Among the many things Monty Python has anchored in the collective consciousness of late 20th century TV viewers is the perfect formula on how to make a perfect transition from one thing to the other with no logical link whatsoever - and use considerably fewer words than in this introduction. Clearly the Pythons were ahead of their time with innovations like this. Or by beginning a show at its end, leading up to a breathtaking start. Or by glorifying canned meat into something ubiquitous and inescapable by writing a song about it - the product that would give the daily shocking content of our e-mail inboxes a proper unmistakable name. Or by aborting a sketch due to exceeding silliness, by continuing after the credits have rolled or by introducing artful, however out-and-out off-wall animation as just one of the many ingredients in order to go for something completely different. Monty Python swims against the tide of the typical punchline laughs. It stands for the perfect cross between surrealism for humor's sake, for encompassing absurd comedy somewhere between triviality and existentialism, with a tad of innuendo-laden references (wink, wink, nudge nudge, say no more), functioning also because it hit a nerve back then in 1968 and hasn't lost any of its cultural relevance almost 50 years later. Nowadays, when people are reading reviews for the lack of having anything better to do, they might not expect the Spanish Inquisition to show up (nobody does!). But they just did, and that's thanks to Monty Python - the guys who also wrote the killer joke where 13 people looked at two words and had to be sent to the hospital. Dangerous stuff!
It's a sure bet that you'll still find people whistling Sousa's military march for no apparent reason for many years to come. Even when the members of this incomparable comedy troupe are gone to meet their maker, are pushing up the daisies, have rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. Whatever you do, the Pythons are a great reminder that the last laugh is on you. I'm sure that was what occurred to Graham Chapman as well when he participated in his own funeral and the rest of the gang just made a high caliber comedy show out of it, Python style. Can't kill them, I tell ya.
It's a sure bet that you'll still find people whistling Sousa's military march for no apparent reason for many years to come. Even when the members of this incomparable comedy troupe are gone to meet their maker, are pushing up the daisies, have rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. Whatever you do, the Pythons are a great reminder that the last laugh is on you. I'm sure that was what occurred to Graham Chapman as well when he participated in his own funeral and the rest of the gang just made a high caliber comedy show out of it, Python style. Can't kill them, I tell ya.