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The BBC hasn’t shown Fist of Fun or TMWRNJ for two decades because it’s too funny. Even at the time the BBC kept moving it around in the schedules and not promoting it because it was too funny and was showing the other programmes up.
A little sad to see John Cleese moaning about Monty Python non-repeats though - especially as everything Python did is readily available on DVD and Netflix. Much of it is still genius (we watched the films again recently and Holy Grail and Brian are still right up there). I’ve had a go at watching the TV series, but am finding that harder work, though the great bits are still great and the less great bits are usually trying to do something interesting.
Although some comedy does still work decades on (sometimes centuries on -though Henry Fielding and maybe Ben Jonson are about my limit), it is not really meant to. Tastes, references and morality change so much. To be fair even popular stuff from a decade ago can look wildly out of kilter now. I watched a bit of Coupling today and there’s an episode where one of the characters has filmed every sexual encounter he’s had in his bedroom and has kept all the tapes. It’s certainly suggested that he did this surreptitiously. But no one, not even one of the women caught on tape chastise him for this and at least one of the others is not only not appalled when she finds out, but wants to be part of the collection. It’s comedy, right. But I don’t think that would fly now.
And there’s stuff in my own work too, probably more in my stand up than in the TV programmes, that you’d be taking a chance to do nowadays. We’re seeing from people picking up on comedians’ tweets from 2007 or whatever, that there was a lot of experimentation with offence and irony. That stuff still goes on, but many of the people who were doing it ten years ago are now catching it in the face because they are working for Disney or whatever. My God, if I ever get a job at Disney then I won’t have it for long. My only hope is that I’ve said so much bad stuff, it’s actually quite hard to find in the mountain of output. This is unlikely to be a problem however
Tastes change. Comedy reflects society, even though it can sometimes change it too. We get older and find different things funny.
Monty Python are my absolute heroes and certainly played a huge influence in my life and career choices, as well as my own work. The teenage me would find it unbelievable that I had access to every single episode of their TV series and had not watched it immediately (I’ve actually had it all on DVD for a few years now, but never taken off the cellophane). My God I wish they’d repeated Python a lot more in the 70s and 80s so I might actually have got to see it then. But there’s no need for the BBC to repeat it now. It’s there. For those who want it.
Dad’s Army is fifty years old, only slightly older than Monty Python and probably holds up better. Maybe weirdly, historical setting helps prevent comedy dating. Is that why Brian and the Holy Grail fare better than the original series? Not sure about that, but maybe the thing that dates comedy the most is contemporary reference, which as noted recently is the stuff that now really jars in Red Dwarf (which I have to say goes on a bit of a rollercoaster ride after series 6).
Look at me, not working, but analysing comedy. I can take a holiday, but can never escape from myself.
