Happy 40th, Monty!
Oct. 16th, 2009 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteIt's been a busy few weeks... so busy I somehow managed to miss the 40th anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Not everyone likes The Pythons: they were often crude, sophomoric, crass, and distasteful. But the flip side of each of these pejoratives is that they were often visceral, intellectual, penetrating, and irreverent towards a great many shibboleths and ossified British (and eventually other) social customs.
Something about The Pythons caught my fancy in university, and at one point, I could quote most of their many skits with reasonable accuracy, though not nearly so skillful delivery. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, their elaborate deconstruction of medieval history and the King Arthur tales, was a particular favorite, and something of a religious ritual while I was in university: with a few friends, we watched the movie pretty much each Christmas and each Easter to decompress as exams or the semester were winding down. I could pretty much quote the entire movie verbatim by the time I graduated.
Not all of the Python humor has aged well. A while back, Shoshanna bought me the complete Python collection on DVD, and we spent many evenings revisiting the shows. They were still generally amusing, but some of the skits seemed more sophomoric and clumsy than insightful and sharply transgressive. Still, despite their many flaws, I retain an enormous fondness for the comedians and their show, and some of their writing still strikes me, nearly 40 years after they first reached British audiences and about 30 years after I first encountered them, as among the funniest bits of humor in the English language.
I have many favorite episodes, but the one that always comes to mind when I ponder Python is the famous soccer match between the German and Greek philosophers. It combines physical comedy with a delightful skewering of the pretensions and heedlessness of the real world exhibited by so many philosophers, not to mention having a good poke at the British love of football ("soccer" if you're an American reader)—but done by people who clearly know and love both subjects. Needless to say, that reminds me of the Philosopher's song, which simultaneously pokes fun at philosophers, British stereotypes of Australians, and (in the live version) contains my favorite joke about American beer. (Fortunately, the microbrew movement has saved many Americans from a watery fate.)
I'll quit now before I get carried away. Got any favorite skits? Share 'em, and tell us what they mean to you.
Not everyone likes The Pythons: they were often crude, sophomoric, crass, and distasteful. But the flip side of each of these pejoratives is that they were often visceral, intellectual, penetrating, and irreverent towards a great many shibboleths and ossified British (and eventually other) social customs.
Something about The Pythons caught my fancy in university, and at one point, I could quote most of their many skits with reasonable accuracy, though not nearly so skillful delivery. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, their elaborate deconstruction of medieval history and the King Arthur tales, was a particular favorite, and something of a religious ritual while I was in university: with a few friends, we watched the movie pretty much each Christmas and each Easter to decompress as exams or the semester were winding down. I could pretty much quote the entire movie verbatim by the time I graduated.
Not all of the Python humor has aged well. A while back, Shoshanna bought me the complete Python collection on DVD, and we spent many evenings revisiting the shows. They were still generally amusing, but some of the skits seemed more sophomoric and clumsy than insightful and sharply transgressive. Still, despite their many flaws, I retain an enormous fondness for the comedians and their show, and some of their writing still strikes me, nearly 40 years after they first reached British audiences and about 30 years after I first encountered them, as among the funniest bits of humor in the English language.
I have many favorite episodes, but the one that always comes to mind when I ponder Python is the famous soccer match between the German and Greek philosophers. It combines physical comedy with a delightful skewering of the pretensions and heedlessness of the real world exhibited by so many philosophers, not to mention having a good poke at the British love of football ("soccer" if you're an American reader)—but done by people who clearly know and love both subjects. Needless to say, that reminds me of the Philosopher's song, which simultaneously pokes fun at philosophers, British stereotypes of Australians, and (in the live version) contains my favorite joke about American beer. (Fortunately, the microbrew movement has saved many Americans from a watery fate.)
I'll quit now before I get carried away.
Happy 40th, Monty!
Date: 2009-10-17 03:23 am (UTC)The Palestine Liberation Front bits in "Life of Brian"
and
The Argument bit?
JakeR
Re: Happy 40th, Monty!
Date: 2009-10-17 11:44 am (UTC)