The times I’ve seen Monty Python’s flying circus and clips from the movies, I’ve found it painfully unfunny. I would appreciate if someone would explain what’s so funny about it all.
One who attempts to explain humor is unqualified to appreciate it.
That’s like Hitler asking, “Please list the positive qualities of the jewish people. I’d really like to know.” Humor works with different people. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. You can’t really explain why something is funny, it just is.
(it’s an analogy, i’m sure you’re nothing like hitler and you love jews very much)
i don’t think one can be explained into finding something funny.
i might suggest that in a way, to find MP funny is akin to finding ‘the waste land’ an enjoyable poem;
certainly much of MP’s humor relies on … let’s say a liberal arts education.
which isn’t to imply that you are uneducated, just to say that there are interests and sensibilities inherent in the average liberal arts student that aren’t found in the average physical therapy student.
there, how’s that for a thoroughly unfunny, non-humor-inducing response?
now of course we can analyze (which, yes, does mean “to imbue with or enhance the anal quality of something”) the comedic structure of any python skit and describe the humorous mechanisms at work – is that what you’re looking for?
Monty Python was anarchy.
If you don’t like them you probably don’t like an earlier form of anarchy, like the Marks Brothers.
People like it because it makes them laugh. If you don’t think it’s funny, there’s really no appeal. I don’t know what would make you change your mind about that. I think their best stuff is funny any time; most of it you have to be in the right mood for, since it’s so absurd and idiosyncratic.
It really depends on your sense of humor. For some, Fawlty Towers is one of the funniest shows on Earth (me!), and for others, it’s just John Cleese yelling and acting stupid.
Think of something you find funny. That’s how I feel about Monty Python.
The end.
Ni!
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to respond with nothing but a Monty Python reference…59 minutes apparently.
For the OP, what everyone else has said. Humour is a matter of personal taste, and if you don’t find something funny, that’s all there is to it. While I love Monty Python, there’s other forms of humour I just don’t get the appeal of, primarily gross-out humour. Doesn’t make me better or worse than people who do find that funny, just different.
Out of curiosity what sort(s) of comedy do you find truly funny? What really tickles your funny bone? What comedian or comedy group do you really like?
something I find funny is Mystery science theatre 3000
Hmmm I wouldn’t have thunk that finding humor in MST3K and MP ro be mutually exclusive. MST3K is…umm…usually more smart? and MP is usually more…slapsticky? But they are both “stupid”* humor?
*stupid humor=anything I liked growing up that I tried to make my Dad sit through. Monty Python, Spaceballs, Police Acedemy, etc. Which is odd because he LOVES “Its a mad mad mad mad mad mad mad world”
I think the problem is one of context and familarity. MP was hilarous at the time they came out because it was new and no one had ever seen quite its like before. Same with Kids in the Hall. Viewed through the time lens both might seem a little stilted at this point, but they were groundbreaking and that made them especially funny in the context of the time and social context they debuted in. In this same way the arch humor and asides of MST3K you find appealing may will seem incomprehensible to our children.
I wouldn’t say that Monty Python was “stupid” humour. Yeah it was slapsticky a lot, but the levels of creativity those 6 guys reached was very far from stupid.
It took getting this far in the thread for me to decide someone else had said what I think. I was a big fan of not just Monty Python, but of several British comedy acts of that period. Beyond The Fringe was one that doubled me up with laughter.
Picture the period if you can. Early 1960’s. The 50’s had been about sitcoms like “I Love Lucy” and Sergeant Bilko and other such things which had their own ways of poking fun at the lifestyle of the 50’s. Most of those shows and sketches had their own brand of lunacy but it was based on the Vaudeville and Burlesque model for humor. Broad and joke-based, or slapstick, or pratfalls, or blackouts. But most of it had that American flair which was funny to some extent because it relied on the idiocy of the participants. Much like Jerry Lewis’s appeal in his Dean Martin days was based on his mockery and exploitation of retarded and handicapped people. Very non-PC, if you will.
Now take that same brand of mockery and exploitation that had fueled “American 1950’s Comedy” and import the typical view of British life. Stodgy, haughty, very protocol-oriented, without the least trace of humor or even any understanding of it.
Voila! Monty Python and its rivals. Americans had two sorts of things to laugh at now: the traditional stupid stuff, and now a set of stupid stuff coming from the stiff and unfunny British.
You had to have been there.
The old quote about jazz applies here, as well: “If you have to ask, you ain’t never gonna know.”.
Splunge!
Well, as others have said, even a thorough analysis won’t make you laugh at something if it just doesn’t tickle you. But here’s one consistent element of Monty Python comedy: people doing ridiculous things, but doing so in complete seriousness. (Example: the knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail don’t have horses, but they pretend that they do. This is patently absurd, yet they themselves don’t think so.)
Here’s an idea: look at the kind of comedy available on tv in 1965, then watch Monty Python. Although it seems dated now, it introduced a whole new level at the time.
Fortunately, there are lots of different kind of comedy. There’s no right or wrong answer to the question of what you find funny.