, the intelligentsia, the military, academia, religion, politics, the media - just about everything, and yet they never came off as mean-spirited.

Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

 

[mozmic_dancer]

Yep.

They really do transcend comedy; there is just a brilliance, a joyousness and a deep subversiveness to their humor, and such a profound sense of the absurd. They were clearly the smartest guys in the room, but they never came off as arrogant of pompous. As noted in the documentary, they skewered the upper classes, the lower classes, the intelligentsia, the military, academia, religion, politics, the media - just about everything, and yet they never came off as mean-spirited.

Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

They transcend comedy and they transcend nationality as well.

Did you see the clip of the audience at the Hollywood Bowl dressed as "Gumbies" with the knotted kerchief on their heads? Unbelieveable. See, this is where Americans get into trouble thinking that all English people go around with knotted kerchief on their heads, eat pot pies and get bombed on sherry all day long.

I only wish that was true.

 

[Worm]

My favorite sketch is the Philosopher's Football Match.

Mine too! Easily one of my top three or four favorites. In addition to the absurdist intellectual humor I love it because it really showcased their gifts as physical comedians. It's basically a short silent film. For me the sketch demonstrates what's truly (and bizarrely) brilliant about the Pythons. A lot of comedians would have stopped at the idea of having a football match played by philosophers. What puts the sketch over the top is the tenor of the announcer. He takes it as seriously as a World Cup final, and that gives it just the right angle of absurdity. I love the Pythons as much as I do because they got laughs with very broad comedy that actually turns on clever subtleties like that. The sketches seem to work because of elements that aren't as obvious. It's usually the second or third detail in a sketch that makes the main premise work, whereas in SNL and most sketch comedy shows all the heavy lifting is done by the big joke.

Except for "Mr. Show With Bob And David", which is as close to Python as anyone in America has gotten. "The Simpsons" always seems to have Pythonesque moments here and there, too, at least in the first half a dozen seasons.

 

[mozmic_dancer]

"The Simpsons" always seems to have Pythonesque moments here and there, too, at least in the first half a dozen seasons.

Yes, definitely The Simpsons, especially with their silly songs. All of the Simpson songs are a rip-off of the "Camelot" song in structure from the "Holy Grail" film.

"I like to push the pram-a-lot." "I'd like to throw a bricky-mart"

Eric Idle, incidentally, was on The Simpsons as a documentary host of "Springfield Up" which was a parody of the famous English documentary "Seven Up".

Do all roads lead to Eric Idle? Personally, I was hot for Michael Palin myself. Does anyone remember Palin being sexually harassed in the pool by that Russian woman? It was in one of his "Around the World" series.

That was great television!

 

[Walkers Crisp]

I love them!

 

[mozmic_dancer]

I love them!

That is great footage!

Sanjeev Bhaskar on the documentary talked specifically about the fish-slapping dance as the only Python skit his conservative parents ever watched and laughed outloud.

My favorite skit. I like smut:

 

[I am a Ghost]

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[oye terence]

 

[Scarlet Ibis]

Thank you. I didn't know about this.

So much of my knowledge comes directly from Python. When I was a child I'd watch them and look up the things they spoke of that I didn't understand. Actually, I had the privilege of meeting Eric Idle and I told him this in person. He seemed very pleased to have unknowingly educated me. (Then tears spurted out of my eyes and he held my hand until I could compose myself.)

 

[Walkers Crisp]

Another one of my favourites:



This thread finally made me learn to embed youtube vids.

Did you know the Pythons produced two Flying Circus episodes for German TV entirely in German (i. e. speaking - hardly understandable - German, with English subtitles)?