I like that show though I’ve seen them all so many times they don’t really make me laugh much anymore. And I like the movies. They are funny, mostly (but not as funny as you think they are). Good for nostalgia.
However: the impression of dialogue from this or that python bit is not an acceptable substitute for conversation. I couldn’t care less to hear your recitation of the spanish inquisition or the dead freakin’ parrot or the knights that say nee or nudge, nudge.
Why must you inflict this on me? Am I supposed to laugh? Do you see me laughing? What, you think I never heard that 100 times before in my life? And don’t know the punchline?
Your fake accent sucks, too. Nerd!
Oh, I dunno.
Applied precisely, some lines are exquisite.
Example: smarmy oversexed loser oozed up in produce aisle looking for a pickup. Heft an apple thoughtfully then rip loose w/ the holy hand grenade rift.
Example: day from hell at work, topped by a fire alarm. RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!
Nothing heavy, just a little cultural shorthand.
Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.
Do people even still quote Python where you live? Do people quote Python anywhere anymore? I’d love it. It’d be so much better than hearing people mimic Ausin Powers ad nauseam. Please, if I hear one more person say “Yeah baby!” again I will truly lose control and snap. It isn’t funny anymore. It really wasn’t that funny the first time. All Mike Myers does is recycle old bits from every SNL sketch and movie in which he’s ever been. It’s time to get some professional help.
Good point, Chief. It spins back to what RTA said. People who take all their comic inspiration from one source and then beat it into the damned ground get boring.
BTW, have you checked out the movie quotes thread elsewhere on the board? There’s a rich gold mine out there…
Anyway, whether it’s Austin Powers, or Python or Rocky Horror, it can get stale with overuse.
That said, Python did some stuff that can be applied where no one else does. (Or wanted to, probably! grin)
Case: at work we recently undertook an exhausting, backbreaking renovation project. This was done, of course, in the worst of the August heat wave.
By the time we got to the landscaping we were all tired beyond tired. The exhausted, hot, aching group were staring at the last tree to be planted and were just too pooped to handle it.
A quiet middleaged gent, usually sedate to the point of invisibility, suddenly belted out, “I’M A LUMBERJACK AND I’M OKAY…”
We lost it: rolling on the ground, tears down the face, honking, wailing laughter.
“A quiet middleaged gent, usually sedate to the point of invisibility, suddenly belted out, “I’M A LUMBERJACK AND I’M OKAY…”
We lost it: rolling on the ground, tears down the face, honking, wailing laughter.”
The problem is not people who pull out an old Python line and use it to punctuate a little bit of real-life surreality. That can be overdone, I admit, but it also can work magic – as in the “lumberjack” example.
No, the problem is people who have memorized the entire Parrot Sketch and insist on performing it at parties. People who confuse mimicking funny material with actually being funny themselves. Thank god I haven’t run into anyone like that in a while, but there was this guy in college …
Then there are the sub-humans who think “Oh, behave!” is a witticism of the highest order. A few years ago these same cretins would be saying “Sha-wing!” Before that it was “I’m Gumby, dammit!” These one-liner junkies should be euthanized, for their good and ours.
