Monty Python:

I watched Monty Python's Live from the Hollywood Bowl today, rather than going to the class I'm TAing for. Definitely a good use of time. This is really a great comedy special, and it marks the first time I heard "fuck" on TV, oddly enough on PBS.

I loves me some John Cleese and all that, but really none of any of the Pythons later work has compared with the stuff they did in the group. Watching them play off of each other is amazing. The Last Supper skit between Eric Idle and John Cleese has to be one of the funiest things ever. "I want a Last Supper with twelve disciples and one Christ." "ONE?!?!?" "Yes, one. Now tell me what in God's name possessed you to paint this with three Christs in it." "It works, mate." It just wouldn't have been that funny without both of them and the way they react to each other. Eric Idle manages to put just the right amount of indignation tinged with surprise with his "ONE?!?!?"

I like to imagine how they came up with their ideas, too. I think of them sitting around a table saying, "Hey, we have a skit about a woodcutter." "Man, those lumberjacks are really manly." "Yeah, except for the ones that wear women's clothing." "Oh I think I met one in a bar in Alberta once." and so on until a song is born.

It's sort of the way Susan and I work. "What's so bad about unleashing the generics?" "Oh, you know for some things generics are bad." "Like birth control pills." "Yeah. It increases your boobs." "Where would the extras go? Like on the sides or the back or what?" until we start wondering whether a conical hat on your head would be a sure sign that there's a boob there.