Up front, knowing the answers will not make ANY Monty Python bit more funny. I just get curious occasionally.
Sometimes, in old episodes of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” the troupe seemed to get laughs just by alluding to a British town or village, or to some London suburb. American viewers like myself, of course, had no idea what the joke was supposed to be. I suppose, by the same token, an Englishman who listened to Johnny Carson’s old monologues would be baffled by jokes alluding to “beautiful downtown Burbank” or the La Brea tar pits.
But to use a few random examples… in the old “Nudge Nudge” sketch, the audience seemed to find it hilarious that stiff, staid Terry Jones’ wife was from Purley. Well… what’s funny about Purley (or, perhaps, what SEEMED funny about Purley in 1970?
Anything particularly funny about Notlob (er, Bolton)? Or Luton?
I think it’s a ‘you had to be there’ kind of thing. Would Joe Piscopo’s (remember him?) “I’m from Jersey! You from Jersey?” (remember that) be funny to Londoners? Would they laugh if condolences were offered to someone who said they lived in Detroit?
Now that I think about it, the Detroit one can be explained to someone who doesn’t know how terrible it has become but the New Jersey one-- is there an explanation?
After someone tried to explain Tunbridge Wells to me, I explained New Jersey in that the part of it most people see driving through is that dismal stretch at the northern end as you head toward New York City–“the Industrial district of Mordor.”
" And now: a letter, a hotel registration book, and a series of photographs, which could add up to divorce, premature retirement, and possible criminal proceedings for a company director in Bromsgrove. He’s a freemason, and a conservative M.P., so Mr S. that’s 3,000 pounds please to stop us from revealing: Your name, The name of the three other people involved, The youth organization to which they belonged, and the shop where you bought the equipment! "
When I visited England, Swindon became a running joke amongst my group, because there were always signs pointing us to it, but we never seemed to need to drive through it, no matter where we went. And the signs for it were quite far away in some cases.
Many years later, I’ve heard Alan Davies making a similar observation about Swindon on QI, so it turned out to be a more widespread than I expected. I could see the Pythons making the same kind of joke.
I have the same problem as the OP when I watch Graham Norton’s chat show. He often starts the show with photos of some celebrity and makes jokes about them. But some of the jokes fly over my American head.
Back in the 1930s Americans found a number of places in the States instantly amusing, not so much the weirdities of the wide west ( eg: names like Bee Sting or Frump ) but common familiar places, like Perth Amboy or Paramus.
Of course in those cases there may be an elusive link.
A little but you really don’t have to be American to find their names inherently funny. Their examples of the comedy rule stating words with pronounced letter “K” or hard “C” sounds are guaranteed laugh-getters.
