The two best things about Python were that I got to see them before most of America did. KERA, a PBS station out of Dallas, picked them up when nobody else in America would. (You could look it up.) So by the time I got to London (for like 48 hours or less) in my 21st year, I was already a Python expert.I'm watching a PBS special on the Pythons. (Hi, @JimmyTingle!) And I realize that one of the marks of their genius was to deliver completely British humor and make Americans laugh anyway. They ruined every BBC news reader for me forever. And Reginald Maudling a legit punchline.
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) June 6, 2021
And found out there all the letters they read on the show were not purely an invention of Python, but rather a parody of a very BBC practice.
The other best thing was that a girl I made friends with on the European tour that wound up in London was of a family very prominent in town, and very "respectable" in my girlfriend's (now wife) church. When we got back to the States she watched an episode first chance she got, and it happened to be the "Lifeboat sketch." So just as her father walked into the room (as she told me later), the line is "How long is it?" to which the logical answer was "That's a very personal question, sir!"
Far superior to George Carlin's words you couldn't say on TeeVee, which frankly hasn't aged nearly as well.
I've loved British humor ever since.
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