That’s my earliest memory of the show–only I was supposed to be in bed, and it was my parents who were watching it. 
The animations are my least favorite part of the show–some are fine, but most of them don’t stand up to years of repetition the way most of the skits do.
I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.
One never expects the Spanish Inquisition.
I’m female. I’ve loved Monty Python ever since I can remember. Since before I was actually “old enough” to be watching it. I used to watch it with my dad. My mom would object, but my dad would let me watch it.
I can recite whole sketches and sing the songs. Imagine Suburban Plankton’s surprise and delight when we were first dating and he found out I knew as much or more about Monty Python as he did. Is it any wonder he married me?
Don’t worry: I’ve already got plenty of reservations about you being on open mic night.
Another female fan checking in. I know plenty of other women who love Python, but we’re mostly geeks.
The first time I ever saw any Python was late one night when A&E showed the “Parrot Sketch Not Included” special, followed by Holy Grail. I was up with a nasty migraine and laughed so hard at the show I actually started feeling better!
Every little bit(ter recrimination) helps, Miller. Thanks.
That’s the one thing I don’t like about Python (well, one of two things… I don’t get the animations. Oh, three - the alien abduction in the Life of Brian. What the hell was that?) There are far too many people who have confused “quoting passages from Python” and “interesting conversation.” They are not the same.
I was watching the Personal Best at the gym, and had to stop the treadmill because I was laughing so hard. But watching someone imitate the nudge-nudge sketch is just kind of sad. There may be times where saying “it’s only a flesh wound” is appropriate. But they do not occur as often nor last as long as many people seem to think.
I think it is something you love or hate and it isn’t necessarily gender based. I hate it. It has never made me laugh.
My friend Susan likes it. I was reading a book cover to her the other day, suggesting that she would enjoy the book. It says: Part James Bond, part Sherlock Holmes and part Monty Python.
She said it sounded fun, just for the Monty Python.
You either like it or you don’t.
What was the Book?
If you liked Shaun of the Dead, you could give Spaced a try - it is a similar sort of humour. Although I don’t know how easily you could get hold of it in the States. The box set has an amusing Star Wars parody cover.
I’m a big Python fan, although my girlfriend just doesn’t get it. But then, I don’t try to force her to watch it - she doesn’t get it, and that’s fine. Just as long as she doesn’t mind me watching it once in a while.
Unfortunately, the DVD box set of all series of the Flying Circus doesn’t seem to be available over here, unless some UK Dopers can prove me wrong (please prove me wrong!). There’s just one “Best of” DVD, which I own.
I want more Flying Circus! Waaaaah!
Can’t you order the complete set through Amazon or Buy.com? I did.
Jim
Not in the UK, or at least nowhere I’ve looked. I could probably find a US site that might ship to me, but I don’t really want to go to that expense to get a set of DVDs that are the wrong region anyway.
How to market it to women? Three words: Full Monty Python
I have also found several women who don’t seem to get that humor. Having read a few books on relationships by the same biased author about how men and women communicate, I am fully qualified to talk out of my ass on the Internet and make up shit that’s completely wrong.
The author says that men are more often goal-oriented, and women process-oriented; and a prime element of Python humor is anti-authoritarian obstructionism. That is, the king of Swamp Castle gives very simple instructions that nevertheless take hours to communicate to Eric the guard; or Arthur’s kingly demands are thwarted by lowly guards asking about swallows and coconuts; or Pontius Pilate is twing to welease a pwisoner and the crowd taunts him instead. This is one running theme of Python, according to Cleese, often written by Palin and Jones: the sketch starts out with a clear goal and it’s constantly interrupted (I won’t interrupt this sketch for a pound, it’s the Spanish Inquisition) or derailed (but let’s cut away from them and focus on this man instead) or denied (this isn’t an argument!). Maybe men enjoy the disorientation of being taken away from the goal of the sketch more than women?
The author (a woman, so blame her) also says that women tend to spiral around several topics when they talk, hopping from one thing to another, keeping several thoughts in the air at once; and men tend to be more straightforward. Python was designed to be very stream-of-consciousness. Maybe this is more disorienting and enjoyable for male viewers, but duller for female viewers who can keep up with it?
And this is just my own speculation, but maybe women appreciate narrative completion more than men; and Python’s shows were designed to have no punchlines or resolutions.
Just three wild-assed guesses that are probably wrong and which don’t obviously apply to everybody, or even to anybody.
Also recommended: Jake West’s Evil Aliens. British geeks and slackers team up with incomprehensible Welsh farmers to battle over-the-top anal-probers and cattle mutilators amongst the standing stones of scenic Wales. The humour is cruder than that of Shaun of the Dead, but it’s coming from a similar direction.
I managed to borrow a screener DVD from a friend who’s an organizer for the TFF.
Oh, me, too! In my household, I’m the Python fanatic (yes, I have the whole box set of the series on DVD, and “Holy Grail” and “Meaning of Life” on VHS (eventually, I know I’ll upgrade to DVD & add “Life of Brian”), and the complete series scripts, and various other related books, movies, CD’s, etc… My husband, on the other hand, thinks it’s mostly pretty stupid (he did laugh at the Fish Slapping Dance, and I’ve gotten him to share “wafer-thin mint” jokes after a big meal after showing him the Mr. Creosote sketch, but other than that, he just doesn’t get it).
Eric Idle was your idol, huh?
Okay, this thread has me wondering:
There are some things that are famously, if not completely accurately, funny only to men and not to women. The Three Stooges is one example; if the OP’s thesis were correct, Monty Python would be another.
What do women find funny that men do not?