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by JadeNB 427 days ago
> Is there anything even remotely comparable in quality to Monty Python right now?

I suspect that, like most things that we now recognise as classics, much of Monty Python wasn't recognized at the time as a classic. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python_and_the_Holy_Grai... suggests that, while reception was generally positive, there wasn't the sense we'd now expect of a great treasure having just been unearthed.

All of which is to say that, whatever is comparable right now, we probably think of it as so-so, and will have to await retrospective critical appreciation to find out what we should have been treasuring.

1 comments

>much of Monty Python wasn't recognized at the time as a classic

Monty Python was a huge success in its day - which is why it spawed multiple seasons, movies, comedy albums, books, and of course multiple careers (for all involved, even the mere non-speaking ...cartoonist), and even live shows. And that's just in the 70s and early 80s.

>For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python_and_the_Holy_Grai... suggests that, while reception was generally positive, there wasn't the sense we'd now expect of a great treasure having just been unearthed.

Its funs where younger demographics. Mainstream reviewers of the time were notoriously out of touch. Hardly anybody more square than Ebert (at least he did gave it 3/4).