This has all been my experience as well.
I think part of the reason MP has never hit me the right way is that I was first introduced to it by people who were huge fans and who created huge expectations (“Oh my god, this is the funniest thing ever! You’re just going to laugh until you fall over”). Nothing could hold up to that sort of overselling.
Well, some of us have HEARD of it, and can connect Peter Sellers to it as a historical curiosity, but haven’t actually ever seen or heard the show itself.
Or you’re just a very naughty boy.
I don’t know if I agree with this entirely. I love British humor, even British humor that I don’t entirely get because I’m not a 70 year old British woman. I know of the Goon show, I recently got a DVD of “The Best of…What’s Left of…Not Only…But Also…” and though there were only a handful of episodes, I completely fell in love and found it about 10,000x funnier and more creative that MP. My favorite movies include A Hard Day’s Night (which is more than just a Beatles movie, it has quite a clever script) and Bedazzled. And I cannot stand Monty Python. I remember laughing at Life of Brian, and I used to enjoy Holy Grail. I get the jokes in Flying Circus for the most part, and I just don’t think they’re funny. I’m not very entertained by Fawlty Towers either.
My sisters, on the other hand, adore MP. They know every word of every sketch. THey have the complete series on DVD and trade the set back and forth. If there’s a MP marathon on BBC America, you better believe we’re watching it. They’re even further removed from MP, though–I guess my youngest sister was around 14 or 15 when she discovered them.
You can download some shows, e.g., at The Goon Show Site. However, they probably aren’t to everyone’s taste, and it takes a while to get used to all the running gags in them.
Here, here!!!
Well, if you insist.
::charges at spooje::
Lemon curry?
I wasn’t suggesting they’re mutually exclusive, I know plenty of people can like them all, or none of them. I was just using them as a personal example of how humour doesn’t always travel well.
Because Americans are brought up with SNL, they find it funnier than people who only see small parts, which can be out of context (both within the individual show, the series as a whole, and US-style comedy as a genre) and about subjects that are very US-centric or US-topical which they won’t necessarily understand.
And in that sense it compares well with Python, which is almost exactly similar, except UK-oriented. I was brought up in New Zealand, it was showing a lot of UK comedy (more than Australia does, even) plus I read UK comics as a kid, so I can connect with it, and find it funnier than someone who has only seen a tiny amount of UK comedy.
Some jokes are funny no matter what, some rely heavily on local cultural context. If you don’t know the context, it very well might not be funny to you.
You will be thrashed with a shrubbery!
Well, in the days when I watched the show maybe 25% of it was really enjoyable, half was O.K., and 25% was what my father used to disdainfully refer to as “British humor”.
Monty Python was supposed to be funny? :smack:
Actually there’s about 2-4 funny parts. The rest was pretty boring.
There are funny bits, but just bits. Mostly I don’t laugh at them.
On second thought, let’s not go. T’is a silly place.
I dunno…I don’t think I’ve laughed once at a sketch or bit or part, but–like a few have said in here–I have friends who laugh at most of the stuff. I’m the only one in the room never laughing. And then I get looked at weirdly for it, hah.
I’m just glad to know it wasn’t just me.
Idle Thoughts: if it helps you feel less isolated, I don’t find “The Simpsons” funny.
No
I was a huge fan of Monty Python in my high school and college days. I lost interest in the troupe after seeing “The Meaning of Life” (and I’m pretty sure THEY lost interest in the troupe around the same time), and haven’t watched any of the old TV episodes in 15 years or more.
Would they hold up well? Would I still laugh? Hard to say, but…
Even when I was a big fan, I knew they were REALLY hit-and-miss. Their best episodes were only hilarious about 60% of the time. And they had at least half a dozen full episodes with absolutely NOTHING funny in them.
At their best, they were absolutely brilliant. But they were only at their best infrequently.
I had a friend a few years ago who insisted that Holy Grail was the funniest thing ever created, and I’d laugh whenever he quoted from it. (“We are the knights we say Ni!”) Once I finally watched it, I was disappointed that I didn’t find it nearly as funny as he did. It was silly, sure, but not that funny; I chuckled maybe once or twice. I do want to give Meaning of Life and Life of Brian a try, just in case I missed something.
If there are only 20 sketches worth watching out of the entire run of the show, maybe you could make a list of the can’t-miss ones. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an episode, but watching 20 funny sketches is better than wading through 300.
Conversely, I saw a Fawlty Towers program (which I thought was absolutely brilliant at the time) just a week or two ago and was amazed at how dated and unfunny it now seems to be.
MPFC was hit and miss at the time, with the best bits being very funny, but it is now best savored by quoting the best lines rather than actually watching it.
(To the OP) Yes you are.