h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Me? The first person to talk about Monty Python? I think not!

Geniuses, the lot of them. Genii. Geniotes.

Oooohh my those boys were sooooooooooo funny! and nice chaps too.

Ahh, they were, but the downside is herds of pimply students having convulsions of laughter as they recite their sketches p****d after 1/2 a pint of cider and blackcurrant

Pure brilliance, even better after a few pints.
Apart from the sketches, the best thing I remember was the effect it had on my parents. Comments such as "TURN THAT RUBBISH OFF" etc.
Also it was required viewing or you would be completly lost in conversations the following day.

Eric the Half a Bee was one of the greatest songs ever written

My favorite was always the Silly Walker.

Surely THE greatest Python sketch, even better than "The Parrot Sketch" must be ...... "Mr Creasote", from The Meaning Of Life. One of the greatest pieces of visual humour in existance.

A good example of visual humor, granted, but Creosote is not the 'best' example of python sketches.

The Spanish Inquisition, Crunchy Frog, Surrounded By Film, Argument Clinic, The Bruces, Confuse-a-Cat, and The Funniest Joke in the World are all examples of sketch comedy that easily outperform. A complete list of all the Python sketches can be found at http://www.montypython.net/scriptsindex.htm

I think the best Python sketch ever though was "Holy Grail", which was a movie granted, but it was also just one real long and amazing sketch.

If the world history of comedy were an encyclopedia, the men who made Monty Python's Flying Circus possible have permanently set for themselves an entire book, whereas most comedians in history are lucky to get a single paragraph.

Surely the measure of greatness is best judged by the amount/quantity of fantastic Python material which would not even make a Python Top 10 and yet would still outclass most current material...

How about Summarising Proust, The Lupin Highwaymen, The Pirahna Brothers,Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson, and, of course, the first ever great Playschool mickey take - "How to Do it" (" and next week, how to splitb the atom and rid the world of all known diseases !")

Fantastic stuff.. part of every english schoolboys upbringing -- it doesn;t even take me 2 pints before i will argue the ordering of the excuses in the Parrot sketch

Oh now you're just showing off by means of obscurity.

BRUCE'S PHILOSPHERS SONG

Immanuel Kant was a real pisant, who was very rarely stable.
Heidigger Heidigger was a burly beggar who could drink you under the table.
David Hume could outconsume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
And Wictenstein was a beery swine, who was just as shloshed as Schlagel.

There's nothin' Nietsche couldn't treach-ya 'bout the raisin' of the wrist!
Socrates himself was permanently PISSED !!!

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, on a half a pint o' shandy got particularly ill.

Monty Python
Plato, they say, could stick it away. Half a crate a whiskey everyday!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram.
And Renee DesCartes was a drunked fart, "I drink therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.

Thankyou for the Philosophers lyrics! I long ago lost my copy of the album with the song (Matching Tie was it?) and could only ever remember the odd couplet. So pleased to read the whole thing again.

NI

Okay, let's start the fireworks: My favourite sketches and bits;

-The Coalmining son and Playwright father (they still haven't done a film about THAT)

-The documentaries "Village Idiots" and the "Playwright Owen McTeagle".

-The Australian Mosquito Hunters"

In the best song category:

According to the Falkland Island Defence Force: "Always Look On The Bright Side of Life"

Mine: "The Galaxy Song" from "Meaning of Life", "Every Sperm Is Sacred" from same...and I feel sure there was a third, which I can't remember.

Fruitbat

Fortunately for all, Monty Python occupied a place in herstory that was unique in television production: they were trusted with creating 13 half-hours because they came from Cambringe Circus/Oxford Circus at a time when most television writers came from those two universities.

They also had track-records of some degree within the BBC, so their work was known, if not always appreciated or understood.

They were given tremendous licence because they came from those backgrounds and were regarded as very intelligent men.

Amazingly, the BBC is always proudest in hindsight of those groups that barely squeaked by their censorship when in production. The Goon Show was nearly canned a few times, Python had constant struggles with BBC and other groups for their language or ideas.

If only those that follow Python's work were as clever and innovative about presenting their material. I think "Spitting Image" came closest, and as funny as they were they were far too political to be timeless the way much of Python is.

Fruitbat

Would it be appropriate to point out here that America's Saturday Night Live series, which is unfortunately STILL going long after the original talent left the building, was allegedly inspired by Monty Python? There are some sources in fact that state Lorne Michaels literally stole the idea of a group of comedians doing sketches that had no rhyme or reason with each other and Americanized it.

Is it proper to point that out? Perhaps it's best left unsaid.

Oh, I'm sure it was only a matter of time. I mean, 'round here as far as I can tell everything American is either a cheap imitation of something British or just plain stupid.

I mean, they complain about the credits on films being "typically American, long and pointless" or whatever for god's sake! Most of what they show in the credits of films are set by all the labor unions of the people who work on them. Even the order in which they are shown is set.

Anyway, sorry. End rant.

All.

My brother bought me a video last Christmas which had a sketch on with John Cleese and Micheal Palin dressed as you "typical" Frenchman - Black Berret and Stripey Jumper - discussing, in French, how to convert a sheep into an aeroplane. I'd never seen it before, and couldn't understand why........it was pure Python Genius!

Certainly it's proper to point that out:. I wonder how many other shows were inspired by Python and did reasonably well in the beginning....

Sadly, however, most British shows don't survive the culture shift when crossing the pond. In England, the humour is usually quicker and subtler (the good bits, anyway). In America, it's usually telegraphed and underlined in red pen (often accompanied by a laugh-track to make sure EVERYONE gets it).

I keep thinking about those other shows that were written and performed by members of Python BEFORE they became Python. The children's shows that adults were rushing home from work to see....never hear about that kind of thing going on in North America.

Fruitbat

asking for your vote for Virtual Mayor of London

Here we go again generalizing. Laugh tracks accompany almost any sitcom you can name on EITHER side of the pond. At least most all the ones I'm aware of. I surely won't proclaim to be an expert on British tv. Someone will likely come up with an exception from there.

I don't watch any sitcoms these days. Well, except for Red Dwarf when it's on. (You'll notice even RD has a laugh track. And when the HHGG series was made, they wanted to put a laugh track in that as well!) And I watch the occasional Futurama or Simpsons epsiode. Now there's an interesting note. Those animated sitcoms do not have a laugh track (nor does King of the Hill, the other animated sitcom I know of, at least I don't think it does). The trouble in the live actor sitcoms is that the situations are mostly so exaggerated that it's silly. Laugh track or not, you have to laugh cos you're thinking "this is so terrible". Actually, I gather most of them are not laugh tracks but filmed before live audiences. And SNL of course is broadcast live.

The best laugh moments in tv are in dramas, when they throw in a funny moment. If you want purpose-made comedies, grab a movie instead. That's my generalization for today's stuff.

I didn't know there was a song about a half bee until this very moment, hoever i just the minute before this one wrote a story about a half bee in responce to an article called "sie sprachen deutsch?". How amazing and coinsidental is that?!