Rewatching Monty Python's Flying Circus

[Sydward Lartle]

This afternoon, during a particularly violent thunder and hailstorm, I watched the first two episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus for the first time in decades. I think I last watched them when the BBC repeated them back in the late eighties or early nineties. Anyway...

Whither Canada? was pretty much a laugh-free zone for me. The 'famous deaths' sketch was a terrible choice for an opener, and the language class where - hilarity upon hilarity - native Italians were being taught Italian by a teacher who needed members of the class to translate each other's complaints to him not only reminded me of Mind Your Language[nb]I know this was years before MYL.[/nb] but also went up its own arse fast and petered out without a resolution or punchline. Amazing how dated the spoof arts programmes seem now - television just doesn't look like that any more, and hasn't for a long time. Some nice business from Jonesy as the man with three buttocks, especially the way he suddenly grasped the sides of his chair. The painters' cycling race was desolation itself. The lack of reaction from the studio audience made the whole thing seem even bleaker, somehow. I did get a jolt of recognition / nostalgia when the 'funniest joke in the world' sketch started, but by God, the original television version was flaccid, under-rehearsed and far too loose when compared to the tight, pacy re-working from And Now For Something Completely Different. Chapman as a Gestapo officer looked exactly like Adrian Edmondson.

Sex and Violence - Again, a bit jarring to see Terry Jones dressed as an old-fashioned city gent, especially as absolutely nobody dresses like that any more. Distracting, too, being able to see his and Chapman's shadows cast on that flat backdrop of a field. The French scientists expounding on the flying sheep - 'aren't foreigners hilarious?' Not really. Some nice work by Cleese, though, when he got his fake 'tache back. The mouse organ sketch seemed to worry the audience instead of amusing them. 'Wacky Queen' was utter shit (mind you, I never liked those programmes where genuinely fantastic silent films were given a smart-arsed running commentary anyway.) 'Working Class Playwright' is still an excellent sketch.
The Epilogue wrestling match would have worked better at half the length, get in, do the gag, move on, but as it was they killed it through overexposure. 'The Mouse Problem' was a pretty weak finalé, although the "his real name is..." reveal made me laugh.

Is it worth continuing with the rest of the series? I was as big a Python fan as anyone when I was at school, and I still love the Meaning of Life, but watching these early episodes really felt like a chore.

[Steptoes_Son]

I watched the whole boxset start to finish last summer and I'd say stick with it, if only because series 2 is so bloody fantastic. The first series seems to be a little restrained in retrospect, which is understandable; these sketches were being performed for the first time, without the weight of reputation they, and alternative versions, would be burdened with. For example, nudge nudge and albatross are both in the first series but my favourite versions of each are actually just the audio - they're on the drury lane LP. The televised versions pale in delivery for me.

So yeah, worth sticking with for the second series if nothing else. And series 4 is an interesting experiment - Michael Ellis is winningly strange.

[colacentral]

As I said in the Spinal Tap thread - I don't remember ever finding Monty Python particularly funny, just entertaining. The performances and the energy, the attitude, the childish sense of fun. I had the occasional laugh but growing up with the british comedy it influenced, notably the likes of Rik Mayall and Vic & Bob, it was hard for me to fully appreciate Python the way that older viewers would.

[the science eel]

I watched the whole boxset start to finish last summer and I'd say stick with it, if only because series 2 is so bloody fantastic. The first series seems to be a little restrained in retrospect, which is understandable; these sketches were being performed for the first time, without the weight of reputation they, and alternative versions, would be burdened with. For example, nudge nudge and albatross are both in the first series but my favourite versions of each are actually just the audio - they're on the drury lane LP. The televised versions pale in delivery for me.

So yeah, worth sticking with for the second series if nothing else. And series 4 is an interesting experiment - Michael Ellis is winningly strange.

Mr Neutron is, for me, the funniest thing they ever did. Teddy Salad! I bust a gut the first time I saw that.

I watched the whole lot a few years ago when they (finally) brought it out on DVD. I enjoyed it all enormously. I've always loved the comedy but this time around the whole time-capsule-ness of it gripped me like it hadn't before. Shots of London streets in 1969 are always going to thrill me anyway. And seeing shaky credit sequences and mock BBC idents gives me a boner. So there's all that peripheral stuff.

Stick with it, but I agree that there's a touch of restraint in the first series that's lost once you get to the second. There's enough in there that will be new to you.

Actually I don't think there's a finer comedy series in the history of British TV.

[Sydward Lartle]

If I remember rightly, when BBC Video started releasing the episodes back in the mid-eighties, the second series came first. I thought that was a bit odd at the time, but looking back, it now seems like good common sense because releasing the first series first probably would have killed subsequent releases stone dead. Something else that bugged me was how much Eric Idle really needed a haircut - and he was doing Eddie Waring long before Little and Large.

[Steptoes_Son]

I agree about the time capsule-like quality of the show. A lot of shows get this, of course, as time marches on but there is something about Python...I don't even know if it's all obvious like the bowler hatted upper middle class office dweller, or if there's something more subtle at play as well. There's something very uncanny about watching it, and that's before you get onto the supposed randomness.

Watching it through did make me appreciate how great a physical performer John Cleese was. Its one of those things everyone takes for granted, but just watching him over a condensed period of time, it really reminded me of why he's revered as he is. And now he advertises for PPI reclaims. Sigh.

[ajsmith]

sorry to post my own thread from seven years ago, but the way this discussion is going reminded me of this thread I started seven years ago.. there's some further discussion along the same lines about the ambience of Python here if anyone's interested in more of that kind of thing to chew on:

http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=22879.0

[Sydward Lartle]

Since someone's mentioned the Goodies in the tags, I might as well point out that I find their shows far more consistent than the Pythons', in that their highs are higher and their lows are more tolerable. Even in a piss poor episode (i.e. Charity Bounce) there are still a few things to laugh at, and they understood the necessity of keeping things moving. Plus, they were very definitely 'of their time' so some episodes have a lovely 'looking at a photo album of my childhood' feeling about them.

Comparing Milligan's Q6 series, which I watched a couple of months ago in its entirety, to first-series Monty Python is like comparing a rich broth to a thin gruel.

[the science eel]

Since someone's mentioned the Goodies in the tags, I might as well point out that I find their shows far more consistent than the Pythons', in that their highs are higher and their lows are more tolerable.

This has just dropped in price. Should I get it, Mr. Lartle?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0044CO0WE/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

[Sydward Lartle]

Definitely. All Network's Goodies releases are worth every penny.

[Jake Thingray]

If I remember rightly, when BBC Video started releasing the episodes back in the mid-eighties, the second series came first. I thought that was a bit odd at the time

That was the Pythons' own decision, they felt it was the strongest run to start on.

[Sydward Lartle]

The Ministry of Silly Walks and the Piranha Brothers sketch certainly beat the arse out of anything I watched this afternoon, that's for sure.

[the science eel]

Definitely. All Network's Goodies releases are worth every penny.

Great. Thanks.

[Steptoes_Son]

I'd say overall, though, that the best of Python beats the best of Q. Both shiws had their highs and lows but I'd say Python was more consistent. No disrepect to Spike, though; when he was he form he could really hit gold. But you really do have to wait for it sometimes. Python, for all its weirdness, also seems quite cosy now in comparison. Q seems definitely the more anarchic, the more dangerous of the two. Python is overall the better written but Q really has that feeling that anything could happen.

Sorry to ramble, but just some thoughts off the back of Sydward mentioning Q.

[Sydward Lartle]

Great. Thanks.

Rumour has it there are more in the pipeline, too. Fingers crossed. I know Network have some more episodes of Sykes lined up...

[the science eel]

I believe Network released a Sykes box a few years back....no?

[McChesney Duntz]

I'd stick with it, yes.  I think the third and fourth episodes of the first series are pretty well marvelous all the way through.  Definite hitting and missing going on throughout the first series, but the hits are glorious.  The second series is as brilliant as those who mentioned it above mentioned it above.  The third is where style starts overtaking substance somewhat - some of the very best moments of Python are contained within (though some of them, like "Cheese Shop" and "Oscar Wilde" don't get perfected until the LP versions), but Cleese's criticism that they start repeating themselves is fairly accurate.  Even so, third series episodes are pretty well-paced so they slide past their weak spots, at least until they get to the two or three episodes that were basically salvage jobs due to BBC censorship, internal squabbles over material and Mr. Chapman being too drunk to perform properly.  The fourth suffers, of course, from lack of onscreen Cleese, but still manages two stone-cold classics ("Michael Ellis" and "Light Entertainment War"), one strong-but-not-quite-classic ("Party Political Broadcast..."), and three that don't quite make the grade on different levels (and here's where I disagree again with the science eel - "Mr. Neutron" is, to me, the worst episode of them all, though "Hamlet" is a bigger mess.  Teddy Salad is no John "Stumpy" Pepys, funny-name-wise, imosho). 

But there's no such thing as a worthless Python episode, as I see it.  There's something worth savoring in every last one of them.

[Sydward Lartle]

Q really has that feeling that anything could happen.

And, of course, Cleese and Jones in particular have been very open about what a debt Python owed to Q5, right down to requesting Ian McNaughton on directorial duties... though I noticed the two I watched today had John Howard Davies in the chair.

Precious little chance of the BBC (or anyone) repeating Q6 in its entirety, but every episode of that comes on like a half-hour shot of adrenaline, especially the first and the third. The Tribal High / Cock-A-Knees sketch in particular is fucking brilliant.

[Sydward Lartle]

I believe Network released a Sykes box a few years back....no?

According to their website, this is on the way at the end of June. Was the previous box as comprehensive as this one?

[the science eel]

According to their website, this is on the way at the end of June. Was the previous box as comprehensive as this one?

I think it was the same!

Anyway - that's good news.

(who was I reading about recently who was - surprisingly - in an early Sykes episode?)

[Steptoes_Son]

If I'm rememberibg correctly, the entire four series of Python ran after Q5 but finished before Q6 was made. Which makes me wonder if any Python influence fed back into Q6. I'm sure I remember reading Spike would swing from calling them his children to denouncing them as ripping him off, depending on his mood at the time.

[Sydward Lartle]

Who was I reading about recently who was - surprisingly - in an early Sykes episode?

Myra Hindley?

It's been a long time since I watched any Sykes, but a couple of years ago I dug out one of the Christmas specials where Hattie was on about leaving some leftover mince on the back step for Santa's reindeer. Eric's beautifully dry response - "No wonder the garden was full of cats on Christmas morning!" - was an absolute winner. In the hands of lesser comedy actors, that exchange would have been shit, but Eric and Hattie smashed it.

[Steptoes_Son]

Also McChesney has pretty much summed up my attitude to Python's TV work, although I'd need to give the 4th series another watch to really get a feel for which episodes didn't work for me. I kniw the first one (hot air balloning?) and the Hamlet one I was quite down on.

[Sydward Lartle]

If I'm remembering correctly, the entire four series of Python ran after Q5 but finished before Q6 was made.

Yep, Python series four was 1974, Q6 was 1975. According to this, Q6 was repeated back-to-back with Python (for a while, at least) back in 1977.

From what I can gather, Spike was more of a Ripping Yarns man, in particular Tomkinson's Schooldays and Roger of the Raj. He even sent Palin a postcard saying simply 'Ripping Yarns is super! More please! Spike'.

[Jake Thingray]

If I'm rememberibg correctly, the entire four series of Python ran after Q5 but finished before Q6 was made. Which makes me wonder if any Python influence fed back into Q6. I'm sure I remember reading Spike would swing from calling them his children to denouncing them as ripping him off, depending on his mood at the time.

http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,52515.msg2772234.html#msg2772234

[Sydward Lartle]

The usual bollocks

[Jake Thingray]

Since someone's mentioned the Goodies in the tags, I might as well point out that I find their shows far more consistent than the Pythons', in that their highs are higher and their lows are more tolerable.

You keep making out you're Milligan's reincarnation, but there, you've quoted pretty much verbatim what Bill Oddie said in From Fringe To Flying Circus. Make your mind up as to which outdated, Jimmy Savile-esque "comic icon" you want to be. (It'll be Kenny Everett next, I think.)

[McChesney Duntz]

Good god, knock it off, you two.  This is why we can't have any of our classy friends over...

Anyone who cares has surely seen this by now, but damn it, it's worth seeing again (foreigners in and of themselves might not be funny, Sydward, but Cleese and Palin as faux-Frenchmen fucking well are).  Includes proof that their first audiences weren't sitting there in silent confusion as everyone seems to recall, and David Frost's home phone number for any time-travelling pranksters out there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVGicmC3R_4

[Sydward Lartle]

Good god, knock it off, you two.  This is why we can't have any of our classy friends over...

My feelings exactly.

I notice Mr Thingray doesn't like Everett either. Makes me wonder if he's actually capable of experiencing joy, or indeed, if he was ever a child, giddy with delight at seeing someone run roughshod over the boundaries of television. From Fringe to Flying Circus is an excellent book, and if you can't quote an excellent book whilst shooting the breeze about comedy in general, it's a sad outlook.

[the science eel]

Good god, knock it off, you two.  This is why we can't have any of our classy friends over...

Anyone who cares has surely seen this by now, but damn it, it's worth seeing again (foreigners in and of themselves might not be funny, Sydward, but Cleese and Palin as faux-Frenchmen fucking well are).  Includes proof that their first audiences weren't sitting there in silent confusion as everyone seems to recall, and David Frost's home phone number for any time-travelling pranksters out there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVGicmC3R_4

Absolutely fucking wonderful.