Well you are entitled to your opinion, however ,every one I spoke to [old and young] laughed at the suggestion the Goodies were better than Python! As one guy pointed out the Goodies were a product created to replace TV Python when they went over to movies. It was a pale follow on.
Sorry, you're wrong on the second point. I don't even need to look at wiki to tell me that The Goodies first went to air around 1970/72. That's several years before Python stopped doing their TV show (though about the same time they released And Now for Something Completely Different, a movie which was nothing but a repackaging of their existing material).
Okay, the Goodies were not adult-oriented. In fact, Cleese did a cameo on their programme in which his character derides them for being a "kids show!"
(Anyway, why do I get the feeling you were asking for opinions from among Python fanboys? I'm sure Goodies fanboys would agree with what I wrote previously--though I've revised my opinion. Now I would just argue that The Goodies was more much enjoyable than Flying Circus was for people of around my generation in this country.)
esl said:No one ever had the creativity and shock value of Cleese and Chapman.
Mate, are you a lock-in with no access to media except Python DVDs? Seriously.
esl said:They had the right message at the right place and the right time...kind of like the Beatles in Music. Borrowing/sealing ideas in the arts is the norm and nothing wrong with that. No one ownes any ideas. Its all in the delivery and in that regard Python has no equal.
I will retract what I said about Flying Circus being terribly unfunny. That was unfair. But that television show doesn't stack-up well against the Python movies, or Fawlty Towers, or Ripping Yarns. It's an okay show for its era, not the be all and end all of television comedy history.
I've seen most episodes of the first two series (seasons for Americans), and several of the bits are very good--'Doug and Dinsdale', 'No one ever expects the Spainsh Inquistion', f'rinstance.
But the fact is, like many people in this country, I saw Flying Circus on VCR and cable as a teenager, while I'd already grownup on Goodies repeats on Channel 2 (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation).
esl said:I would even say that Python was better than the "Goon show", but that is almost sacrilge to think that way. "Yiiieeeks Neady, have a noodle" Peter Sellers was one of the most creative comedians of his time and Spike was just too wacked out at times , but fit very , very well with Sellers.
Even to this day I can watch Python skits on TV and roar with laughter. Only Black Adder and Red Dwarf can do the same for me, but all roads lead to Python in the real comedy world.
This deserves a non-chat thread of its own.
I've thought about this, and I think I'm right that the inflated reputation of Monty Python is something that needs addressing (if only to salvage the genuinely worthy bits of Python from being suffocated by anoraks).