Python Not Funny Shock

An acquaintance remarked that is his opinion the six gentlemen above, collectively known as Monty Python's Flying Circus, weren't really that funny. His remark was refreshed in my mind on reading the discussion on Gavin's Station about The Goons. I suspect that the popularity of The Goons like that of Python has a certain amount with 'you had to be there' although the person making the comment about Python was actually there.

Monty Python played quite an important part in my adolescence, before they came along the only comedy you were exposed to on television was, with the exception of Spike Milligan's Q, the sort of stuff your Grandparents liked: Tarby, Brucie, Two Ronnies. Python brought something different to the table, they appealed to my sense of the ridiculous, something that has stayed with me to this day in the shape of Eddie Izzard, then Al Murray, Harry Hill and the almost magisterial Mighty Boosh.

Too much comedy follows straight lines, there's nothing wrong with that after all some people like poetry that rhymes, the paintings of Constable and music by Robbie Williams but I want something more. Ideas that crash into each other and don't have to have a pay off or tag line.

I got into writing because of Monty Python, inspired by their brand of coordinated lunacy I produced, on an old typewriter that had belonged to my Mother, a four page newspaper called The Daily Norwegian. Only one copy was produced, this was back in 1974 before Xerox, but it was passed around my year at school for the entertainment of like minded souls.

Ask 10 people over 40 to name their favourite comedy film of the past thirty years and I bet Life Of Brian will be mentioned by more than half. Not all of the Python material has survived the test of time I agree, but the majority of seasons 2,3 and 4 is still very funny and Terry Gilliam's animations are the visual equivalent of The Smiths instrumentals, you either love them or think they are grossly overrated.

Pythons not funny? Of course they are. People will be laughing at their sense of the absurd long after people have stopped telling jokes about an Englishman, Irishman and Rabbi walking into a pub.