Today in Python

On November 13, the ArtsBeat blog on the New York Times posted this piece about how the dead parrot skit actually has its origins (whether the Pythons intended it or not) in a Greek book of jokes from the 4th century A.D. Titled "Philogelos," which you root-word fiends know means "lover of laughter," the book contains "age-old jokes about drunks, gluttons, halitosis, and misogyny." "Philogelos" has recently been translated into English, and in a neat twist on collaborative media, the translator (William Berg) and a British comic (Jim Bowen) have published an online multimedia book, which you can find here. The piece of interest for us in Python context, though, is the joke in which a man attempts to return a dead slave to the man who sold it to him. Definitely crueler, I think, but then that's ancient Greece, right?

Keeping in mind that there really is no new way to be funny, let's consider an article published yesterday in the New York Times, with the first line, "Is there life left in the dead parrot sketch?" Eric Idle has been the banner-carrier for the troupe since 1983, when "The Meaning of Life" was released. He's released books, DVDs, even a Broadway show (starring Clay Aiken and closing January 18th in NY! See it now! Or don't, it really wasn't that great...just go watch "Holy Grail" again). Now, Idle's assuring us that Monty Python can still be an active generator of content and discussion, even if Graham Chapman died in the eighties, and Michael Palin is off getting enough foreign policy experience to share with another Palin who might need it one day, and John Cleese is working on a stage musical adaptation of "A Fish Called Wanda," and Terry Gilliam is struggling to finish "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" without Heath Ledger, and Terry Jones is...god, what is Terry Jones doing? Well, Wikipedia says he's been directing plays in Portugal. Good for him.

Idle has launched a Web site, pythonline.com, that features Python YouTube videos, discussions, and other internetty things. It has been in beta-testing since the spring and officially goes live at the end of the month. I've perused it, and I think I agree with Robert J. Thompson, the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse (and, evidently, a "huge Python fan" in high school): "When you can get a Monty Python screensaver, it ceases to be what Monty Python was." Python humor is all about them specifically NOT ingratiating themselves with the public--they were trying to be funny for each other and working their absurd Oxford/Cambridge comedy roots (which, yes, do exist; Cambridge Footlights Players alumni also include Douglas Adams, Sasha Baron Cohen, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson...the list goes on). 

I disliked "Spamalot" for the same reason--it might make me a snob, but I want my comedy to challenge or surprise, rather than pander to the lowest common punchline. I want my strange Terry Gilliam illustrations to make NO SENSE and yet still form a cohesive narrative, not be icons that say "CLICK HERE TO GET A LIFE." And I want my Eric Idle to be not a web mogul but someone who dresses like this to meet the Prince:

That's more like it.