Hitchhikers Vs. Pythons

[Glitch]

A spinoff from the Python thread in GQ.

Which is funnier the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy of four OR "Monty Python's Flying Circus"?

Personally, I am going to have to go with Monty Python.

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What more could you expect from somebody who lets people kick him to the head?

[Persephone]

Well, IMHO, you're comparing Spam to babelfish here. They're both funny, in different ways. I like them both.

[tracer]

And BTW, there are five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy nowadays.

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Quick-N-Dirty Aviation: Trading altitude for airspeed since 1992.

[neuro-trash grrrl]

What, I have to decide? Oh, fine. Hitchhiker's is funnier to read, and Monty Python is funnier to watch. How's that?

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Modest? You bet I'm modest! I am the queen of modesty!

[glee]

Hey, did I help get this thread started?

Anyway I don't want to choose (yes, I know that's a copout). They're both part of my life. My friends call me Bruce* and I always know where my towel is.

*so I'm visiting my friend's house with two mates also nicknamed Bruce. One of us knocks over an ornament in the bathroom. The host (yes, all right, he answers to Bruce too) tells his wife that Bruce is very sorry about an accident in the bathroom. She says 'Which one?' and he replies 'We've only got one bathroom'...

'Hurry up Mr. Dent or you'll be late'
'Sorry, but is it really important?'
'Yes, I meant as in the late Mr. Dent - I've never been very good at threats'

[Glitch]

Yes, Glee, you did. I thought it was a good idea for a thread, although I am suprised at the lack of responses. Come on Teeming Millions, there has to be some rabid Monty Python fans who are shocked that anybody would pick Hitchhiker's Guide and vice versa (or do I need to change the OP to which is better Star Wars or Star Trek? :))? Let's see some blood!

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What more could you expect from somebody who lets people kick him to the head?

[Dragwyr]

Allright, now stop that... it's silly.

Now, nobody likes a good laugh more than I do... except for my wife and a few of her friends. Oh, yes, and Captain Johnson. Come to think of it, quite a few people enjoy a good laugh more than I do, but that is not the point. This discussion is getting too silly. Now for punnishment, I shall now recite some Vogon Poetry...

"Gloop, I emplore you..."

[Polycarp]

Okay, how many people, seeing this thread's title, thought it referred to an urban legend about people soliciting rides and being attacked by large constrictor-like snakes? :)

[DrFidelius]

I thought it was about a game from the old World Football League. (Guess Dr.F's Age!)

[glee]

Hey, I helped inspire a thread! (My cunning plan for world domination will continue when I pluck up courage to start one myself).

The difficulty in getting debate started is probably that both series are well thought of and frequently quoted:

'is this the 5 minute argument?'
'I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side'
'always look on the bright side of life'
'brain the size of a planet'

must stop now, I've fulfilled my quota...

[Kamino Neko]

Python, of course!

HHGttG is so obviously the superior series how anyone would be dumb enough to choose it over MP escapes me.

I mean, really! HHGttG is lightyears beyond MP!

::Blinkblink:: Um...wait....



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'They couldn't hit an Elephant from this dist...!'

Last words of General John Sedgwick

[GoSensGo]

coming out of hiding..

it's gotta be Douglas Adams.
there's an overall comedic vision there that the Pythons rarely attained to.

-Alex

[CatInHat]

Okay, how many people, seeing this thread's title, thought it referred to an urban legend about people soliciting rides and being attacked by large constrictor-like snakes?

:::raises hand sheepishly:::

I consider them equally funny, but more of the people I know are familiar with Python than with Hitchhiker's, just because Hitchhiker's is "science fiction" and most of my friends don't read SF. So I get more laughs with Python quotes, and more blank looks with Hitchhiker's quotes.

There's a special place in my heart, though, for the ones who can answer the Question correctly.

"It's dead, that's what's wrong with it."

"I think you ought to know that I'm feeling very depressed."

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The Cat In The Hat

[tracer]

O fredded gruntbuggly, thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee!
Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously spindle thee with crinkly bindlewurdles
Or else I will rend thee in the gabberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!

     -- prosthetnic Vogon Jeltz, Captain

Ah! A fine example of the third-worst poetry in the universe. If only I could find the complete text of "Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morn."

[lvick]

Actually I quite liked it.

[DrFidelius]

And why has no one mentioned Pratchett yet?

[Primal]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Douglas Adams once wrote for the Flying Circus....which should cast a whole new light on this debate.

[CatInHat]

And why has no one mentioned Pratchett yet?

You just did.

IMO, he's at least as funny as Hitchhiker's and Monty Python, but the humor isn't as obvious.

Umm, let's see ...

"Of course, it couldn't be a final frontier, because then it wouldn't have anything to be a frontier to, but as frontiers go, it was pretty penultimate."

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The Cat In The Hat

[neuro-trash grrrl]

No, Douglas Adams never wrote for the Flying Circus. He worked with Graham Chapman on some other project for a while, and he did appear as an extra in two Circus sketches (once as a surgeon, once as a pepperpot, I don't know exactly which sketches they were), but he didn't actually write for it. The whole thing about him writing for Monty Python was just a misquote of something some publisher cooked up for publicity. Entirely appropriate, don't you think?

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Modest? You bet I'm modest! I am the queen of modesty!

[glee]

Oooops, I should have mentioned Pratchett before (thanks Dr. Fidelius!).

'The Patrician (ruler of Ankh-Mopork) believed in democracy - one man, one vote. The Patrician was that man and he had that vote.'

'Thunder rolled. He rolled a six.'

Now I must bring in P.G.Wodehouse.....

[tracer]

neuro-trash grrrl wrote:

The whole thing about [Adams] writing for Monty Python was just a misquote of something some publisher cooked up for publicity.

Now just a cotton-pickin' minute, sistah! Didn't Douglas Adams contribute to the Knights Who Say 'Ni!' sketch in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

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Quick-N-Dirty Aviation: Trading altitude for airspeed since 1992.

[RTFirefly]

I can't believe I missed this thread for so long. I must've gotten a bit absorbed in re-reading Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes , or was I fantasizing about slipping in through the back door of the Castle Anthrax, just after Lancelot & Co. rescue Sir Galahad from almost certain temptation?

I dunno. They're very different - the main thing they have in common is being British. Adams' strength is a wryness that has a certain underlying wisdom; I've frequently found myself remembering bits of Hitchhiker lore in situations where that Hitchhiker passage describes exactly how the world is working at that moment.

By contrast, Python is just good old-fashioned outside-the-bounds-of-reality humor. A better either-or, IMO, would be Python v. Marx Brothers, who existed in that same rarefied plane, in their best movies, especially the Monkey Business - Horsefeathers - Duck Soup sequence. And I can't make up my mind which is better at it, really, despite my nom de SDMB .