It Was 40 Years Ago Today
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Artist:
On this date in 1969 Monty Python's Flying Circus made it's debut on British television. It wasn't an overnight success. The BBC kept changing the day and the time it was showing, but instead of wiping it off the airwaves the slowly growing fans took it as a mark of their fandom, relentlessly tracking it down and celebrating it.
Let's all raise our glasses to some of the most demented minds British education has produced.
This is a music blog right? So let's start with a jolly singalong:
A personal favourite of mine:
The secret of their success? Surprise, fear and ruthless efficiency. And sometimes the comfy chair.
PS: Like a good rock group, people had their favourite Python. Mine was (and is) Michael Palin. Such a nice smile. Such a smarmy bastard.
Comments (33)
Agreed. I've always been partial to John Cleese though, mostly because my mom got me hooked on Fawlty Towers at a very young and impressionable age.
John Cleese is also my favorite Python but that's because he played ruthlessly cruel characters with glee. Yes - Basil Fawlty... I love the contradictory nature of the character.
Of all the Python skits and set pieces, movies and what not, however, its hard to find a favorite. Thank you John for The Lumberjack Song - its long been one of my favorites!
Memories
Although born 20 years after their start, my son also became a fan via their movies. He gets "their" kind of humor and loves it.
"Bring out your dead"- "But, I'm not dead." LOL
Long live Python! I recently picked up Michael Pallin's Diaries 1969 - 1979: The Python Years - and though I haven't read but a small portion, it's pretty incredible to read a "comedy legend's" diary, when they are still doing commercials and whatever gigs they can get to pay the rent. Like you said, they just kind of lucked into notoriety with all the schedule changes, and eventual interest across the pond cemented their infamy.
No matter how over quoted, they were the best sketch comedy of all time. They are (all puns intended) the holy grail of sketch comedy.
Hi, my name is Robin and I've been addicted to British comedy for 40 years.
I was hooked from the first viewing of Holy Grail. There may never be a comedy troupe that so effortlessly blended the surreal, the concrete, the low-brw and high-brow together the way they did.
It's a close call, but I think I prefer Cleese ever so slightly over Palin. His work in A Fish Called Wanda was the tipping point.
ahh good stuff here and it was great to read the history behind the show
Love 'em..Can still remember whistling my way out of the theater from Life Of Brian..
Unparalleled brilliance. I'm among those who now tend to watch more "Fawlty Towers" than original Python stuff, but there's no denying the greatness of the Flying Circus. Musically speaking, I can never shake their use of Clodagh Rodgers' insufferable Europop hit "Jack in the Box" as part of a running gag. And I do mean gag. BTW, insofar as Cleese, Chapman and Idle were all members of Cambridge Footlights, it behooves me to mention the latest esteemed comic luminaries to emerge from that august troupe: David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Mitchell & Webb, who have their own sketch show on the BBC, are currently in the middle of the latest season of what I consider to be the greatest sitcom of the 21st century - their paragon of hilarious discomfort "Peep Show." (It's available at a BitTorrent site near you, while previous seasons are viewable on DVD or on-demand.) Consider yourselves alerted, lovers of British humour.
They are The Beatles of comedy - the CDs of the original albums Matching Tie and Handkerchief etc are perfect for long journeys . And the film soundtracks are loaded with etxra material and between scene skits
I guess I've always been a bit more of a Palin guy (Michael, I mean). And funnily enough, Dale, it was his turn in "Wanda" that did it for me.
I suspect Americans view Monty Python a little differently, because we have no knowledge of Spike Milligan and the Goons or Tony Hancock, or of that entire strain of British comedy. To us, Monty Python came out of the blue - to the English, I am guessing, they were seen more as the culmination of a blithely absurdist but still satirical tradition.
The Goons! Ahhh Bill, now you're talking.
If we didn't have them, we'd have to invent them. A Monty Python DVD marathon might be in order.
I'm raising my glass to them, and you, John.
And thank you for NOT MENTIONING THE WAR! ;)
I managed to download a few of the Goon Shows from some Internet site. One I remember in particular is "The Whistling Spy Enigma." Sound is execrable, but one does get the sense that something very strange and new is happening....
For titles, it's hard to beat "Insurance - The White Man's Burden". Unlike a lot of Goons shows, it actually has a consistent logic from beginning to end. Neddy Seagoon sells um, someone, fire insurance for The English Channel. The scam of course being that he will never have to pay up. Later on, Eccles decides to go for a swim in said Channel, but it's a bit choppy so he pours oil on it to smooth the sea. After his swim he needs to get rid of the oil - so he sets fire to it. Perfect Milligan in every detail.
I heard The Goons a lot as a kid and while I had no context to see it as different or ground breaking, it's mix of lunacy and simultanous internal logic and complete lack of logic were ver very appealing.
Well, we had "The Beverly Hillbillies"....
Well, there was also "Steptoe And Son"....
Once, back when I was a travel writer and on assignment aborad a cruise ship, I befriended the ship's "comedian," a wry, literate and actually pretty funny man (and perhaps the most dedicated alcoholic I've ever seen) whose claim to fame was that he once wrote for Russ Abbott. As a result, I had to look into Russ Abbott when I next got the chance. Big mistake....
The top US comedians are so serious..Carlin,Pryor,Bruce. Why is that?
Spike Milligan was manic depressive on a major scale. If they were normal, would they be funny?
Prolly not..being funny is serious business.
think ill have to dig out my box set
Wow, it's strange to think I'm just a bit older than the Python show. I have to thank my leinient/ disinterested parents for letting me stay up past my bedtime as 9 or 10 year old and watch stuff that was funny, weird and -- for quite a while -- over my head. It's made me the Anglophile that I am today.
Speaking of the Goons, I was very lucky many years ago to find a 4-cassette set of their shows. Had I not been prepared by years of Python viewing, I would have had been utterly baffled by those guys. Crazy and brilliant. Thank you, U.K., for exporting humor to the colonies.
ahh, beautiful, i have not seen flying circus since i was a teenager
nudge nudge
...your wife...is she a goer?
The names of some of the skits still roll easily off my tongue:
Dead Parrot
Lumberjack song
Argument clinic
Confuse-a-cat
Upper class Twit of the Year
Cheese Shop
Never be rude to an Arab
Those are just off the top of my head. Great stuff, classic British comedy. Pure genius.
Addendum: My favorite Python line is from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
"Some watery tart handing out swords is no basis for government."
Kon - I'd forgotten that. I feel like applying it to our current prime minister.
Some more titles:
Sam Peckinpah's 'Salad Days'
The Ladies Auxiliary's Re-enactment of Pearl Harbour
The Trout Slapping Song
Do You Mind If We Call You Bruce?
Cheese Shop
Charles Dikkens
Flying Sheep (the very first one)
Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
:)
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"yoor not my king"
"It's Wafer Thin!"
"A Fish, A Fish, A Fisshyoooooo"
"Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, fuck off!
[silence]
Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?"
"Mother from window: Brian can't come out now"
"Man in Crown: But hes our Saviour!"
"Mother from window: He's doin the Dishes!"