Just like when I missed National Guacamole Day this year, another important milestone went without my notice. Forty years ago this October 5, Monty Python made it’s debut on BBC. That would have been October 5, 1969- my freshman year at UT. Perhaps it was mentioned in the US media back then, I don’t know. I was busy learning about the world that existed away from my parents. (It was a really big world I discovered).
I started watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus as soon as it came to Houston (1975?) on PBS, midnight Saturday night- just after Saturday Night Live. (Saturday night was a good night for comedy back then). Friday night was I was always out late- dancing and clubbing. Saturday night you went out early and were home by 10:30 for those two shows. I could actually tell if I had any kind of a future with a guy I was out with by their reaction to Monty Python humor. There were more than a couple that I cut loose because they just couldn’t get it; and I wasn’t going to explain. I discovered Python humor is a love it or leave it kinda thing.
I loved Terry Gilliam’s animation. It was so “out there”. I’d just received my degree in commercial art and was working as an illustrator and graphic designer. I however was getting to draw coffee makers, refineries, etc. for print work- newspapers, magazines and annual reports. My clients wanted realism. I was good at it, but it was so “dry”. I did a commission portrait from a photograph of a trophy wife for a local CEO of a prominent company in 1978. (He loved her photo, but wanted it as a large painting). When I was finished, from 5 feet away you couldn’t tell the difference between the photo and the painting. I was pleased. He, not so much. He looked at it and said, “She looks like a hooker!” (I stood there quietly and thought, “No Shit? You’re just seeing this now?”) In the end, I toned down her garish makeup in the painting. He’d become blind to it. To this day I still have a real problem doing anything whimsical. I’m whimsy challenged. At least where art is concerned.
Anyway, I found this site on The Inquistr today that lists 10 of the best sketches from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. So I’m going to put them here 1 at a time, every so often. I know I can always use a laugh. Here’s Monty Python’s famous sketch- The Argument. This is the short version. The longer one on YouTube stops and starts. What’s up with that? Enjoy it. Today’s trivia answer- Sigmund Freud
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Would you like the 5 minute argument or the thirty minute argument?
I actually remember Python coming on after Saturday Night Live and afterwords The Little Show That Comes On After Monty Python. Now that little show had some great performers on. Musicians like Shake Russel and groups like Spirit.