Who was more creative and funny: Monty Python, Kids in the Hall, or SNL?
My vote would go to Monty Python. Memorable, quotable, and still relevant. Kids in the Hall were funny and had some great characters but just missed the mark. SNL…well they are hit or miss.
Which would you choose?
Pretty much exactly the order you have them in the title of your OP. SNL would be a pretty distant third, though.
SNL is the only one I’ve ever been able to tolerate, and I can’t even tolerate it most of the time. Hate the other two, though.
How about SNL when it first came on the air, w/ the classic cast???
Good, but over rated, and not the show’s high point.
Monty Python and the Kids in the Hall are one and two. It took me a while to really figure out the essential difference between them. I think the Pythons were primarily writers, who also performed; and the Kids were performers who also wrote their own material.
I liked the Golden Age SNL cast the best, also for a particular reason. In the earliest days, they played the sketches and Weekend Update much more straight and deadpan. I think the show has gone downhill as they have gotten more of their talent from the ranks of stand-up comedy. (What is Weekend Update now but stand-up behind a desk?) If you’re going to do a parody newscast, copy the serious anchorman demeanor and, to me, that makes it funnier. The fact that SNL doesn’t understand that is why it fails.
For me Monty Python is way out in front of the other two. I haven’t seen much of Kids in the Hall, but what I’ve seen was pretty funny, so, up against recent SNL, I’ll put KITH second. SNL 3rd.
I would put my list thusly: Python, KITH, Mr. Show, SNL.
If you haven’t seen Mr. Show with Bob and David, go seek it out. It’s a worthy compatriot to Python and KITH.
Monty Python squeezes the life out of the other two.
:eek:
And there you have the only thing I have ever disagreed with Big Bad Voodoo Lou on!
I’m going to be completely crazy and say that, for me, KitH is just a wee bit in front of Monty Python, only because I’ve seen so much Python as for it to become a bit old, and KitH still consistantly cracks me up. SNL - meh.
SEIZE HIIIMMM!!! Blasphemer!
I agree completely with both of Miller’s posts.
I’m with the majority here. Python way out in front, then KitH, and then SNL in a distant last place.
The Goon Show - BBC Radio in the early 50s, followed by some BBC-TV episodes. Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and others (incl John Cleese in an episode for TV in 1968). A major comedic influence for such well known (in our era) comedians and comedic actors as John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, Eddie Izzard, Steven Fry, and others.
Quite a few early Python skits and characters were reworks of (or based on) original Goon Show material. Still available from several different online sources, The Goon Show skits are worth a listen. Tho some references are dated, the majority of their work is still funny 50 years later.
As for the ones actually listed in the OP… MP, KitH, SNL, in that order.
I wonder if people would rate the Pythonites so highly if they had continued to do their schitck
for another 3 decades, with tons of personnel changes and a noticeable decline in quality?
Because they pretty much knew to quit when they were ahead, I think people overrate them
a bit, and underrate SNL. I don’t go near modern-day SNL with a ten-mile pole anymore, but
in their heyday (the first and second casts-Chase/Belushi/Curtin and Piscopo/Murphy) they
were pretty good-probably not the equal of the Pythons (which were an obvious inspiration)
admittedly, but they certainly had their moments. I found KITH to be much too twee for my
tastes tho and generally unfunny.
My picks: KitH, SNL, MP.
MP, IMHO, is overrated because it’s British, so it carries with it a “foreign” mystic that appeals to some people. Same thing with how some people prefer the British “Office” over the American.
I’ve never been a huge Monty Python fan. The Flying Circus clips I’ve seen are OK, and the movies are mildy amusing, but I don’t get the obsession. KITH, on the other hand, is consistently awesome.
There’s at least one sense in which SNL is the greatest sketch comedy show ever: it had more truly great and/or really darn funny moments than any other. But then, it’s also had lots and lots of mediocre to downright horrible stuff over the course of its history, too. It’s been around so long that there’s so much to choose from. Depending on what you choose, you can find sketch comedy at its best or at its worst. Separate the wheat from the chaff and you get a pretty funny show.
SNL is also more topical (political humor, celebrity impersonations, etc.) than just about any other sketch comedy show. Which means that a lot of it hasn’t aged (and/or traveled) as well as its competitors, even if it was fresh and funny and dead-on when it originally aired. So in some ways it’s closer to something like the Tonight Show or the Daily Show or Letterman or Conan than to something like Python or KITH.
Monty Python is God. They are the Beatles of comedy. Their best is more brilliant than anybody else’s best. There may never have been a more talented team of writer/performers. But even they had their ho-hum moments.
Kids in the Hall I find to be overrated, but I may not be able to judge fairly since I’ve been working my way through the DVDs and am only halfway through season two. They’re consistently at least mildly amusing, and definitely talented, but they haven’t given me anywhere near as many good laughs as Monty Python, SNL, or maybe a few other sketch comedy shows.
(Speaking of which, where do Mr. Show and SCTV and In Living Color and The State and The Upright Citizens Brigade and Chappelle’s Show and any others you can think of rank?)
Who? Tim? :dubious:
Python #1
KITH #2
Mad TV #3