Is it normal i don’t get most of monty python?

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if I should be considered a fan of it or not. The majority of it I don’t get, but there’s some stuff in there I REALLY like.

For example, so far the part that made me laugh the hardest was when they were pretending to make a movie and a guy fought a stuffed lion. But everything leading up to that I just found boring and tedious. There was also one bit that confused me (in a sketch I actually liked a lot, Spanish Inquisition) where someone called another character “biggles” and the studio audience laughed hysterically. I had to look it up and apparently it’s the name of a character who wears goggles like the one in the sketch. Maybe if I knew what this was I’d get it.

Luckily I have an iPhone so if I’m watching on Netflix I can just look up any word I don’t recognize, and that actually happens a lot. It could be the fact this is a British show from the 60s and 70s, and I’m an American born in the late 90s, so it could be both generational and national differences. Plus there’s a lot of cross dressing in the show, and I don’t know about you, but there’s something about it that kinda creeps me out for some reason.

But I do like some parts. Some of my favorite sketches include The Lumberjack Song, Ministry Of Silly Walks, Dead Parrot, and Spanish Inquisition that I mentioned earlier. And I did see the movie Life of Brian a few years ago and liked it. I was thinking of watching their movies after I finish watching the show on Netflix, but I don’t know if I like them enough to own a pshysical copy of their movies. I just have a sort of love-hate relationship with them.

Voting Results
64% Normal
Based on 11 votes (7 yes)
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Comments ( 11 )
  • charli.m

    I love MP, particularly Flying Circus - a sentiment not shared by my family or friends. I got the boxset probably near to a decade ago, now.

    Humour is subjective. Some people like some stuff that others don't. I think the Python's were clever and irreverent, two thing I greatly enjoy in comedy. Moreover, they're silly as fuck. I love that shit.

    American and English comedy is quite different. That being said, they were huge in the US in their time.

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    • LornaMae

      Well, I share the sentiment :)

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      • charli.m

        Yay!

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  • Boojum

    As you say, if you're not British, you miss a lot of the culture-specific references. The same happens if you listen to British pop-music. There are things in Beatles lyrics that I didn't understand at all until I'd lived in the UK for a while.

    As for the cross-dressing, lots of Americans have problems with that. Back in the early 1980s, Queen's "I Want to Break Free" video with the four musicians dressed up as the female members of a 1960s British household apparently did huge damage to the group's sales in the US since their American fans couldn't cope with the gender-bending. British people just found it funny.

    The tradition of cross-dressing goes way back in Britain.

    Shakespeare's female roles were always played by boys in his time. It was actually against the law for women to perform on stage in Elizabethan times. Also, acting was considered a highly disreputable profession - almost as bad as prostitution - so no woman who wanted to maintain her social standing would appear on stage.

    Today, the tradition of pantomime continues to be very popular in Britain. In the run-up to Christmas, there are stage shows all over the country where traditional fairy tales are given a comedic twist, current pop-music is used in the production, and some of the characters are played by actors of the opposite sex. For example, Cinderella's ugly step-sisters are always played by men, and Jack in Jack in the Beanstalk is usually a woman.

    It is interesting how British people find cross-dressing amusing, while Americans typically find it disturbing. Maybe it all goes back to the jolly old Puritans, the Taliban of their day.

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    • curious-bunny

      Man i bet there's alot if crossdressers fans over there

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  • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk

    your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries

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  • LornaMae

    Oh, I loved it when they played the female characters! Dead Parrot and Spanish Inquisition are some of my favorites too. The Argument sketch is another.

    I think it's called Flying Circus because some jokes fly over our heads! Hehe

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  • mauzi

    I never seen it or if i did i just barely remember, I remember something vaguely like they attack a castle with the french people and 'i fart in your general direction', and the movie cuts off funnily enough. And various popular quotes like ex-parrot and all that, which in think its pretty funny and would get around to watching the movie / show(?) again some day. Also liked Fawlty Towers, john cleese was kinda hot in that.

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    • LornaMae

      I always found John Cleese hot! Still pretty good looking at nearly 80...

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      • mauzi

        hahah! good to know i'm not alone on that

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  • Nicole20

    Burn her anyway haha

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