For those who haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7qT-C-0ajI&t=129s

I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!

--

The text doesn't do the scene justice. Michael Palin is a national treasure!

Funnily enough I came across a similar comment a few days back

https://www.reddit.com/r/AccidentalRenaissance/s/foguWdeDMY

I have to force myself not to use that line. It's too sarcastic for a good mod comment, but it's also so perfect, it pains me to edit it out. So other few words fit! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lStcwT_RGrQ#t=50).

I first saw it in school, at 15 (a looong time ago). Could not believe my eyes. Could not believe one was allowed to even do that. The incredible freedom of it all, starting with the title sequence, and the incredible irreverence, crazyness.

I think it's fair to say it changed me as a person. I never took anything too seriously after that.

My 15year old can quote it. Their teacher said something the other day, and she replied from the movie. They both laughed, but the rest of the class (apparently) all looked confused. I was very proud.

Same thing happened with a FleetwoodMac song. Different teacher.

One company I worked for, we used to joke that we should get rid of all the software questions and ask what the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is.

Those poor minstrels.

I have watched it with plenty of women, and I have not seen any difference.

My mom exposed me and my sister to Python on PBS long ago, and we used to explode in paroxysms of laughter and roll around on the floor when the Dead Parrot sketch was going.

I rewatched it a few weeks ago, took note of the symbolism surrounding it, and now I am horrified, shocked, disgusted that I ever took delight in the abuse of women and degrading them. And I cannot watch Abby on NCIS without thinking of what the actress has been through in her real life.

Not trying to oversimplify the appeal, but I personally found their juxtaposition between the absurd and highly intelligent social commentary endlessly entertaining because deep down it felt like they were saying something is really really wrong with society and existence in general. They wrapped it up in comedy, because what else can you do in the face of an existential crisis but laugh at it? They always felt like a group of very angry young men trying to disrupt the stuffy old system from within. Very subversive stuff, especially for it's time. It really resonated with me as an angry/angsty (and relatively intelligent) adolescent male.

Go watch Brazil and tell me that Gilliam isn't furious with humanity and the state of things in the world.

Nothing to be embarrassed about, different strokes for different folks.

However, Monty Python was far from lazy, they cleverly deconstructed a repressive British culture at the time, they mocked class and authority, uptight education institutions, pointless bureaucracies, religious hypocrisy, and violent glorification of British history.

Their humor can be pretty crass by today’s standards, but if you approach their work as an absurdist, subversive satire, they’re one of the best that have ever done it.

I’ve always found their underlying message to be “don’t take things too seriously and enjoy life.”

As for what’s funny, they’re just absurd. A flying bunny that rips knights head off, an accidental messiah who just points out basic common sense which is interpreted by the masses as direct edict from God, brilliant deconstruction of bullshit bureaucracy in form of ministry of silly walks. Things like that.

But if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, that’s okay too.

Well the simple answer is that humor is subjective and that the things which were considered novel, topical, subversive humor in 1970s might not hit the same for everyone today. I'm not even sure the "British Humor" aspect has that much to do with it, since I think Monty Python has a bigger following in the US than in the UK. It might just not be your brand of humor.

That being said, the good sketches from their show are still funny and memorable today. But as with any sketch show, there's a mixture of quality. Holy Grail has its intergenerational staying power among nerds and theatre kids for a reason, even if the quoting and references to it have become pretty trite in my view.

Life of Brian is probably the best thing they've done, and is definitely one of my favorite comedies ever.

Silly Walks isn't just funny because it's a grown man flopping his legs around like a kid, but also because there's apparently a department of the government to manage such activity. That's absurd.

Wasn't that in Life of Brian?

I thought that was more in the spirit of "Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things"

Monty Python was hardly the only show that featured men dressed as women. Drag has actually been part of British entertainment for a long time. And, honestly, I don't really see the big deal, as long as it's not done with a hateful agenda.

Little Britain's poor taste jokes would've happened regardless of Python, because of its centuries long history of crossdressing.

Many of their takes also involved kicking back against society. Put a man in a woman's position and suddenly the things women endured daily become absurd. Have a man make a crass suggestion towards another man like an asshole would to a woman, and suddenly it becomes absurd and weird. In isolation those events could be considered homophobic, but between an animated politician eating the queen and a farmer explaining that his sheep are flying into trees to nest, I don't think such pessimism is warranted.

My take watching Python is that the actors very much knew that misogyny and homophobia are stupid as a concept. They didn't shy away from portraying society as it was (and unfortunately, still is), but they weren't necessarily trying to take anyone down.

The fact many Python sketches are offensive these days says more about how society has aged than Python, in my opinion. When Python has a man in a dress, it's just a silly character, but when in modern media it has become necessary for such things to be a statement for (or, even worse, against) basic human rights.

I think the strength and weakness in Python is that they'd make fun of anything and anyone. That include sensitive topics that haven't changed as much as they should have in the last century.

> A lot of older comedy aged better. Jacques Tati films for example. Or Chaplin.

As a Frenchman I should be defending Tati but by God I have never found him funny. Poetic, maybe (maybe!) but funny?? Not in the least IMHO. One can guess what he means, immediately, there is no subtext. "Modernity is dehumanizing." Yeah, well, it probably is, but we all know that now, don't we? (Same thing with Chaplin BTW.)

Monty Python is incredibly funny, and still is, because it's often absurd, and absurd stays absurd forever.

“Dressing up as ladies” was just a massive part of British comedy that went back to music hall. See also Les Dawson, Dick Emery etc etc.

Everything is of it's time. They pushed the barriers back in their time so that we could enjoy a better world now. They never claimed to be omniscient and that is to all our benefits.

Casual racism has and always will be there. No point in worrying about it.

I think the cosplay was quite challanging at the time? Like, there was very little kicking downwards. Little Britain lacks taste in comparison.

> Dressing up as ladies.. tiresome.

I’ve heard that before and I don’t get it. They were just playing characters like any other they played, but some were women so they wore woman’s clothing.

Misogyny in comedy is still real. Just saw SNL fully taking the piss out of an actress' teeth this weekend, in fact.

You have a problem with drag, eh?

Its only a model.

> Is there anything even remotely comparable in quality to Monty Python right now?

I suspect that, like most things that we now recognise as classics, much of Monty Python wasn't recognized at the time as a classic. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python_and_the_Holy_Grai... suggests that, while reception was generally positive, there wasn't the sense we'd now expect of a great treasure having just been unearthed.

All of which is to say that, whatever is comparable right now, we probably think of it as so-so, and will have to await retrospective critical appreciation to find out what we should have been treasuring.

It is my unhumble opinion that Western Civ hit a local maximum with Monty Python, Project Apollo, and Woodstock.

There are lots of examples of comedy comparable to Monty Python over the years, but with so many media outlets you kind of have to seek it out or stumble across it. Here are a few random ones that immediately spring to mind:

Green Wing [1], Channel 4 television series (UK)

Aunty Donna, Australian comedy troupe that has a lot of surrealist humour. A good introduction is this sketch [2] and their Netflix show "Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun".

The Frantics, a Canadian sketch comedy troupe. They are most known for their sketch "Boot to the Head", but their CBC radio series which ran from 1981-84 was (to me) very reminiscent of Python.

I'd imagine fans of The Mighty Boosh and Python intersect quite a bit.

The Mischief Theatre Company - the ones behind the "Goes Wrong" theatre shows, e.g. "The Play That Goes Wrong", the "The Goes Wrong Show" on BBC, etc.

Bleak Expectations by Mark Evans, BBC Radio 4 pastiche on Dickens (2007-2012) - one of my favourite pieces of comedy in any medium. Here's the first episode [3] on YouTube.

I've seen a lot of live comedy that reminded me of Python at places like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Wing>

[2] <https://youtu.be/a5FGOaz__W0>

[3] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdyYQeLR1kA>

Stand-up has been hegemonic lately, because it lends itself well to podcasts/streaming/short-form, but Dropout (formerly CollegeHumor) is a new thing that I think does a good job with alternative formats (sketch, improv, game show)

I never totally connected with Holy Grail though I liked/like it a lot. I probably to put Life of Brian at the top of the heap although it’s probably somewhat less known.

yes it has

apologies, I am talking about the Flying Circus, not Holy Grail, which I should have clarified on my original comment. obviously the group has done some groundbreaking work and I do love that, but sensibilities have definitely changed since then. I don't hold that against them, but it can be jarring to see

don't really understand the down votes, but I am very open to hearing why it seems to be a controversial statement. the show has some bigoted scenes and I am not defending that, obviously. I am simply talking about how I like the creative premises of the absurdist comedy

There is a pattern recognition and transformation mechanism in place that rearranges bad title forms, such as "12 ways to serve Spam".