I remember finding Monty Python *very* funny as a kid and young teen watching re-runs. And I shared that enjoyment with my dad who'd watched it first time round of course.
Then in mid-late teens, watching the films with my friends and we'd all enjoy them and say the lines and all that.
They were obviously good. And hugely influential. It says a lot that their comedy remained *actually funny* for a second generation, I don't think that happens often. I remember my dad telling me how funny Morcombe and Wise were (more the former of course) and we'd sit and watch it and I'd be like *is it though?*.
By uni my tastes had moved on. But there'd be a few kids who'd still repeat the lines and I found that very embarassing. There's a particular kind of hatred I have for things which aren't *bad* but do not deserve their acclaim. I don't think it's a healthy thing but it's there. It's snobbery really.
More recently I started to realise that, as you say, they were just a bunch of upper-middle class oxbridge students and, while their stuff was *formally* very 'subversive' it was otherwise quite conservative and even reactionary. No surprise that Cleeves has gone on to become one of these bitter old reactionary twitter misers.
Then I started to notice just how many popular TV comedians have that smug, comfortable, oxbridge things going on. Which doesn't make them *not funny*, of course, but does limit what they're likely to say and what kind of things are likely to be the butt of their humour. It's all very safe.
A couple of weeks ago, Youtube wanted me to watch some Monty Python clip. And I'd not seen anything by them for *years* so I was like yeah, fine, let's have a look, see if I still hate it. It was set in a northern 'working class' household but there was some kinda role-reversal where the mum and dad were actors and their effete son wanted to run away to London to become a miner. And that's a funny idea, and the presentation was funny. But there was this kinda smug, condescending, BBC attitude to the north and the working class that's still very much present and increasingly rubs me up the wrong way.
I don't really have a point with this I realise.
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