Comedy Archeology - And Now For Something Completely Different

I’ve briefly touched on this lot before when talking about funny audio stuff but here’s the main event.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Hard to underestimate the impact this group has had not only on my formative sense of humor but also on my development as a film fan. Let’s start with the first stuff of theirs I saw.

The Series
Broadcast from 1969 until 1974, this had an immediate impact on me when I first saw it. It was the second series that I saw first during a repeat run on BBC2 sometime in the late 80s and I was hooked (of the four series, this is my favourite series because it was the one I watched the most). I had never really seen anything quite like it and I knew that this absolutely my sort of thing. It was silly, it had cartoons in it and it was not in any way predictable. From there, I would move on to the albums (incessantly listened to) and then on to the Python which is probably most widely consumed.

The Films
Of the four films (most people forget And now For Something Completely Different, their first big screen outing which is basically a re-filmed greatest hits of their key sketches), I waver between choosing a favourite. The Meaning Of Life has some great moments in it but feels the closest to their sketch show roots. Sometimes Holy Grail is my favourite as how can you not love a film that has the Black Knight, swallows vs coconuts, The Knights Who Say Ni and a daft song about Camelot? Overall, though, I probably do sway with popular opinion and go with Life Of Brian as the one which I have probably watched the most (including recently and pleasingly on the big screen with Michael Pailn and Terry Giliam doing a Q&A afterwards).

The Other Stuff
This seems like an off-hand subtitle given that the other stuff they have gone on to includes a sitcom that is often heralded as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time (Fawlty Towers), a string of enjoyable travelogues (the career of Michale Palin from the 80s onwards), a number of films that are among my all-time favourites (Time Bandits, Jabberwocky, Brazil) and several series that I really enjoy but are largely overlooked these days (Eric Idle’s Rutland Weekend Television; Pailn and Jones’ Ripping Yarns).

So, yeah, safe to say that these six chaps have been a huge influence on comedy outlook. They weren’t the only sketch-based comedy to have an impact though...