Monty Python's Flying Circus - Classic or Dud?

"that series 1 episode where it's mostly about the Scottish man fighting alien blancmanges is pretty poor."

I love that episode! One of the very first ones I ever saw... for some reason, people always rag on the Python sketches that went any longer than five minutes, but i thought this and Scott of the Antarctic were quite good.

Series three, very good. Series four, okay... even though Cleese's writing material did make into several episodes, the sense of balance he provided the show was gone, and a lot of the material just fell into overdone and overplayed nonsense. See the sketch with Terry Gilliam on the couch eating beans very messily with Chapman in drag and Jones I believe going on about snogging. I mean, I like gross-out humor, but a lot of the fourth season just seemed pointless and uninspired. There are a few moments of brilliance still present, however.

(Also, does anyone remember those Time Life UK adverts where they tried some rip-off thing where you signed up for a series of tapes at 5.99 each or something that only had two episodes on each one, all out of sequence, and all from those smudgy mid seventies NTSC transfers?)

If not classic I don't know what is.

Er, these are arguments for Python?

I had no idea there were episodes without John Cleese, though.

The Spanish Inquisition sticks in my mind as the sketch that made me chuckle a lot. I don't even mind when people quote that one.

"I say, Lionel! Catch!"

Ah ... so you're a Two Ronnies man, then?

I'd caught programmes here and there on TV, but the majority of it I'd never seen before. My conclusion? Classic. Python is quite simply the funniest and most creative comedy show there has ever been. Perhaps only Chris Morris comes close to the subversive surrealism of it.

Actually, Terry Gilliam's interludes are what I like least; I find him manic and vulgar. For me he's the Ringo Starr of the Pythons, a sort of fratboy Salvador Dali. The others remind me of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Eric Satie... brilliant eccentric humour which can only come out of a certain high-minded seriousness. For instance, I discovered recently that one of the sketches was based on a Fluxus performance that happened in London. Now, even to parody a Fluxus performance, the Pythons had to be arty and curious enough to go to one, just as, to parody medieval romance it helped to be steeped in the subject, as Terry Jones was.

Those darn Americans! ;-)

Momus, people were writing news articles about Fluxus events back then; it seems like the sort of thing that you'd just be aware of (especially after Yoko had gotten famous through Lennon). I'm not sure any of them actually went to such an event.

I'm not sure that the slow-moving bullet hitting the tenor or the old lady tripping the busses are any more manic and vulgar than the French aero-sheep demonstration or "sex on the telly" bit.

(I have the DVD set. I can hereby attest to the fact that watching a whole day worth of MPFC can drive one slightly batty. I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed myself.)

Also, for anyone who loves the show and hasn't heard any of Python's comedy albums, I highly suggest picking those up. "Matching Tie and Hankerchief" is by far my favorite of the bunch.

I picked-up a CD set of ... hmmm .... maybe 'The Best of Python'? It sounds like someone put a tape recorder next to a TV speaker while MPFC was on, and then burned that to CD. Horrible quality. And yet funny. We listened to that skit about the architect who was supposed to design an apartment building and ended-up with a slaughterhouse instead while driving through Flagstaff in the middle of the night during a snow storm. Without the visual cues for the skits, well, it is an experience. Highly recommended.

And yes, Spiny Norman did go around looking for his friend Dinsdale.

My mom made almost this exact comment earlier tonight. (My cousins--aged 7 and 10--had a sleep over here tonight and we watched the blancmange episode. Eh...but I did giggle at the manner in which the people were instantly transformed). She first saw it in the early-mid 70s on PBS. She had never even heard about it, just happened across it by chance one night. It truly was the first of its kind and, arguably, the best.

Dan, I fucking love that gore-gy scene. And can I just say: Momus OTM about the Gilliam segments. I just. don't. get it...and aesthetically, it makes me uneasy.

Apparently, as I've recently discovered, there are some funny edits and things on the A&E boxset. The "Proust" sketch is censored for the word "masturbation", for a start. I think the "Biggles Dictates A Letter" sketch features a weird glitch at the start due to being mastered from a faulty copy... and I've heard series 4 is all different edits. Oh yes, and the end of episode 12 of series 3 has been cut. And of course the picture quality is a bit rubbish (what with everything coming from early NTSC transfers which are all horribly smudgy).

Some guy over on the Comedy (formerly SOTCAA) Forum on NotBBC claims there's a UK boxset coming out in a year's time, which might rectify these faults.

I am probably utterly wrong about that bit, by the way, so feel free to correct me!

This reminds me of some sketches which were filmed but got cut out at the last minute, and subsequently wiped - "Choreographed Party Political Broadcast", something about a sculptor and his big nosed subject, and a thing about bees and businessmen (I think I completely misremembered that one). Just the scripts and a couple of production stills are all that exists of them now.

Also, has anyone here ever heard of the infamous "Wee-Wee Sketch"? Apparently it was written but it never got filmed, as the censors forbade it. It was about a couple at a restaraunt trying out wines, which are all actually urine.

Thought I saw that sketch, but I could be thinking of the restaurant sketch instead, where the guy eats so much, he throws up everywhere.

(It's OK to show that, but not glasses of wee? Odd moral bent.)

YESSS!!!! Can it get any better than that?!

My Python geekery is shining especially brightly on this thread.

Isn't the beauty of Python that it allows for happy juvenile geekdom too, though?

In my mind's eye I have over the years minimized Eric's contribution to the Rutles, extending his silencing from the epicenter of Ollie Halsall singing his character's vocals, preferring to think of them as an offshoot of The Bonzos (see my current controversial screenname) as well as Patto/Timebox.

I used to have at least some of the Rutland Weekend Televisions as video files, assume they're still accessible on the Internet somewhere. It was OK, mark otm about Henry Woolf

Forgot to mention Fans of the Rutles and Rockpile, are you familiar with a band called Fatso?

since i'm declaring my teenage allegiance in the thread i shd also mention that as a loyal child of beatles fans i was hotly offended by the entire concept of the rutles, and also george h's enthusiasm (my favourite beatle why so treacherous!): i refused to countenance that any of the parodies were any good, and indeed anything but utterly point-missing -- however i loved the bonzos unreservedly (and still do)

no wonder i became a professional rock critic eh foax

george h's enthusiasm balanced by the fact that, acc to Idle's autobiog, he listened to the rutles songs gruffly made sure that the beatles got a sizeable cut of the songwriting royalties

Is any Rutles song a pastiche of one of George’s? Can’t recall one.

"Nevertheless"

offsetting what he was going to lose in the "my sweet lord" debacle i guess -- that wd sharpen yr senses round such an issue

John told Idle "Get Up and Go" was too close to "Get Back" and Dick James would probably sue them if it was on the album (so they left it off).

Posted this on the Bonzos thread earlier today, perhaps it is relevant here as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9SQ7GeiGh8&feature=emb_logo

Start again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9SQ7GeiGh8

There was always Rutland Weekend Television,

Radio 5 is also good and at least sometimes funny; shows Idle dedicating the same sort of attention to detail another medium as he did to the extremely dense & visual Python books.

Actually the only thing I remember disagreeing with in dm's long post with Idle bringing along Innes as a negative.

its a controversial take i admit but in particular i cant forgive urban spaceman

(xp) "Nausea" is not set in Paris, Neil. Tut tut.

Yeah, that was a little, um, defensive or something.

john cleese, 1972:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

john cleese, 2020:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/john-cleese-baffled-jk-rowling-105247414.html

I've always wondered what happened to his chin between Python and Fawlty Towers, let alone old age

tbh at this point I expected even worse from him

the other participant in the argument sketch is, of course, dead. however, in 1982 he said this:

https://youtu.be/nwOcc-buSsg?t=481

Trump's latest interview vs monty python parrot sketch pic.twitter.com/GKlpNF4ffB

— Darren Dutton (@Darren_Dutton) August 4, 2020

Never knew about the origin of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwJQQyF0yy0

wow! how great. never knew that either.

as in you didn't know it was pre python?

nope!

I often do the real version of that: mi bed was a bit of foam on't floor for 3 years in a mice infested slum in a box room wi' brother and sister and we had black mould on toast for breakfast...

Also the bookshop sketch. Too bad it is not complete.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYlOV7K-xOU

Cleese posted that "Four Yorkshiremen" video to honor the passing of Barry Cryer, who plays the waiter.

easier to acknowledge a passing waiter than to get one to acknowledge you nest pas

*nudge, nudge, wink, wink*

Who else remembers first seeing Monty Python on
The Dean Martin Comedy World?

Maybe I should start a summer replacement show thread.

how old do you think we all are

I'm intrigued by this "comedy acts from around the world" premise of the Dean Martin show you mention - any idea if any non anglo acts were featured?

terry jones?

how old do you think we all are

I'm intrigued by this "comedy acts from around the world" premise of the Dean Martin show you mention - any idea if any non anglo acts were featured?