# And Now for a Thread that's Completely Different.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 5, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674 "2009-10-05T15:16:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/41 "2009-10-06T17:39:14Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#):
>
> Excuse me !
> Is this the room for the argument?
I’ve already told you once.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/42 "2009-10-06T17:48:01Z")
My brain hurts
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### Author:  [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/43 "2009-10-06T18:00:11Z")
I know all you posters are men of the world … you’ve been there haven’t you. I mean you’ve been around. You’ve seen … Monty Python.
What’s it like?
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/44 "2009-10-06T19:35:13Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I first saw them on a summer replacement show that took over the spot of Dean Martin’s show. They had comedy stuff from all over, and it included some of Monty Python’s stuff (Including the “Tough Grannies” routine) for what I think was the first time in the US. Certainly they would never have run the Pythons uncut on American commercial TV. I loved it, but it wasn’t until I saw **And Now for Something Completely Different** that I saw them again. I remember friends asking me if Monty Python was that guy with the weird-facing eye (actually Marty Feldman) – nobody knew who or what Monty Python was. But shortly after that they started appearing on PBS (uncut!), and their books and albums started coming out.
That’s also where I was introduced to Python. The show was called “Comedy World” and it ran on NBC during the summer of 1974. Incidentally, that show was also where I first saw Andy Kaufman (who did his Mighty Mouse routine).
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/45 "2009-10-06T20:28:28Z")
Technically, **Dean Martin’s Comedy Word**. Terrific in concept, but with piss-poor execution. They tried to do **Laugh-in** style quick cutting, so you never actually got to see a comedy routine – just random jokes. No way to get a handle on anyone’s style.
The Monty Python clips shown included one of the silliest pieces of censorship on TV. The original sketch had the phrase “naughty bits” in it, and the censors forced NBC to bleep it out (which only made it sound more dirty). And NBC could have simply chosen another clip.
Their albums came out before the appearance on the show, and **And Now For Something Completely Different** had been released a few years before, but **Dean Martin’s Comedy World** probably brought them to the attention of more people.
Albatross!
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/46 "2009-10-06T20:54:12Z")
> [@Trion](#):
>
> I know all you posters are men of the world … you’ve been there haven’t you. I mean you’ve been around. You’ve seen … Monty Python.
>
> What’s it like?
What, apart from the naughty bits?
Well, it’s a bit like being hit by a herring. Except funny.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/47 "2009-10-06T21:10:33Z")
> [@lost4life](#):
>
> Semprini?
All right, 'o’s got a boil on 'is semprini, then?
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/48 "2009-10-06T21:39:08Z")
[_The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine_](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0068102/) ran as a replacement for Dean Martin in the summer of 1972. It opened with an animation sequence by Terry Gilliam, and Feldman’s sketch humor was quite Pythonesque. (Or theirs was Feldmanesque. His first show, _Marty_, preceded MPFC by a couple of years, and was written by Cleese, Chapman, and Gilliam, among others.)
[Here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKRpg9eDyHE) a sample that includes the memorable Gilliam opening and bits featuring Spike Milligan and Orson Welles. The sketches in this clip aren’t as funny as some others I recall, like [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlPAVm8Gl6M&feature=related).
Lemon curry?
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### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/49 "2009-10-06T21:57:54Z")
> [@lost4life](#):
>
> Semprini?
OUT!!!
MPFC defined the phrase ‘cult following’:
A few years back, we were watching a managerial training film made in the UK in the 1950s. It dealt with a staid British company trying to improve the quality of their widgets. At one point, a dour man spoke up, “Well, speaking as an accountant,…”
When someone in the darkened room asserted, “But he REALLY wants to be a lion tamer!”, it divided the room into the initiated, and the rest. After the former stopped laughing, they restarted the film.
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### Author:  [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uosdwis_R.Dewoh)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/50 "2009-10-08T20:02:34Z")
Dear SD, I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about this thread which you have just posted, about posters who wear women’s clothes. Many of my best friends are posters and only a few of them are transvestites.
Yours faithfully, Uosdwis R. Dewoh (Mrs.)
PS I have never kissed the editor of the Radio Times.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/51 "2009-10-08T20:23:57Z")
There’s something wrong in the timing here. I KNOW that I saw **And Now for Something Completely Different** in 1973, but I was certain that I’d seen **Dean Martin’s Comedy World** before I saw ANFSCD. But Wikipedia and IMDb both say Comedy World was the summer of 1974. I definitely knew what Monty Python was by the summer of 1974.
Does not compute.
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/52 "2009-10-08T20:36:15Z")
I suspected from your first post that you might have conflated Marty Feldman and Monty Python. It would not have been hard to do. Similar names, similar comedy. (I had completely forgotten that Spike was on Marty’s show.)
How old were you at the time?
As I keep telling myself, losing your memory as you get older is nothing to be ashamed of. 😃
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/53 "2009-10-08T21:12:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I suspected from your first post that you might have conflated Marty Feldman and Monty Python. It would not have been hard to do. Similar names, similar comedy. (I had completely forgotten that Spike was on Marty’s show.)
If you read my first post, then you know that I was saying that _other_ people were confusing Marty Feldman with Monty Python. I’ve never confused the group with the person.
I could’ve sworn that the Dean Martin Comedy World showing was pre-1973. I was 17 when I saw ANFSCD in 1973
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### Author:  [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2009, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/and-now-for-a-thread-thats-completely-different/512674/54 "2009-10-09T14:27:44Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> If you read my first post, then you know that I was saying that _other_ people were confusing Marty Feldman with Monty Python. I’ve never confused the group with the person.
I did read your first post, but as we age we sometimes think we’re not confused when we really are. Don’t worry. It’s perfectly normal.
J/K!
(FYI, I’m a year older than you.)
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