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Monty Python 40 Years Old Today!
cheros was one of several readers to note that today, Oct 5, in 1969 was the very first airing of Monty Python. Although not every sketch has aged
particularly well, you'd be hard pressed to find a more influential and funny show. Heck, look at the Icon we use here to indicate humorous stories! Who among us can't claim to have viewed the Holy Grail at least
somewhere in the double digits.
For something completely different.
Monty Python was a long time ago.
It is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker!
It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the perch it'd be pushing up the daisies!
Its metabolic processes are now 'istory! It's off the twig!
It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!
You must be ne... wait a minute, 5 digit ID? who did you buy that off?! :P
The I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners shows are arguably much more influential (and funnier) than Monty Python, as far as actual influence goes.
No they aren't.
MP may have been funny and set the standard for sketch comedy, it doesn't really have much influence on popular culture.
Yes it does.
The two shows mentioned above have essentially defined the groundwork and format for all sitcoms to follow.
No they haven't.
Whether popular culture should be used to judge the positive influence of something could be debated, of course.
No it couldn't.
The Life of Brian is especially worth a second view if you saw it when you were younger.
Matthias: Look, I don't think it should be a sin, just for saying "Jehovah".
[Everyone gasps]
Jewish Official: You're only making it worse for yourself!
Matthias: Making it worse? How can it be worse? Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
Jewish Official: I'm warning you! If you say "Jehovah" one more time (gets hit with rock) RIGHT! Who did that? Come on, who did it?
Stoners: She did! She did! (suddenly speaking as men) He! He did! He!
Jewish Official: Was it you?
Stoner: Yes.
Jewish Official: Right...
Stoner: Well you did say "Jehovah. "
[Crowd throws rocks at the stoner]
Jewish Official: STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW! STOP IT! All right, no one is to stone _anyone_ until I blow this whistle. Even... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do say, "Jehovah. "
[Crowd stones the Jewish Official to death]
This is an excellent opportunity to honor Monty Python by honoring the group's mastery of shock and irreverence and stop quoting, word for word skits and films! The irony is killing me slowly.
Highly apropos XKCD comic on the subject.
I disagree. Because you are quoting something surreal does not make it any less surreal. Monty Python is surreal humor, not original humor. Of course, the shock and awe of seeing it the first time is very effective. But that should in no way prevent you from continually enjoying it. If it being original was a requisite to the innate humor, the very act of placing it statically on a medium would remove the humor from it.
Of course it's quotable in the same way David Lynch is quotable or Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory is replicated in anything from The Simpsons to T-shirts. I think that XKCD comic has little to no merit in claiming that Python was loved for their mastery of shock or defiance of convention. They were loved for their humor--be it unique, it was still not entirely original. Quoting Monty Python should make no one more depressed than quoting Shakespeare or Homer. Stop fretting about being unoriginal and enjoy it.
My work here is dung.
Dead Parrot Sketch as performed by Nigerian Scammers
"Seems random" != "is random"
Big xkcd fan, but that particular one is totally without merit--the Pythons were obsessive rewriters. Every sketch went through multiple drafts, they chose their topics and precise wording very carefully. They put a lot of effort into finding the absolute most effective way of surprising the audience, and they usually succeeded. The brilliance of Python is that they took the kind of humor that doesn't rely on surprise (a la Laurel and Hardy), and made it so surprising that everyone mistakes it for surprise-humor. Most comedy incorporates surprise, but nothing stays surprising forever--the comedy that stands the test of time is the comedy that doesn't depend on it. Take surprise out of Python and you still have some of the best-written jokes the world has ever produced. The most common format for their sketches was essentially to repeat the same joke over and over again with different wording--Dead Parrot, Crunchy Frog, Spam, Spanish Inquisition, Self-Defense, etc. After the first twenty seconds, there's nothing left to surprise you even the first time you see it. The humor is in the flawless execution--and that's why it's so obsessively quoted and rewatched.
The original Howling Frog is a fictional character and has no UID.
That's the one thing that was really awkward when I was working IT: how to politely get away from folks when they start the one man Monty Python recitation of skits.
That is easy, just say:
And now for something completely different...
and walk away.
we are the knights who say...."Whoosh"!!
Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to old Slashdotters. There is a pestilence upon this site, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design non-stories are under considerable economic stress in this period in history.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
On this day, make every Anonymous Coward show up as 'Bruce'.