Is Monty Python's Flying Circus dead as a parrot? - Features, Comedy - The Independent: "It began with a shaggy, Ancient Mariner figure dragging himself along a seashore. Its jaunty credit sequence intertwined cartoon flowers and the photographed heads of Victorian grandees.
It introduced viewers to Arthur 'Two Sheds' Jackson and the Funniest Joke in the World – and it was the start of a five-year love affair between the British TV audience and a world of cosily surreal humour. Monty Python's Flying Circus first hit the airwaves 40 years ago, on 5 October, 1969."
6 comments:
My favorite is still the skit about the twin brothers who ran organized crime in the East End (based on the Krays): Doug and Dinsdale Parahna. One of them nailed a man's head to a coffee table, the other was an expert in...sarcasm. "He knew all the tricks: hyperbole, litotes, satire...he was vicious!"
Difficult to pick a favorite skit, but I do enjoy the one where an architect (John Cleese) wants to design a building that slaughters anyone who enters it.
Among my favorites are the Mouse Man sketch, the Lumberjack Song and the restaurant sketch wherein Graham Chapman complains about a dirty fork which leads to Eric Idle, as the owner, wanting to commmit suicide and John Cleese, as the chef, coming on shouting "You Bloody Bastard."
And the great punchline: "Good thing I didn't mention the dirty spoon."
The restaurant sketch is one of the best. Tons of them have brilliant bits. Very few are just no good. The reviewer was right off the mark. The skits have lasted and teenagers discover them all the time. The only one I really can't stand anymore is the dead parrot, because it is just so loud and I've heard it a thousand times. I bought the ten-ton boxed set for my son last year. Still working our way through.
IFC, the Independent Film Channel, will debut a documentary series about the history of the MP troupe on 18 October. They'll also start running the original BBC series, last transmitted nationally by PBS a few years back (I note the BBC NEWSHOUR report incorrectly noted that PBS was the first US network to offer MPFC...ABC ran censored episodes as part of THE WIDE WORLD OF ENTERTAINMENT late-night package in '73 or '74, and at about the same time the Eastern Educational Network, the northeastern regional affiliation of NET/PBS stations which lives on as syndication distributor American Public Television, syndicated the series nationally to public stations, beginning ca. 1975. PBS formally wasn't involved till the recent package, following the PERSONAL BEST assemblies they also transmitted.
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