I don't really get Monty Python humor

There's nothing to get. Maybe you just don't find it funny. It wasn't super hysterical.

Yes, OP. I do. It's pretty basic stuff. Your main question should be: What's wrong with me that I don't get it?

Monty Python is English. Are you English?

Maybe you are a psychopath, OP

Comedy is very subjective (actually, everything is subjective) but if you don't like Monty Python then we're probably not gonna be pals.

[quote]Comedy is very subjective (actually, everything is subjective) but if you don't like Monty Python then we're probably not gonna be pals.

Fine by me.

I don't like them either.

I never laughed at one single sketch, and the movies were boring. They tried too hard and thought they were hysterical.

The Brit comedies I liked were AbFab, Are You Being Served? and The Office. And occasionally Benny Hill, but it was so juvenile.

Monty Python is from 52 years ago.

Try this mixed gem from 87 years ago.

I love them, but not as much as friends I know who have seen all their movies 100 times and memorized all the jokes. They have some very cultish followers, JUST LIKE BRIAN.

Totally agree with R9 that I enjoy Monty Python but a lot of their fans are completely obnoxious. No, I don't want to hear you recite the entire Parrot Sketch, thanks.

I don't see how anyone can think something like the "stoning" sketch in Life of Brian isn't funny.

OP is just Boris the Hater out to destroy liberals again.

He hates the Pythons because they speak truth to power, make fun of bogus institutions like the Catholic Church and support progressive politics.

OP "really doesn't get" everything from Stevie Nicks, to Hollywood, to music, to workers' needs, to science or sex. Which means he doesn't get life at all and wants other reptiles to control yours.

R12 wtf? I'm a Boris for not liking Monty Python?

Monty Python is a very useful tool with which to screen out psychopaths.

It's you OP, myself and others "get" Monty Python humor.

I want to be a lumberjack!

I do. I grew up watching it on PBS in the 1970s. It was on late nights, and I used to sneak into the living room after my parents had gone to bed, watching it with the volume on low.

Upper-Class Twit of the Year!

Nudge, nudge; wink, wink!

'The Dull Life of a City Stockbroker':

John Cleese was the best thing that happened to Third Rock From The Sun in later seasons.

Monty Python was different from what Americans had been used to. I lived for a year in England('72-'73) and it took me awhile to understand and appreciate their humor. Most of it wasn't uproariously funny, but then it wasn't designed to be. The more subtle skits had to be thought through and digested before being savored.

YMMV, and for a lot of viewers it did.

I enjoyed their films when I first saw them but on rewatching them in recent years I have to admit that they haven't aged well.

I condole you, OP. Even 50 years later, Monty Python's humor is still some of most brilliant, and above all subversive, in the English h language.

No one could get away with 90% of their material in today's woke world, and that's a crying shame.

What is it to get??? Their humor is neither dark nor deep; it is quite quintessential British humor.

OP is just a bored, fat, stinking incel who just needs to strike a stupid conversation online.

Mr. Bounder, this gentleman is interested in India overland, and *nothing* else!

Bigus Dickus

How many ways can you say a parrot is "dead"?

"It's not pining, it's passed on. This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up daisies. It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot."

Hell's Grannies!

Love MP. I don't get SNL or any other woketard attempt at comedy.

[quote]OP is just a bored, fat, stinking incel who just needs to strike a stupid conversation online.

R25 = absolutely hilarious Python fan

Seduced Milkmen....

Do you want to come back to my place?

Monty Python is humor for those who are college educated. If OP doesn't get it, then he's obviously not a college man.

I watched the Parrot sketch with some working colleagues from China and they didn't find it funny at all. I think they were disturbed by it. They also didn't like A Fish Called Wanda.

[quote] I don't get SNL

You have to be American to get that,

OP: "I'm stupid."

[quote] they haven't aged well.

Much of the TV shows now seem lame, pedestrian and an obvious repeat of Spike Milligan's 'The Goons'.

But the scripts in the films are much more polished and PC.

Awww, it's ok, Corky.

Britain's most awful family

Sorry, couldn't find a better video, but it's still funny as hell! They were really comedy geniuses.

R3 I’m a Brit (Wenglish), and I don’t find MP in the least bit amusing. It seems silly, dated and quaint, leaning far too heavily on easy gags, memetic humour, and declamation.

If I’m looking for genuinely clever absurdity, I’ll rather watch reruns of RED DWARF, SPITTING IMAGE, THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN, SEAN’S SHOW, BOTTOM, NIGHTINGALES, MAX& PADDY, or THE MIGHTY BOOSCH. I dislike this long-held idea that MP is somehow for great minds—it’s for geeks, not intellectuals (R34 and I have a degree, so I guess that debunks your theory...).

To me, the smartest British comedy of all-time comes from the keen minds of such leading lights as Pete & Dud, The Two Ronnies, Richard Curtis, Leonard Rossiter, Kathy Burke, Harry & Paul, Tracey Ullman, etc.. Then there’s the immensity of sitcom dames, like Joanna Lumley, Penelope Keith & Patricia Routledge to name but a few. Savage and daring shows such as GIMME GIMME GIMME, THE ROYLE FAMILY, BLACK BOOKS and THE OFFICE changed the entire game of sitcoms forever. Also noteworthy are the contemporary, observationally-quiet pieces of brilliance, like THE TRIP, FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER, AFTER LIFE, THIS COUNTRY, and PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING.

It’s insulting that people see the worthwhile comedic output of this nation as The Goons, AYBS?, ONLY FOOLS & HORSES, THE GOOD LIFE, and CARRY ON films. We’ve got a bit more to offer than 70s camp, AB FAB (fantastic as it is), and whatever passes for jokes on BAKE-OFF.

You all should enjoy this: the very cute but very high-strung Tom Rosenthal (of PLEBS) opines the “disgusting” nature of simulating cunnilingus on-camera. He seems genuinely upset that he had perform it.

Right! Military march, camp it up!

You'd never get this pass BBC or anyone else nowadays.

[quote] You'd never get this pass BBC or anyone else nowadays

We're living through another Dark Age.

r34 well, that explains it

Never be rude to an Arab!

It's British humor.

Not surprised OP when you come from a country that calls someone a witch instead of a bitch,and prefers sheeet! to shit!

Four Yorkshiremen....

It's British humor which, for the most part, is mocking traditional British values of the time.

Some people forget that comedy wasn't just plain entertainment but also had a social commentary message underneath it. To point out an uncomfortable truth packaged in a joke to make it more tolerable for public consumption.

I loved it up to the 1990s. I know it was off the air long before that but I mean I was one of those guys who quoted it, knew many of the sketches by heart, etc. It was still "relevant". I now have a fondness for it, nostalgia really, but don't seek it out, don't laugh at it, and I think it's very dated. That world is a historical relic. I've been watching latr1980s Eastenders lately and it's like a historical drama.

I'm officially an eldergay now.

Generally the British were as good at comedy as they were at FOOD and CARS.

Yes of course. I remember blundering onto it whrn I was a teenager when going around the dial — on channel 13 — and thinking “what the hell is this?”, then realizing for the first time I saw comedy that was truly brilliant.

It has its (rare) moments. I do like "The Meaning of Life"...my dad used to torture my Catholic mother with endless renditions of "Every Sperm Is Sacred" around the house, lololol. I guess in its heyday, the writing was considered edgy and clever...and probably was a necessary stage for the overall evolution of comedic material, but now it's just stale Boomer humor. Sorry guys. I hold the troupe responsible for spawning so many awful imitators, each with their own lazy '90s-style, smug, self-aware, Joss-Whedon-esque writing in film and tv...lame. This trend *still* hasn't died. (And yes, theater geek kids still looooooove both Python and Whedon)

Let's be other things OP doesn't get

I'd willingly had gone back to young Michael Palin's place!

Mr. Palin was known as the most handsome member of Monty Python ensemble cast.

It’s very nerdy surreal english humor. Not for all.

Palin was really cute.

Ni!

I loved 'Confuse a Cat'.

Palin was pretty sexy.

Ni!

I want a shrubbery.

Most Americans don’t understand the Monty Python tv show because 90% of it was lampooning British tv of the time. Sometimes Americans thought Pythons were being wildly creative when they were just spoofing. For example, the episode of the Piranha Brothers & the episode showing the mice men. I thought they were just absurdist humor they made up out of nowhere. I didn’t know the Piranha Brothers were based on actual people, the Kray twins, and that the troupe was spoofing a British tv show that had aired an episode about the Krays.

When a male Python dressed as a woman announced that one of the Pirhana brothers was a gentleman who really knew how to properly treat a female impersonator, I thought it was hilarious, totally not knowing that one of the Kray brothers was gay and liked drag queens. I thought it was all just original, creative content.

The Mice Men episode was another one that I thought was hilarious & wildly creative. I had no idea that they were spoofing a recently aired British documentary on gay men — almost frame for frame.

In later years, after having seen British tv shows they were spoofing I realized they hadn’t come up with these silly situations on their own, but were satirizing tge british tv shows 5ga5 had aired several weeks previously.

Some of the Monty Python movies made references to British tv shows or spoofed British history & culture, but they were generally less derivative than the Monty Python tv show was.

BBC won’t rerun Python in the UK and it pisses off John Cleese because pythons are revered in the US but not really well respected in the UK. He wants BBC to rerun the show and introduce it to younger generations. But I don’t think young people in the UK would like the old shows very much. They were funnier to people outside the UK in the 1970s because the audiences outside the UK didn’t realize how derivative they were of 1960s British tv shows and that’s when pythons overseas base was built and that base passed it down to their children & grandchildren through reruns & videos.

I think the fact that a sketch is a parody of something familiar to the audience is a plus, not a minus.

OP, your father was a hamster and your mother smelled like elderberries!

A newt?

Biggus Dikkus. Yeah, man, that's really funny.

MP has never done a single thing for me.

Not funny to me what so ever.

Context, r67.

r67 and r68 ite domum!

It's British, so you either understand what they're saying or you don't, and that probably affects how much people enjoy them. Not every skit is super funny but they had some hilarious, absurd characters and situations, crazed monologues, plus the weird non-sequitur stuff that popped up between larger segments. I started watching the tv show on PBS late on summer nights as a kid, and I thought it was funny then and still enjoy it.

I get it.

Much of their humor is absurdist and nonsensical on the face of it, and, for whatever reason, I find it hilarious.

Some of my personal favorites: Hilter running for local government in England, the man going to the clerk to ask the clerk to marry him, and the llama song.

I will concede that their last season was terrible (Cleese was obviously a big part of their success), and I'm not much of a fan of the Meaning of Life.

Satirical maybe but not funny like "Fawlty Towers".

Holy grail movie. Hilarious!

I’m not dead yet, the coconuts for horse hooves, the fight with the black knight.

Gold!

So ugly. My older brothers were into this. Ugh.

R53 doesn’t even begin to understand the humor so he decides it’s “boomer humor.”

R63

Got the "Piranha Brothers" sketch at once, but then again knew all about Ronnie Kray and his brother...

More:

Another:

Yes, you do, OP.

Dinsdale!

Name of Monty Python sketch was "The Mouse Problem", and yes it was a riot.

"It's not a question of wanting to be a mouse — it just sort of happens to you," he tells the interviewer. "All of a sudden you realize… that's what you want to be."

Original script for "The Mouse Problem" and more can be found here: