[Andy McDandy]

I follow a blog called Frantic Planet, which specialises in reviewing light entertainment TV from the 70s through to the 90s. Its conclusion is that it was overwhelmingly crap.

Davro gets a lot of deserved stick - he was basically a cut price and sharp corners filed off Freddie Starr, with the same limited repertoire of impressions - John Cleese jumping up and barking "Right! Right!" while doing a silly walk, Prince Charles going "Eeeurgh, my wife and I...", Bellamy, Frank Spencer and so on. I seem to remember him from something dressed up as a Sergeant Pepper-era Ringo reading Thomas the Tank Engine stories stuffed with bumsex innuendo. The good old days, folks.

[MisterMuncher]

Shit, even some of the "great" stuff isn't all that good. There's an uncomfortably large amount of Python, Goodies etc in the original series that just absolutely does not land at all. It just gets glossed over by the memory.

It's also never really was as popular as people like to make out. Give it a few years and they were all into it at the time, of course. Like how everyone around my age claims to have bought Nevermind the day it came out yet Bryan Adams somehow managed to top the chat that week...

[Andy McDandy]

I laughed a few years ago when I saw Amanda Platell describing Python as "good clean fun". She'd clearly never seen much more than the core of what people remember:

Silly Walks, Lumberjacks, Hell's Grannies, Bicycle Repair Man, Parrot, Cheese Shop, Upper-Class Twit contest, Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Nudge Nudge, Argument Clinic, Lion Tamer, Every Sperm is Sacred, Galaxy Song, Mr Creosote (and yes, the last 3 are from Meaning of Life, but that's all they'll remember).

[MisterMuncher]

It's all a mass of contradictions because the reality that society has altered is too nuanced for fucking idiots.

You can't say anything these days, but also it's all filthy language that's very offensive. You couldn't show that today, and you'd never get away with that modern shite back when we had *standards*.

You can have fun with it, though. Particularly with telly, where the quality gap is absolutely cavernous. It's useful that most of the nostalgia warriors have never seen (and are proud of their enforced ignorance) the new stuff.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Remember the Monty Python Cannibalism sketch?

[Andy McDandy]

My dad once said of Mary Whitehouse that while she would loudly object to the likes of Dennis Potter or Bouquet of Barbed Wire, she was either silent on, or supportive of, things like Benny Hill, and the glut of 70s British sex coms (which went beyond Hill-esque sauciness and into quite blatant porn, often with a dollop of racism). He always maintained that what she was really afraid of was thinking.

[Bones McCoy]

I laughed a few years ago when I saw Amanda Platell describing Python as "good clean fun". She'd clearly never seen much more than the core of what people remember:

Silly Walks, Lumberjacks, Hell's Grannies, Bicycle Repair Man, Parrot, Cheese Shop, Upper-Class Twit contest, Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Nudge Nudge, Argument Clinic, Lion Tamer, Every Sperm is Sacred, Galaxy Song, Mr Creosote (and yes, the last 3 are from Meaning of Life, but that's all they'll remember).

Platell was the "Bruce" left in charge of the sheep dip.

[Crabcakes]

Pretty sure the Pythons themselves have said that 70% of their stuff was complete crap (and also that it bewildered them that US audiences seemed oblivious to what was bona fide genius and what was cobblers they threw together to fill an episode). And I suspect much of the generous reappraisal is down to Life of Brian and Holy Grail being stuck in people’s minds.

But I think it tends to be the case that for certain publications and commentators it’s not what’s in the thing that matters so much as when the thing came out. If they can yank on the nostalgia strings and make an ageing readership feel like it was all better in their day, it doesn’t matter whether at the time the show they’re now lauding was being held up as a destructive, malignant influence on youth/society/common decency (delete as applicable). And in some cases, if those commentators have been around long enough they’ll be directly contradicting their younger selves.

Personally, I can’t wait for the day when Brass Eye is held up as ‘a bit of harmless fun you couldn’t do these days’ by people who would have been screaming for it to be taken off the air had they been born slightly earlier.

[Youngian]

I follow a blog called Frantic Planet, which specialises in reviewing light entertainment TV from the 70s through to the 90s. Its conclusion is that it was overwhelmingly crap.

Davro gets a lot of deserved stick - he was basically a cut price and sharp corners filed off Freddie Starr, with the same limited repertoire of impressions - John Cleese jumping up and barking "Right! Right!" while doing a silly walk, Prince Charles going "Eeeurgh, my wife and I...", Bellamy, Frank Spencer and so on. I seem to remember him from something dressed up as a Sergeant Pepper-era Ringo reading Thomas the Tank Engine stories stuffed with bumsex innuendo. The good old days, folks.

Remember Davro spoofing the Phantom of the Opera video and of course the phantom appears in a beret. And you wonder why Michael Crawford emigrated.

[davidjay]

Old comedy, especially the 'golden age of sitcoms' seventies stuff, is like school summer holidays. You remember the days when the sun shone and you were out playing until it got dark. You don't remember it pissing down all day and having to watch Bottle Boys.

[Bones McCoy]

Old comedy, especially the 'golden age of sitcoms' seventies stuff, is like school summer holidays. You remember the days when the sun shone and you were out playing until it got dark. You don't remember it pissing down all day and having to watch Bottle Boys.

Or:

If It ain't half hot mum was so brilliant, describe a couple of episodes.

[mattomac]

A perfect example is parodies

I’ve watched a few episodes of “Are you being served” and though Mrs Solocumbes pussy gets a mention it’s not every second line.

Anyhow in the mid 90s shooting stars would parody this stuff for about a minute and effectively that’s what their parody was an obsession with the Pussy line and Inman being fruity.

Anyhow this is where the nostalgic element kicks in, guess what the reimagined “Are you being Served” was more like when the BBC did their comedy tribute a few years back, yes it was a copy of the parody not the actual series.

[Abernathy]

Satire from the estimable James Cook on Facebook :

What the remoaners in the left wing British press and on the BBCommunists won't tell you is that tomatoes were always a zionist plot genetically modified by George Soros and Bill Gates to implant 5G chips to bring on The Great Reset that would activate during the Plandemic so that they can make us all live in 15 minute cities while drinking children's blood and imprisoning WHITE people for wanting sovereignty and the democratic result of an referendum from 7 years ago that we must respect otherwise a bunch of racist pensioners in shit towns will throw a fucking tantrum.

[Bones McCoy]

Satire from the estimable James Cook on Facebook :

What the remoaners in the left wing British press and on the BBCommunists won't tell you is that tomatoes were always a zionist plot genetically modified by George Soros and Bill Gates to implant 5G chips to bring on The Great Reset that would activate during the Plandemic so that they can make us all live in 15 minute cities while drinking children's blood and imprisoning WHITE people for wanting sovereignty and the democratic result of an referendum from 7 years ago that we must respect otherwise a bunch of racist pensioners in shit towns will throw a fucking tantrum.

Great, through for authenticity: MORE CAPITALISATION, and close with "Fact!!"

[Youngian]

Frightening how quickly the angry hive mind gathers pace, this 15 minute cities stuff is the barmiest back of a fag nonsense yet. And the fruitcake anger is passionate and genuine. Analyse these people as long as you like but the conclusion will be the same, thick as pigshit.

[davidjay]

Old comedy, especially the 'golden age of sitcoms' seventies stuff, is like school summer holidays. You remember the days when the sun shone and you were out playing until it got dark. You don't remember it pissing down all day and having to watch Bottle Boys.

Or:

If It ain't half hot mum was so brilliant, describe a couple of episodes.

Rising Damp is a prime example of this. It's widely regarded as the best ITV sitcom (tallest dwarf territory, admittedly) yet last year I bought a copy of the scripts. Not only were they incredibly racist, but I couldn't recall a single episode.

[Abernathy]

Rising Damp is a prime example of this. It's widely regarded as the best ITV sitcom (tallest dwarf territory, admittedly) yet last year I bought a copy of the scripts. Not only were they incredibly racist, but I couldn't recall a single episode.

There was a bit of racist stuff in Rising Damp, all exclusively emanating from Rigsby's questionable attitudes to his black student tenant Phillip, but, as with Alf Garnett, I think the idea was to laugh AT Rigsby's idiocy, not laugh along with him. I do recall one episode where Alan and Phillip tricked Rigsby into believing that an old African tribal custom of Phillip's ancestors was that a smouldering piece of wood was a highly effective aphrodisiac that drove women mad, leading Rigsby to make an arse of himself by setting light to an old chair leg and attempting (unsuccessfully) to seduce Miss Jones with it.

[Youngian]

The original stage play and movie revealed that Phillip was from Croydon, had never been to Africa and just made it up to take the mickey out of Rigsby. Knowing that makes the relationship even funnier.

[Bones McCoy]

Frightening how quickly the angry hive mind gathers pace, this 15 minute cities stuff is the barmiest back of a fag nonsense yet. And the fruitcake anger is passionate and genuine. Analyse these people as long as you like but the conclusion will be the same, thick as pigshit.

Yeah, how dare they organise things like shops and bus stops within walking distance of my house.

The 15 minute city rage is one of those alt-Right talking points that really doesn't transition across the Atlantic.

Over in the land of the free they have this thing called Zoning that guarantees miles and miles of identikit Villa, lawn and fence suburban sprawl without a shop, cafe or public transport service in sight.
Many of them like it like that, resisting even installation of sidewalks - presumably the wrong types might stroll through the neighbourhood.

Like the prison system, Zoning never really moved on from Jim Crow, or kept up with Civil Rights.
Hence a country filled with white neighbourhoods with white churches and black neighbourhoods with black churches.

Useful key words, if you want to know more are: Single family zoning, land use, redlining.


Zoning isn't exclusive to the USA, forms of it appear worldwide.
But like much of American civil life, it carries the ugly scars of their particular institution.

[davidjay]

We airbnb'd in Nashville a few years ago. I thought being a few miles from downtown would give us somewhere a bit different for when we didn't want a trek into the busy areas - a few local bars, restaurants, shops, that sort of thing. Within walking distance was a (very) dive bar, a rundown shop where the only food on sale was crisps and a burger shack. That was it. Every other building within a mile was housing.