The Ministry of Silly Walks

[Doug T.]

Hi All !

I just watched some old Monty Python clips on You Tube.
I haven't laughed that hard in years

Doug

[daveh]

Now there's a post I didn't expect. The next thing that will be along is the Spanish Inquisition - and I won't expect that either.

John Cleese credits a British Music Hall performer, Max Wall, as the inspiration for the Silly Walks sketch.

[Randy]

My favorite is the dead parrot in the pet shop.

[daveh]

He's not dead, he's just resting.

[Doug T.]

If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up Daisies !

[Deleted]

My favorite: The Argument

[daveh]

No it isn't but that's just a contradiction, not an argument. ;D

When Monty Python first arrived on British TV is was stuck in a not very fashionable TV slot probably because no one expected anything of it.

John Cleese was already known to TV audiences, having been on "That Was The Week That was": TW3 as it was known. Additionally I had watched Michael Palin and Terry Jones in a series "The complete and utter history of Britain" (if I remember the name correctly: no one else seems to remember it, but I had quite enjoyed it.) So, when Monty first started I had a reason to watch it from the off. The transition from a programme few were watching to cult classic was swift and unexpected. Suddenly it was the programme everyone was was watching and talking about - well, everyone from the right age group.

I don't really have a favourite sketch. Some of the sketches didn't quite work: that will always happen with comedy 'on the edge'. Most I found equally funny and silly and I find it impossible pick between them.

We're all of a similar age - the right sort of age to have appreciated it when it first arrived. I wonder what Peter and Mickey (and John Parry) made of it at the time.

[mickeyobe]

"We're all of a similar age - the right sort of age to have appreciated it when it first arrived. I wonder what Peter and Mickey (and John Parry) made of it at the time."

Dave,

"At the time"
I was not aware of the marvelous English comedians and comedy programmes.

Today I find some of them very funny and others leave me cold.

I dislike the racial jokes that occur much too often in British humour.

When it comes to subtlety and plays on words the Brits are supreme.

As for ripping into established institutions I don't know if it started with Gilbert and Sullivan and was carried on by Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister but it continues apace today and can not be equaled.

Mickey

[PeterW]

Dave,

We're all of a similar age - the right sort of age to have appreciated it when it first arrived. I wonder what Peter and Mickey (and John Parry) made of it at the time.

Oh Dear, I feel a ramble coming on.

I found Monty Python a bit like the Curate's egg - good in parts. Some of it I found very funny but, as with many Beyond the Fringe comedians I felt that at times situations were being stretched to make them funny – and it showed.

I preferred my humour to be more sophisticated, not thrown in my face. My favourite comedy writers were Muir and Norden, with Galton and Simpson running a close second.

You may have noticed that both partnerships started with radio scripts. They were full of memorable throw-away lines, such as the introduction jingle to Muir and Norden’s Take it From Here which ended “half an hour of laughter beckons, every minute packed with seconds”. The reference to Kipling was probably lost to a high percentage of listeners.

Another classic Muir and Norden line, said to have started as an ad-lib in rehersal, was “Roman Soldiers , Number ... eye, eye-eye, eye-eye-eye, eye-vee”.

For me, the highlight of Galton and Simpson’s scripting for “Ancock’s Alf ‘Our” was the sketch “Sunday Morning”, not so much for what was said but for what wasn’t said. Everything depended on pauses and timing, which Tony Hancock and Dick Bentley carried off to perfection.

Another Galton and Simpson classic throw-away line was in the TV series “Steptoe and Son. Harold bought a reproduction chair which he fondly believed to be Georgian. Old Man Steptoe took one look and commented “Yeah, George the Fifthian”.

I haven’t yet mentioned The Goon Show, because it just can’t be classified. At the time, Valerie was working for the BBC and we often went to see the recordings. Quite a lot of what went in to the final recording was ad-libbed, such as the scene in which Secombe calls out: “Watch out, he’s got a knife!”. In his Eccles character, Spike Milligan ad-libbed “He’s got a fork and a spoon, too. I think he’s come to dinner”. That also stayed in the final recording. Does anyone remember “What’s the time, Eccles?”

I wonder if anyone here remembers “The Starlings” the radio pilot for The Goon Show? The credits at the end were: “That was The Starlings, a sort of radio show, with Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine. Script by Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. The producer ... has fled the country.” It brought the BBC thousands of letters asking for more.


For me, such shows were always good, all the way through, way above Beyond the Fringe shows like Monty Python.

But pay no heed to me, I’m past my sell-by date. It would be a dull old world if we all liked the same things.

PeterW

[Randy]

Who did this really funny skit? It reminds me of Monty Python.

[Doug T.]

Peter,

While living in Germany, from 1974-93, just about the only English I got to hear was from the BFBS. I lived in the Ruhr area of North Rhein Westphalia.
I used to love the comedy shows that they broadcast, and looked forward to each and every one.
One of them that I vaguely remember was a sketch about the ways that different people sneeze. It was excellent
I really miss that type of humor here in the States.

Doug

[daveh]

Peter, I don't recall Dick Bentley being on any Hancock's Half Hour show. The Aussie who starred with Hancock was Bill Kerr - although,like Sid James, he was actually born in South Africa. There were other regulars such as Hattie Jaques, Kenneth Williams and Hugh Lloyd. All sorts of people cropped up throughout the run of Radio and TV Half Hours - for instance Patrick Cargill and June Whitfield in the Blood Donor.

My mention of the blood donor reminds me of Hancock's rendition of "coughs and sneezes spread diseases, trap the germs in your handkerchief" to the tune of the German National Anthem.

[PeterW]

Dave,

You're quite correct, it was Bill Kerr. Sorry!

PeterW

[photax]

I also like Monty Phyton, I watched all their movies and TV series ;D.
Has anyone seen the "Fawlty Towers"-series with John Cleese ? I killed myself laughing...

MIK

[daveh]

Peter, I did wonder if it (i.e. the possibility of a Dick Bentley appearance) was just one that got passed me. I will have listened to most of the Hancock 's Half Hours first time round (albeit I was quite young) - and then heard them again when repeated. Some episodes though have been lost, presumably for good. These include those in which Harry Secombe played the Hancock role: that was something I didn't know till I found it on Wiki en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancock%27s_Half_Hour. There is a Dad's Army book which lists all characters for every episode. I can't find any such tome for Hancock.

MIK, yes, Basil Fawlty was required viewing. They showed it in Spain too, but for this version Manuel was billed as being Italian (I think - certainly he lost the Barcelona origin). The actor who portrays Manuel, Andrew Sachs, is the Archetypal Englishman in may of his roles (and in real life). He was born Andreas Siegfried Sachs in Berlin.

Dave.