Itās the fact that the average viewer couldnāt fully understand the jokes in the TV series unless they had a degree in history/literature/philosophy/whatever.
Elitism at itās most elite.
Life Of Brian is the best comedy film ever made though.
thereās a pretty funny reunion show they did for comedy central like 20 years ago? and at the beginning of this serious retrospective look back on their career, they bring out this urn with graham chapmanās ashes in it, and itās just there on the coffee table on stage throughout the interview. and while john cleese is giving this deep answer to a question about religion eric idle or someone puts their feet up and knocks the urn off the table and the ashes go everywhere. itās just timed so well, and the audience gasp at first and think itās a real accident until they start bringing out dust busters to hoover up. itās a super obvious joke but seeing that when i was 10 was brilliant. made me realise death could be funny and it still cracks me up to think about john cleese dabbing a finger in the ashes and tasting it.
Iāve said it before but Michael Palinās diaries from the 1970s and the 1980s are well worth a read, especially for seeing how the Monty Python team worked together (and itās very moving when he talks about Graham Chapmanās death and being with him as he was dying)
Holy Grail is still at essence a series of sketches, whereas Life of Brian structurally feels much more like a film. Definitely enjoyed HG more on itās own terms.
looking at the comedy HGWIR so far and iām slowly realising my idea of what is funny is very different to many people. maybe because of the current climate or something, my brain is warped by that and the internet. weird.
A classic case of history only remembering the winners. Nearly all famous TV Python sketches came from the first series. After that it was mostly miss.
What I did like about them was the refusal to pander to people who werenāt as educated as they were. If you didnāt know Proust, then fuck ya. But they still just did daft stuff like Silly Walks or slapping each other with fish.
iirc they told the extras they couldnāt laugh during the scene where he gets right in their faces or it would spoil the take, and so some of the ladsā desperate attempts to keep a straight face are legit