Any Monty Python Fans Out There?

fureverywhere

fureverywhere

beloved friend who will always be with us in spiri
Location
Northern NJ, USA
Ditto for Fawlty Towers or Black Adder. I was maybe ten years old when my brother called one night and told my parents to put on channel 13. It was public broadcasting unlike the networks and he said we had to see the show. It was Monty Pythons Flying Cirrrcuss, I was hooked right there.

Even better was when they played live at the New York City Center. My brother and his wife took me and we all laughed ourselves senseless. Eventually the movies came out and yes The Holy Grail and Meaning of Life are two of my all time favorites. Fawlty Towers went a bit over my head as a kid but I watched that too.

I had a professor who tried to turn us on to The Black Adder. Maybe with subtitles I might get it but I was lost. One example...two French aristocrats having an argument and one falls asleep and wakes up with an Alsatian head. The professor was peeing herself but I was sorta lost.
 

I am older than you Fur and my children discovered Monty Python's Flying Circus around about the same age as you. I loved to watch it on Friday nights when my husband was at TAFE doing some work related courses. I would hustle the children into bed so that I could have some quiet time to watch a couple of favourite shows. One was the BBC series Callan with Edward Woodward and the other was Monty Python.

One evening, during school holidays I made the mistake of allowing the kids to stay up later and they caught a glimpse of Monty Python. After that, on Friday nights they would creep out of bed and watch the TV through the crack in the hall doorway when they heard the opening music. I allowed them to enter the lounge room with the very strict proviso that they were to be silent; laughing permitted but not talking and no squabbling. From then on they were hooked on the bizarre.

Black Adder took some time to get used to. The first series is not the best IMO. I enjoyed later series when Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry joined the cast. In particular I enjoyed the Elizabethan and Regency series and the Great War final series was the most enjoyable of all IMO.

Have you seen the more recent series Black Books with Irish comedian Dylan Moran and Englishman Bill Bailey? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262150/
 
The first I ever heard of MP was in 1974. My best friend and I were seniors in HS and we worked together at a local mom & pop Italian restaurant. There was this one waitress there named Pam, who we got along well with. She was a transplanted New Yawker, probably in her mid 30's and was married with no kids. Cool gal.

Anyway, we were chatting during a break one night and she asked me if I'd ever heard of a show called Monty Python's Flying Circus. I had not and judging strictly by the name, it didn't sound very interesting to a 17 year old, long haired hippie surfer. Anyway, she tried to describe it to me, telling me how funny it was and describing it as "odd British humor" etc, but I was kind of skeptical. Until she told me it was a great show to watch while high, which perked up my interest. So I told my buddy about it and we made it a point to watch it the following Sunday night, which was when it used to run back in those days.

The first episode we ever saw contained the following skit, which had the two of us literally rolling on the floor, tears streaming down our cheeks, holding our aching stomachs and gasping for air from laughter.


That was my very first exposure to Python and from that night on, watching it at my house on Sunday nights around 10 pm, became a regular thing.

BTW, in case anyone doesn't already know it, the "little blonde girl" in the ring with John Cleese was his real life wife, who also played the waitress on Fawlty Towers.

It was a few years later, around 1979, that another friend I had gone to school with, but had never met until we both worked in the garden dept at the local Montgomery Ward and hung out together after hours, turned me in to FT.

The first episode I ever watched was over at his brother's house one night. It was one where Basil became enraged over something and started pounding Manuel's forehead into the wall. And once again, I was sitting there, rocking back and forth, watching it through tears of laughter while gasping for breath and holding my aching gut.

Great stuff.

Only saw Black Adder for the first time about 4 or 5 years ago, after I really began getting into Britcoms. Especially the older ones. I had seen Keeping Up Appearances many times, but that was about it. Over the last 6 or 8 years, thanks to one of our lesser PBS stations around here, I've gotten into several of the older ones on their Saturday night Britcom lineup.

Some of the ones I've really enjoyed are: Waiting For God, Last of the Summer Wine, One Foot in the Grave (featuring my forum namesake Victor Meldrew as the main character) Are You Being Served?, Open All Hours, Good Neighbors (aka The Good Life in the UK), Ever Decreasing Circles, Vicar of Dibley, Men Behaving Badly which starred a young Martin (now known as Doc Martin) Clunes, To the Manor Born.... to name a few.

Love em all!!!
 
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My college roommates and I used to watch Bennie Hill.

He had the most gorgeous girls on that show.

I think that Brit girl from Frazier.... someone Leeds I think? .... too lazy to Google.... was a Benny Hill girl.
 
Benny Hill was regarded here as very 'low brow ' with no real merit - just innuendo and chasing large busted girls. On the other hand, Monty Python (and The Magic Roundabout) were 'must see' programmes amongst us teenagers. Fawlty Towers (based on a real hotel) was great, and while Blackadder was fantastically funny, it had a hint of truth running through it. The final episode of 'Blackadder goes forth' was often shown in school history lessons to illustrate the horror and futility of war.
 
Benny Hill was pure slapstick but you had to love him. I remember a typical scene. He's chasing a comely lass on a bicycle. They go so fast she's reduced to a skeleton on a bicycle...you had to be there, but he was great. Paul Hogan had an amusing program around the same era. I remember a guest spot by Glenn Shorrock ( Little River Band). He played a welfare inspector and Paul n' the bug eyed guy in drag had kids pouring out of the woodwork.
 
fureverywhere said:
Benny Hill was pure slapstick but you had to love him. I remember a typical scene. He's chasing a comely lass on a bicycle. They go so fast she's reduced to a skeleton on a bicycle...you had to be there, but he was great. Paul Hogan had an amusing program around the same era. I remember a guest spot by Glenn Shorrock ( Little River Band). He played a welfare inspector and Paul n' the bug eyed guy in drag had kids pouring out of the woodwork.
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There are still some MP bits my siblings and I do when we're together (some of the bagpipe skits) even after all these years. I think John Cleese in particular is one of the smartest comedians around. I will pretty much watch anything he's involved in and was a big Fawlty Towers fan. I've enjoyed seeing what they've all done post-MP. I also love watching Michael Palin's travelogues and all of Terry Gilliam's movies. It was sad to learn about Terry Jones' dementia news recently.
 
The one MP skit we reenact frequently is the one with the dead parrot.

Back to Benny Hill: there were a few episodes that were considered too racy to show on American TV. A local station slipped up and aired one. I was watching and, sure 'nuff, there was a brief glimpse of bare breasts in all their glory. I read in the paper later that the station got its hands slapped by the FCC for that slip-up.
 
BlissfullyUnawareCanadian said:
I want to introduce my kids (9 and 13) to Monty Python. I’ll have to see if any of the streaming services have any of their movies.

Anyone here watched Mrs. Brown's Boys?
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Yes mrs Browns' boys was extremely funny in the first 2 series... Highly offensive language but I think that's what made it funny for many of us, because we'd really never seen anything like it on the BBC .. especially as it's all said in a strong Irish accent and supposedly set in a rundown council house in Ireland...

..however it's become boring and passée , as well as being repetitive and unfunny over the years. The vast majority of the UK viewing public would be happy never to see it on tv again.. but unfortunately it's just been given another 5 year contract by the BBC
 
Monty Python was quite fun to watch. The kids loved the show and called it "The Foot" based on the opening. Unfortunately, too much of this country's sense of humor has been replaced by a sense of entitlement, a driven need for virtue signaling and being readily offended by whatever is currently deemed politically incorrect.
 

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