Monty Python's Flying Circus - Classic or Dud?

I'd rather watch a randomly selected episode from the first three Flying Circus series than even one minute of (say) Animal House, Airplane, a Pink Panther movie…

Kinda glad they could get away with not boiling it down, it wouldn't be improved as wall to wall "classics"

Science Fiction Sketch is a miserable shaggy dog story with no proper punchline that takes up two thirds of an episode and I love it

TBF the only inarguably offensive sketch that I've seen so far is the Native American theatre aficionado.

But in terms of real lols, it's been very sparse. Lots of riffing on a single unworthy joke.

Yeah flying circus has some pretty racist bits, but have you rewatched Spike Milligan's Q.. series recently?

Yeah I'd never say it all works but it's absolutely not punchline comedy

Recently cried with laughter at those German episodes that on Netflix. Brilliant, genius etc.

There's definitely stuff that falls flat and doesn't work in virtually every episode.

Plus a lot is badly under-rehearsed and looks cheap and threadbare (lol BBC comedy budgets).

Low-budget production on British shows are quaint!

as a kid, i found a lot of the flying circus not funny so much as just fascinatingly weird, like i'd watch it with a real sense of wonder and anticipation that i can't remember ever feeling with any other comedy show. so much of it was based on satire of things i was completely unfamiliar with (both as an american and as a non-adult) that there were entire episodes that just flew over my head, but i don't remember ever being bored by it.

Leee's initial revive point is pretty OTM, one I've been turning over a lot in my brain ever since they announced it would end up on Netflix.

I do think the movies are generally better, even though I never, ever need to see them again due to overexposure

as a kid, i found a lot of the flying circus not funny so much as just fascinatingly weird

OTM. I loved the out-of-left-field stuff like 'Conrad Pooh's Dancing Teeth' and 'Find the Fish' so much.

fishy fishy fishy fish

weird coincidence: just watched a Monty Python sketch, as the result of searching Youtube for 'hide and seek championship'. i wish i was lying

The racist skits haven't aged well, suffice to say.

*takes a drink*

it's very much of another time. If I were to watch it now I doubt I would laugh at all
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, November 27, 2018 6:24 PM

I'll take How to Tell Things Are Funny for $200, Alex

oh shit, Monty Python is on Netflix?!

Dr Morbius: “Racism is actually good”

Nobody was saying blackface was bad in 1970! We didn’t know!

The English were blacking up their children for a larf on bonfire night until the late 90s

you fuckers need an enema

hey guys the Marx Bros did blackface in A Day at the Races, I'm letting you know so you can lead off every discussion of them til you fucking die with that (yer welcome)

Do u still laugh at it

Come on, guys, we all know the best way to handle instances of unfortunate racism from the past is to pretend that they never even happened. It will never magically disappear if you keep bringing it up (v uncool, F-).

Fwiw my initial comment wasnt meant to imply that the show isnt funny because its racist, just that i dont find it funny anymore - it’s targets (stuffy british ppl, mainly) don’t much concern me or seem so funny as they did in previous times.

It's not racist and it remains very funny and ingenious. And the TV shows are better than the films.

The Goodies was way more 70s casual racist than MP shurely. i’m struggling to even think of a blackface flying circus skit but i prob just don’t remember?

Oh there was that Gilliam bit with the jewish satan and jesuses on the telephone poles but that bit got cut in the first place.

wait no now i remember that jungle one urgh.

Yeah there's a number -- not to mention a lot of yellowface ones too.

Onion A/V Club writers, always talking like a normal human

Okay, we should probably back up a bit. I don’t really want to talk about this, but I’ll give it a paragraph, and that’ll be enough. (I mean, feel free to whatever in the comments, although please be respectful, except when you’re talking about me, because let’s face it, I deserve what I get.) Palin is playing a character named “Mrs. Nigger-Baiter,” and while I don’t know how this was supposed to play at the time, as is, it’s an ugly line with no real point other than to shock. There’s no context, no build, no punchline. It’s just a mean, vile word tossed out without any apparent consideration. I don’t think challenging or hateful language needs to be banned, because that never gets us anywhere we want to go. But when you’re going to use a word like this, it needs some reason beyond itself to be there.

There's a recurring gag about cricket teams, confused about a joke saying the test match is being held in a room and being shepherded out told "it's only a joke, it's a joke". The team appear in black face as the Trinidad team. No-one would do it now but it's not racist.

Are we really going to have to cover why blackface is ipso facto racist in this thread

Are we not just gonna fucking take that as read at this point

I was half-thinking about starting a "Racist art that still holds up" thread (I reckon someone would say Birth of a Nation, though I found it incredibly dull), but then some of these responses give me pause.

The Wikipedia page for Al Jolson contains a lot of carefully sourced “he had black friends” which made me kind of 🤨

xpost TBF, the Venn diagram of 'pre-21st Century art that still holds up' and 'racist art that still holds up' is close enough to a perfect circle to render that project mostly pointless.

(See also: a non-negligible portion of 21st Century art.)

It seems like most older stuff I engage with has at least one or two 'oof'-worthy moments that I can consider within the given context and move on from. And then occasionally I stumble upon something where I'm like 'okay, this isn't really defensible' and I have to kinda shut the door on it. Monty Python is certainly among the former grouping.

(Even just realizing lately how ubiquitous 'retard' was well into this decade! Very little can ever fully avoid being retroactively tainted by progress.)

I do appreciate their casting an actual black jazzman to turn into Scotsman.

Billy Crystal did his Sammy Davis Jr thing in full makeup (for about 5 seconds, on film) the last time he hosted the Oscars. I never worried about it being racist bcz it was never funny. He and Chris Guest played two elderly ex-Negro League ballplayers when they were on SNL in '84-85. I remember that being funny.

The Jolson thing was a phenomenon essays could be written about (and have). He had a base of black fans, including Sammy Davis Jr. For homework, all the snowflakes can decide whet all the black performers who used blackface... oh fergit it.

Wow, guess you just went for it there...

ipso facto racist

Whenever I read the word ipso I think of these tic-tac knock offs and this advert which is also kinda you wouldn't do that now.

https://youtu.be/q4Tww7bcIWQ

The sexism in Monty Python is much much worse than the racism, to open another can of worms. I kind of agree with whoever itt said the TV shows are better than the films, they seem like more of an achievement.

Lots of homophobic/transphobic cheap laughs in MP too - all in line with the popular light entertainment of the day.

Oh yes, of course! There's a reason why Netflix isn't re-running the Goodies - and it's not just to annoy Bill Oddie, though that is a fine and noble reason in itself.

It seems like most of the threads I engage with have at least one or two 'oof'-worthy posts that I can consider within the given context and move on from.

(xposts, as I'd hope would be obvious)

yanks as a rule think the gilliam stuff is what mattered thats how you know not to mind too much what yanks think about mp