aschachte

When you go back 30 years, most comedy loses a lot due to what I call "comedic inflation". It was OK or even good for the time, but it loses everything over the years. Viewers of such shows today can only go by the laugh track to know when they are supposed to laugh.

Not so with Monty Python. This group broke so many rules, and invented so many new ones. The dry, fast-paced comedy is so good and so expertly delivered that you often miss the next joke because you're still laughing at the last joke. Not a problem, since much of the comedy comes in the form of sight gags.

I can still remember seeing this show for the first time as a teenager many years ago. I was so brutally attacked by the non-stop silliness that I often couldn't breathe. And I remember asking, "Why aren't there more shows like this?" One thing that struck me particularly funny was the show's awkward transitions. They never just ended a sketch like a regular show would. They went out of their way (like a comedic Rube Goldberg machine) to move from one sketch to the next. Sometimes the set would just change, like the two Vikings being lowered into view at the beginning of the Spam sketch. Sometimes there would be that wonderfully odd animation that sort of almost explains the transition. And other times they just plain gave up and announced those famous words, "And now... for something completely different." That's not good transition! It's wrong, all wrong! Don't they know anything?!?!? And to me, this was just part of the charm of Monty Python. They so blatantly disregarded the rules of transition, among other rules. Transition was just a small part of it, but very very noticeable once you actually look for it.

Monty Python was pure comedic genius. It was absurd. It was irreverent. It was audacious. But most of all it was humor at its best. I will go on record as saying this is the funniest television show of all time.