Whither Canada?

I was introduced to the TV series of Monty Python back in the 1980's when they were showing repeats on BBC2 on Say nights. The only reason that I started watching them was because I was staying up to watch the season of horror films that followed, and at first I just didn't get it. But that soon changed and I became hooked. I recently bought many of the series on VHS and started from the beginning with episode 1 of series 1. The World's Funniest Joke, absolutely genius. And the evening Italian language class to a bunch of Italians, brilliant. Terry Gilliam and his crazy animation. This was a fantastic start and things were only to get better.

30 years before Little Britain, there was this sketch comedy called Monty Python's Flying Circus, from my home nation of the United Kingdom; though this show was made WAY before I was born (I was born in 1992), I watched the first episode quite recently just to see John Cleese's earlier work before the hilarious Fawlty Towers, and I saw a show that can be timelessly funny just like Fawlty Towers; this literally was the start of sketch comedy on television as well as the start of the Monty Python comedy group; as far as I know, the show always starts with a Python member running towards the camera through some sort of obstacle to say the title of the show, then this amazing circus theme music starts when the title sequence starts; unlike Little Britain, there are lots of different sketches that are only used once and never again; I'm amazed how this show hasn't aged at all, and that the comedy is top-notch silliness but stays original; I'm also amazed of the crude jokes they got away with on television at the time; the final sketch of this episode is the funniest, but the other sketches will make you laugh out loud as well

The first episode is not the best of Monty Python and frankly not a lot of it was hilarious. However it does indicate that we will get something completely different and it will all get very silly.

There is a pig motif in the episode as we have pompous arts shows that feature Picasso riding a bike while painting an abstract. An Italian for beginners lesson in a class full of Italians.

The standout was the world's funniest joke that won the war against the Germans.

Then there was Terry Gilliam's weird animation which I found a bit dull all those years ago but now comes across a lot better. Unfortunately one quip by John Cleese to Arthur 'Two Sheds' Jackson has not stood the test of time.

There was better sketches to come in future shows that would become Monty Python classics. It was all a bit bizarre and nothing to do with a circus.