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Monty Python's Flying Circus

post #1 of 26
7/10/05 at 2:41am
Thread Starter 
Being quite a fan of British comedy shows, especially sketch comedy (I have The Fast Show, Little Britain, The Goodies, and Big Train dvds, as well as The Office, I'm Alan Partridge, Knowing Me, Knowing You, Blackadder, The League of Gentlemen, and Fawlty Towers), I'm thinking of getting a couple of Flying Circus sets to add to my collection.

I was surprised to see they're only available region 1 apparently, but thats no problem. I remember seeing bits of episodes on tv years ago, and I also remember there being good stuff AND bad stuff.

So my question to you guys is, what sets should I get? Bearing in mind that I only want to get a couple of sets at this time, and I already own And Now For Something Completely Different, what would you recommend? I've noticed the first 2 sets are the cheapest, but possibly not the funniest. I'm anxious to see what other Chewers think of the dvds.

Enough of this gay banter
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post #2 of 26
7/10/05 at 3:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeviatedPrevert
So my question to you guys is, what sets should I get? Bearing in mind that I only want to get a couple of sets at this time, and I already own And Now For Something Completely Different, what would you recommend? I've noticed the first 2 sets are the cheapest, but possibly not the funniest. I'm anxious to see what other Chewers think of the dvds.
Depends on which sketches you like the best. According to Amazon.com the discs include:


Set 1: Episode 1 - Whither Canada, Episode 2 - Sex and Violence, Episode 3 - How to Recognize Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away, Episode 4 - Owl-Stretching Time, Episode 5 - Man's Crisis of Identity in the Latter Half of the Twentieth Century, Episode 6 - It's the Arts

Set 2: Episode 7 - You're No Fun Any More, Episode 8 - Full Frontal Nudity, Episode 9 - The Ant, an Introduction, Episode 10 - Untitled, Episode 11 - The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Goes to the Bathroom, Episode 12 - The Naked Ant, Episode 13 - Intermission

Set 3 (episodes 14-19) has 'Ministry of Silly Walks,' 'Spanish Inquisition,' and 'Semaphore Wuthering Heights.'

Set 4: Episode 20 - The Attila the Hun, Episode 21 - Archaeology Today, Episode 22 - How to Recognize Different Parts of the Body, Episode 23 - Scott of the Antarctic, Episode 24 - How Not to Be Seen, Episode 25 - Spam, and Penalty Episode 26 - Royal Episode 13

Set 5: Njorl's Saga, an exciting Icelandic tale appropriated by the North Malden Icelandic Society; a courtroom burlesque featuring Eric Idle as a very apologetic mass murderer; the Argument Clinic sketch; Gumby brain surgery; and the Fish-Slapping Dance

Set 6 includes Tudor Jobs Agency and The Cheese Shop.

Set 7: indecipherable RAF Banter ("Bally Jerry hanged his kite right in the how's-your-father"); a Hamlet tired of people wanting him to recite "To Be or Not to Be"; a parade of bogus psychiatrists; a doctor whose nurse keeps stabbing, shooting, or garroting his patients; and The Most Awful Family in Britain competition, which achieves "the really gross awfulness that we're looking for."


Personally, I prefer the first two seasons. Most of the rest (except, of course, for the ever hilarious fish-slapping dance) is relatively passable, IMHO. Of course I can see them on re-runs on BBC America. Also, the compilation "Parrot Sketch Not Included" is pretty good.
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post #3 of 26
7/10/05 at 3:23am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the prompt reply!

See, I don't know 90% of those sketches, or if they're funny or not. I remember the Ministry of Funny Walks, that was fucking hilarious. I don't think the series will be played on NZ tv anytime soon, although we do have a channel on Sky (thats satellite) called UK TV that plays British shows. It would be just my luck to fork out on the sets only to find out there's a Monty Python marathon playing next weekend!

I'm either going to get the whole of series one, or the first half of series 2 I think. But not yet, because I just ordered a couple of dvds that'll set me back about NZ$100 (thats a bit over US$60). Next time

Have you got any particular favourite sketches? They might jog my memory (I mainly watch Life of Brian and Holy Grail).
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post #4 of 26
7/10/05 at 5:23am
Buy it all, dude, it's easily the funniest show ever created by man and you'll watch the DVDs so many times that you'll get your money's worth in no time. The first two series are somewhat better than the last two though, so sets 1, 2, 3 or 4 should be your priorities. You've got practically all the classics in there, plus a lot of little-known gems, and if you buy one you'll end up buying the others anyway.

Favourite sketch? Too many to mention them all... Gorilla librarian, Bicycle repair man, Self-defence against fruit, Confuse-a-Cat, etc
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post #5 of 26
7/10/05 at 5:55am
Thread Starter 
I just watched some of And Now For Something Completely Different, namely the Funniest Joke sketch, How Not To Be Seen, Defense Against Fruit, and A Dirty Fork. I had nearly forgotten how completely and utterly brilliant these guys were/are.

I'm glad to see there wasn't as many episodes of the show made as I thought, so it will make getting them a bit cheaper. I'll get the 2nd series first, as it seems to have a lot of familiar stuff not in the movie. Thanks for the advice (I just needed someone to convince me! )

BTW, has anybody here seen Spamalot? I would KILL to go to it, doubt it will come to my corner of the world though.
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post #6 of 26
7/10/05 at 7:30am
If you've got the money to blow up front, buying the full series in a single set is significantly cheaper than buying one set at a time.

And honestly, I think the only set that's pretty disposable is the last one. There's no John Cleese, and the whole thing feels like they were tired of it.

Also, if you haven't seen them, I highly recommend the Kids in the Hall season box sets. They're up to season 3 now. Canadian humor has more in common with British than American.
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post #7 of 26
7/10/05 at 2:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeviatedPrevert
BTW, has anybody here seen Spamalot? I would KILL to go to it, doubt it will come to my corner of the world though.
Nope... was trying to arrange to fly to NYC in the fall, but not sure if I can. It's sold out 4-6 months in advance; only some Thursdays left.
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post #8 of 26
7/10/05 at 10:47pm
Thread Starter 
Right, well I was just browsing Amazon and came across something called the '16-Ton Megaset' which has all the episodes, plus a 2-disc 'Python Live' set, coming out in September for $139. Thats $10 cheaper than the current 14-disc set.

Fuck, I wouldn't mind that for Christmas
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post #9 of 26
7/10/05 at 11:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeviatedPrevert
Right, well I was just browsing Amazon and came across something called the '16-Ton Megaset' which has all the episodes, plus a 2-disc 'Python Live' set, coming out in September for $139. Thats $10 cheaper than the current 14-disc set.

Fuck, I wouldn't mind that for Christmas

I didn't see that.... ::: off to add to my wish list:::
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post #10 of 26
7/11/05 at 12:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Griff7272
what was the name of the sketch where they were all dressed up like Wally from Crocodile Dundee and they were the faculty of an Australian university in the outback? They were all named Bruce and they were all drinking beer. A new guy shows up and they rename him Bruce too. That skit was hilarous, I just don't know what it's called.
I believe they just call it "Bruce" or "The Bruce Sketch". But I don't think all of the sketches even have names, so sometimes you just have to say "you know, the one where...".

I'm personally partial to Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson.
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post #11 of 26
7/11/05 at 6:43am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nigel St. Buggering
If you've got the money to blow up front, buying the full series in a single set is significantly cheaper than buying one set at a time.
Well the exchange rate is so good at the moment I'd be mad not to. I worked out it would cost me about NZ$210 to get the upcoming 16-disc set, which is brilliant value (considering a standard Simpsons or Seinfeld series costs about NZ$90-100).

Geez, there's so many good shows out on dvd now, I can't keep up! I've resolved only to get shorter, cheaper series sets (like British shows and HBO stuff) rather than things like The Simpsons and Seinfeld (Which I love, but they get repeated all the time, and I'd get bogged down from the sheer number of episodes!).

By the way, I watched Monty Python's Meaning of Life on tv today, boy I'm glad I never bought that! Weak stuff compared to Life of Brian. Even the tits at the end didn't save it...
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post #12 of 26
7/12/05 at 1:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DeviatedPrevert
By the way, I watched Monty Python's Meaning of Life on tv today, boy I'm glad I never bought that! Weak stuff compared to Life of Brian. Even the tits at the end didn't save it...
If you listen to the audio commentary, you'll find that John Cleese completely agrees with you.
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post #13 of 26
7/12/05 at 3:31am
Thread Starter 
Yeah I heard he didn't want to do it, I wish they'd listened to him. The Grim Reaper was good, as was the afore-mentioned tits, but that Accountancy Shanty thing at the beginning was bollocks, and the rest was pretty dire.

I looked up Kids in the Hall by the way, now I know where your profile comes from!
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post #14 of 26
7/12/05 at 7:20am
While Meaning of Life is uneven and not a patch on the incomparable Holy Grail, I still found it much funnier than Life of Brian. Perhaps Brian contains lots of clever digs at Christianity that I'm too ignorant to pick up on, but I was generally unimpressed. Idle's fantastic closing song is the highlight for me.
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post #15 of 26
7/12/05 at 12:15pm
Life of Brian was pretty controversial when it was released here in Scandinavia, it was even banned in Norway.
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post #16 of 26
7/12/05 at 7:02pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Desslar
While Meaning of Life is uneven and not a patch on the incomparable Holy Grail, I still found it much funnier than Life of Brian. Perhaps Brian contains lots of clever digs at Christianity that I'm too ignorant to pick up on, but I was generally unimpressed. Idle's fantastic closing song is the highlight for me.
See when I first saw Life of Brian in my early teens, I hated it. I thought it was unfunny, dated, and poorly done. I also thought the closing song was the only good thing. It was only when I watched it with my flatmate years later that I truly understood it. Its brilliant, their best work easily, because its a consistent hilarious (yet poignant) narrative rather than just a series of sketches.

The humour combines subtlety (the Latin thing) with inspired stupidity (Biggus Dickus, the stoning, the arena scene "its dangerous out there!", "alms for an ex-leper!", the search "we found this spoon sir!", etc). I went from hating the thing to now believing it to be one of the funniest films ever. Its just different from their other stuff, thats all.

I would strongly urge you to see it again. Perhaps you got put off by the low production values (I know I did) and its age. Find a dvd copy to rent, because all the tape versions will look like shit now. Give it another chance dude, its genius
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post #17 of 26
7/15/05 at 10:50am
I've always thought Life of Brian was the funniest film I'd ever seen (and I still think that). The Biggus Dickus sequences always have me on the floor.
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post #18 of 26
7/15/05 at 12:27pm
I saw this one sketch where either Michael Palin or Eric Idle was doing a news broadcast of something and then He gets machine gunned down in slow motion. It always made me laugh really hard, do any of you know which series that is in?
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post #19 of 26
7/15/05 at 5:30pm
Life of Brian doesn't really slam Christianity, though. It is more critical of organized religion/zealots, really. The actual teachings of Jesus aren't mocked. Man's attempt at institutionalizing those teachings certainly IS mocked, though, and done very well.

Plus it has loads of other humor in it. While Holy Grail is my favorite of their films, I think Life of Brian is actually technically the best film.
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post #20 of 26
7/16/05 at 1:26am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MackDaKnife
Life of Brian doesn't really slam Christianity, though. It is more critical of organized religion/zealots, really. The actual teachings of Jesus aren't mocked. Man's attempt at institutionalizing those teachings certainly IS mocked, though, and done very well.
Yeah its no coincidence that the only sensible, intelligent characters in the whole film are Jesus and Brian himself.

Life of Brian isn't about making fun of Christ's teachings, its about making fun of all the idiots who misunderstand them, and distort them for their own purposes, and take them WAAAY too seriously. I think the way the world is at the moment, a re-release of the film in theatres is timely
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post #21 of 26
7/16/05 at 2:34am
I've got the 14 disc set. I got it for $50 because I work at a second-hand bookstore (super nice for getting cheap books, CDs, and DVDs, not to mention borrowing them for free). The set has 45 episodes, seasons 1-4. Is that the complete run of the show?
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post #22 of 26
7/16/05 at 3:11am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Hill
I've got the 14 disc set. I got it for $50 because I work at a second-hand bookstore (super nice for getting cheap books, CDs, and DVDs, not to mention borrowing them for free). The set has 45 episodes, seasons 1-4. Is that the complete run of the show?
Yep thats all of them. Nicely done.
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post #23 of 26
7/16/05 at 4:04am
Thanks. First time I saw Life of Brian I was too young to get the jokes, so my favorite part was when he gets picked up by aliens. Now it's still my favorite part, because it's so absurd.

Speaking of Monty Python movies, I've got a question about Meaning of Life. In the sequence in colonial Africa with the British officers, when one of them gets eaten by a tiger, the others continue to exclaim, "A tiger! In Africa?" When I was a kid, first time I saw it, I thought this was a joke, because I thought of course there are tigers in Africa. Then I learned there weren't tigers in Africa, and I've always wondered about that bit. Is it supposed to be funny (and therefore a mistake on the writer's part) or not?
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post #24 of 26
7/16/05 at 4:58am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Hill
Speaking of Monty Python movies, I've got a question about Meaning of Life. In the sequence in colonial Africa with the British officers, when one of them gets eaten by a tiger, the others continue to exclaim, "A tiger! In Africa?" When I was a kid, first time I saw it, I thought this was a joke, because I thought of course there are tigers in Africa. Then I learned there weren't tigers in Africa, and I've always wondered about that bit. Is it supposed to be funny (and therefore a mistake on the writer's part) or not?
I think its poking fun at the often inaccurate portrayal of Africa in older British films (like Zulu). There are no tigers in Africa, but the film they're in has them, and all the actors question that. Its deliberate, like in Holy Grail when all the knights see a castle and exclaim "Camelot!". Patsy says "Its only a model" and they all say "Ssshh!". Just making fun of the way old movies have a quaint idea of 'realism'.
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post #25 of 26
7/17/05 at 2:18am
Quote:
[DeviatedPrevert]The humour combines subtlety (the Latin thing) with inspired stupidity (Biggus Dickus, the stoning, the arena scene "its dangerous out there!", "alms for an ex-leper!", the search "we found this spoon sir!", etc). I went from hating the thing to now believing it to be one of the funniest films ever. Its just different from their other stuff, thats all.
Now see that whole Biggus Dickus business made me groan. And Palin's retarded lisp. That stuff just struck me as way too generic and obvious for Python. Should have been in a Mel Brooks film.

Quote:
I would strongly urge you to see it again. Perhaps you got put off by the low production values (I know I did) and its age. Find a dvd copy to rent, because all the tape versions will look like shit now. Give it another chance dude, its genius
I'm sure I'll give it another spin eventually. How are the goodies on the Criterion edition?
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post #26 of 26
7/17/05 at 3:06am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Desslar
Now see that whole Biggus Dickus business made me groan. And Palin's retarded lisp. That stuff just struck me as way too generic and obvious for Python. Should have been in a Mel Brooks film.

I'm sure I'll give it another spin eventually. How are the goodies on the Criterion edition?
What I love most about that scene isn't the 'Biggus Dickus' stuff, or the lisp, both of which I think are generic (but knowingly so), but Palins performance. How he keeps it together through that scene is so amusing, you can tell he's trying not to laugh. Its got that raw, 'seat of the pants' quality that is pure Python. Like the scene in Holy Grail between him and Prince Herbert, its just simple, well-written, back-to-basics humour, not slick, MTV style shallowness. And Mel Brooks early stuff (like Young Frankenstein) is great, about as close as American humour gets to Python.

I've only got a budget no-extras dvd, I want to get the Criterion disc but I'm too busy getting other stuff (like Flying Circus). The dvd has 2 commentaries with all the Pythons except Chapman, a documentary, deleted scenes and other stuff.
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