liveblogging tv
Watching Monty Python episode #32. recorded 01-21-72, aired 11-23-72.
"The War Against Pornography"
WWII film reel about old ladies rolling-pin threatening idle workers
to get the factories moving. But they're also censoring the arts.
And book burning. Ha ha, what a progression. Now censoring television.
Philosophy jokes, heh. "Where do they stand on young people?" God,
that's an easy one, but it brings a smile every time.
Wow, Terry Jones was naked at the organ bench mere feet from where
those explosive charges were going off. Brave little nudist he is.
Harley Street. Graham sketch coming up.
Gumby, yay.
The escalation of slapstick violence. Hee hee. And then John comes
in, looking identically stupid. Ha ha ha. They all have Hitler
moustaches, I didn't consciously recognize that ever before, for
some reason.
"My brain hurts" was the funniest concept ever to me when I was
around 15 years old. Ah, youth.
John always goes one repeat more than necessary if he thinks he
can make one of the others start corpsing.
I need to remember to watch Gilliam in this sketch. All six of them
are in this sketch, a rare treat, and all trying to out-stupid each
other. It's fantastic fun to watch.
I'm wondering how it would change how funny it is or how well it's
received if it came much later in an episode instead of being the
initial sketch after the credits. If there'd already been slapstick
before it, that might dilute the impact.
Just mentioned "the meaning of life" in a Gilliam animation.
I still don't know what art tools Gilliam used to make his original
drawings for the animations. He has that lovely round balloon shading
technique, but I have no idea how he achieved that, or invented that
technique. I'm really curious, and I've never seen any discussion of
it. Hmm.
Hey, see, yeah. Terry Jones just destroyed a television with a sledge
hammer. If I'd seen that before seeing Palin as Gumby destroy a desk
in an unintentional frenzy... wait, I'm missing the mollusk sketch.
Too bad they didn't do this sketch live at one of the Secret Policemen's
Balls. I bet Cleese could have juiced it up and really sold it to a
live crowd. That would have been fun. When he turns to impugning the
deviant sex lives of mollusks in increasingly hyperbolic repudiation.
"Have you got one? Let's kill it!" More violence. And they trod it
to death because they were turned on by how filthy it was.
The "no, don't touch the pacifier!" cartoon is awesome.
Another thing I've never figured out is how Gilliam got all his little
cutout pieces of paper to hold steady and stable while doing his
animation work. I made childhood animation experiments and it was
dreadfully hard, and I have to think that there were things I needed
to know but couldn't think of on my own, about doing that sort of
work.
Palin doing a solo newscaster monologue. This is usually Eric Idle's
territory, and in fact it sounds like Eric's writing. Maybe Michael
just asked if he could do it because he thought it would be fun.
Wait, here's Eric.
Eric revisiting his storybook reader sketch from the first season.
And then blending right back into documentary. This is a virtuoso
performance, managing the tone of narration and turning on a dime
and selling each of them and the transitions perfectly. Oh, and a
perfectly timed football header from Terry Jones. Someone with
good timing and aim tossed it to him. Gilliam? Why would I think
that? (Terry Gilliam's timing is one of his great gifts.)
Snrk. A classic satirical shot at politicians in general. As true
as it ever was.
Sir Jane Russell.
Hee hee, this is where John slowly turns into a pirate. Every time
it cuts away and back to him, he's got one leg, then a parrot on his
shoulder, then an eyepatch and a hat...
Cloudy and probably rainy day out on the hills there. Probably
miserably cold, too. The sun's disappearing now in this last master
shot of the end of the pirate bit, and they're starting to put more
lights on.
And now the awesome Royal Nay-Vee cartoon.
Ha ha, I can hear the rain falling even though I can't see it.
Except one look at the background and you can tell it's coming
down.
Cannibalism in the Royal Navy jokes again. There was that whole
lifeboat sketch about it.
I think they might have shot cut-ins to closer singles in this
Terry J - Graham part of the sketch, if the weather hadn't been
miserable and they quit after doing one take. That was probably
the last shot of the day and then they raced to pack up.
Oops, except they just did a cut-in in this later shoot outside
a flat, but it was badly shot and kind of distracted me when
they used it.
Oops again, they crossed the line on camera direction between
those two shots.
Cool that they could actually build that underwater set to make
the sketch work. Uh oh, sharks.
Hee hee, the piss off salute.
History lesson. Sounds like a Terry Jones sketch. Except it's
Eric and John.
Ha ha, and an absolutely rock solid deadpan sell from John, who
gets a laugh out of Eric's bizarre mime, which didn't generate
a real laugh on its own -- although it did create an unresolved
tension (musical analogy) that needed John's line, "But why
Dorset?" to release as a laugh. That's pretty sophisticated.
And then a totally random, "Shall we just stop this?" ending.
Sure, why not.
Well, that was fun. I was just doing this as a warm-up to see
how it would come out if I tried essentially live-blogging a
Monty Python's Flying Circus episode. There's a specific one
I wanted to write about, which I guess I'll go ahead and do.
"The War Against Pornography"
WWII film reel about old ladies rolling-pin threatening idle workers
to get the factories moving. But they're also censoring the arts.
And book burning. Ha ha, what a progression. Now censoring television.
Philosophy jokes, heh. "Where do they stand on young people?" God,
that's an easy one, but it brings a smile every time.
Wow, Terry Jones was naked at the organ bench mere feet from where
those explosive charges were going off. Brave little nudist he is.
Harley Street. Graham sketch coming up.
Gumby, yay.
The escalation of slapstick violence. Hee hee. And then John comes
in, looking identically stupid. Ha ha ha. They all have Hitler
moustaches, I didn't consciously recognize that ever before, for
some reason.
"My brain hurts" was the funniest concept ever to me when I was
around 15 years old. Ah, youth.
John always goes one repeat more than necessary if he thinks he
can make one of the others start corpsing.
I need to remember to watch Gilliam in this sketch. All six of them
are in this sketch, a rare treat, and all trying to out-stupid each
other. It's fantastic fun to watch.
I'm wondering how it would change how funny it is or how well it's
received if it came much later in an episode instead of being the
initial sketch after the credits. If there'd already been slapstick
before it, that might dilute the impact.
Just mentioned "the meaning of life" in a Gilliam animation.
I still don't know what art tools Gilliam used to make his original
drawings for the animations. He has that lovely round balloon shading
technique, but I have no idea how he achieved that, or invented that
technique. I'm really curious, and I've never seen any discussion of
it. Hmm.
Hey, see, yeah. Terry Jones just destroyed a television with a sledge
hammer. If I'd seen that before seeing Palin as Gumby destroy a desk
in an unintentional frenzy... wait, I'm missing the mollusk sketch.
Too bad they didn't do this sketch live at one of the Secret Policemen's
Balls. I bet Cleese could have juiced it up and really sold it to a
live crowd. That would have been fun. When he turns to impugning the
deviant sex lives of mollusks in increasingly hyperbolic repudiation.
"Have you got one? Let's kill it!" More violence. And they trod it
to death because they were turned on by how filthy it was.
The "no, don't touch the pacifier!" cartoon is awesome.
Another thing I've never figured out is how Gilliam got all his little
cutout pieces of paper to hold steady and stable while doing his
animation work. I made childhood animation experiments and it was
dreadfully hard, and I have to think that there were things I needed
to know but couldn't think of on my own, about doing that sort of
work.
Palin doing a solo newscaster monologue. This is usually Eric Idle's
territory, and in fact it sounds like Eric's writing. Maybe Michael
just asked if he could do it because he thought it would be fun.
Wait, here's Eric.
Eric revisiting his storybook reader sketch from the first season.
And then blending right back into documentary. This is a virtuoso
performance, managing the tone of narration and turning on a dime
and selling each of them and the transitions perfectly. Oh, and a
perfectly timed football header from Terry Jones. Someone with
good timing and aim tossed it to him. Gilliam? Why would I think
that? (Terry Gilliam's timing is one of his great gifts.)
Snrk. A classic satirical shot at politicians in general. As true
as it ever was.
Sir Jane Russell.
Hee hee, this is where John slowly turns into a pirate. Every time
it cuts away and back to him, he's got one leg, then a parrot on his
shoulder, then an eyepatch and a hat...
Cloudy and probably rainy day out on the hills there. Probably
miserably cold, too. The sun's disappearing now in this last master
shot of the end of the pirate bit, and they're starting to put more
lights on.
And now the awesome Royal Nay-Vee cartoon.
Ha ha, I can hear the rain falling even though I can't see it.
Except one look at the background and you can tell it's coming
down.
Cannibalism in the Royal Navy jokes again. There was that whole
lifeboat sketch about it.
I think they might have shot cut-ins to closer singles in this
Terry J - Graham part of the sketch, if the weather hadn't been
miserable and they quit after doing one take. That was probably
the last shot of the day and then they raced to pack up.
Oops, except they just did a cut-in in this later shoot outside
a flat, but it was badly shot and kind of distracted me when
they used it.
Oops again, they crossed the line on camera direction between
those two shots.
Cool that they could actually build that underwater set to make
the sketch work. Uh oh, sharks.
Hee hee, the piss off salute.
History lesson. Sounds like a Terry Jones sketch. Except it's
Eric and John.
Ha ha, and an absolutely rock solid deadpan sell from John, who
gets a laugh out of Eric's bizarre mime, which didn't generate
a real laugh on its own -- although it did create an unresolved
tension (musical analogy) that needed John's line, "But why
Dorset?" to release as a laugh. That's pretty sophisticated.
And then a totally random, "Shall we just stop this?" ending.
Sure, why not.
Well, that was fun. I was just doing this as a warm-up to see
how it would come out if I tried essentially live-blogging a
Monty Python's Flying Circus episode. There's a specific one
I wanted to write about, which I guess I'll go ahead and do.