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The Simpsons was never a brilliant show. It was good, and you can still watch old Simpsons and enjoy it, but it was never mindboggling genius. Ditto Monty Pyth

The Simpsons was never a brilliant show. It was good, and you can still watch old Simpsons and enjoy it, but it was never mindboggling genius. Ditto Monty Python. For all the clever ideas, the execution often left something to be desired. Once you know the skits, you start to realize how poorly many of them are done. Monty Python has some exceptions, however: the Life of Brian has some excellent moments, and post-Python many of the team members did some great stuff. In a way we can relate that to startups and design. If you have a brilliant new idea, then you're a gem up to the moment that somebody else does your idea better or goes further with it. If you take an old idea but polish it till it shines, you don't have the same novelty but you've got something that will last for a long time. I can't think of much TV to compare to, however, because most television is so incredibly poor. Arrested Development, perhaps? I can see that one withstanding the test of time.

gruseom 17y ago
Monty Python were certainly uneven, but if there's ever been any sketch comedy that can touch them at their best, I'd love to see it. I disagree with the premise of the article too. Great comedy is timeless. The stuff that wears off is the stuff that didn't go very deep to begin with.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  Monty Python's the best sketch comedy I've ever seen, don't get me wrong. I have the complete set, and it's the standard by which I judge all other sketch comedy. At the same time, as you said, they were very unpolished. Sometimes they'd ruin good jokes with bad acting. When everything aligned, as it did in, say, the courtroom scene, or the parrot sketch, they were stunning. The Simpsons very occasionally had moments like that, but returning to their earlier work I found that they too rarely were full-blown terrific. They faded with time not because good things fade, but because they weren't as good as we thought when we were younger and less experienced in comedy. Meanwhile, Shakespeare's comedies are still hilarious, and they've lasted for centuries.
chops 17y ago
I will have to disagree. While I'm not a huge fan of The Simpsons, I can recognize that the comedic landscape is forever changed as a result of The Simpsons and Monty Python. In dismissing those that implemented the idea first, you're minimizing the genius involved. Things like humor just become dated, that doesn't mean that it isn't genius for its time. It just becomes so integrated into society that we become immune to it. It'd be like suggesting Newton wasn't a genius because a 12-year-old can understand Newtonian mechanics. There are those gems that survive the test of time and remain funny (for me: "Who's on First", "Caddyshack", "Office Space", "Dumb and Dumber"), but that doesn't minimize the landscape altering humor of such stuff as Austin Powers, South Park, Napoleon Dynamite, even if you're sick of hearing "Yeah Baby, Yeah!" And yes, Arrested Development is bloody amazing.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  But that's exactly what I said. The Simpsons implemented an idea, then, as other people implemented as well, their original triumph became dated. That doesn't always happen, because if the end result is really labored away on, then it lasts the test of time, at least to some degree. South Park is actually a good example, where even as it's no longer the most offensive thing out there, you can still get a big kick out of Season 3 because they were putting in some genuinely brilliant jokes.
  - chops 17y ago
    Meta-comment: I think people are being excessively harsh in downvoting you. Your comments are contributing to the topic at hand. People shouldn't be downvoting you simply for disagreeing. Back on Topic: But as you said, I don't think we disagree all that much, though I do feel that brilliance or genius can be attributed to something that is extremely funny at first, but may diminish in strength over time. Indeed, I have a feeling that perhaps the funniest stuff (laughing out loud and peeing your pants funny) is the stuff that eventually gets old, because it becomes overused.
yason 17y ago
I don't think how poorly a skit is done affects its quality. Most of original comedy comes from the cheap early times when the team was on a low budget and nobody but them really believed in the show. Fame probably has a negative effect since once you got something you start worrying about losing it and then you're likely to stop being original.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  You just babbled a lot. I don't think how poorly a skit is done affects its quality. There's a difference between idea and execution. You can have a good idea and pull it off shittily, or you can take a bad idea and make it work brilliantly. Most of original comedy comes from the cheap early times when the team was on a low budget and nobody but them really believed in the show. Fame probably has a negative effect since once you got something you start worrying about losing it and then you're likely to stop being original. Do your research a bit more. This is not at all a common trend. Comedians are like normal people: Most of them don't feel the need to innovate at all. But the ones that do tend to be unaffected by fame insofar as it affects their comedy. George Carlin, Ricky Gervais. Gervais especially, as he possibly outdid his original work in response to becoming famous.

gruseom 17y ago

Monty Python were certainly uneven, but if there's ever been any sketch comedy that can touch them at their best, I'd love to see it. I disagree with the premise of the article too. Great comedy is timeless. The stuff that wears off is the stuff that didn't go very deep to begin with.

zimbabwe 17y ago
Monty Python's the best sketch comedy I've ever seen, don't get me wrong. I have the complete set, and it's the standard by which I judge all other sketch comedy. At the same time, as you said, they were very unpolished. Sometimes they'd ruin good jokes with bad acting. When everything aligned, as it did in, say, the courtroom scene, or the parrot sketch, they were stunning. The Simpsons very occasionally had moments like that, but returning to their earlier work I found that they too rarely were full-blown terrific. They faded with time not because good things fade, but because they weren't as good as we thought when we were younger and less experienced in comedy. Meanwhile, Shakespeare's comedies are still hilarious, and they've lasted for centuries.

chops 17y ago

I will have to disagree. While I'm not a huge fan of The Simpsons, I can recognize that the comedic landscape is forever changed as a result of The Simpsons and Monty Python. In dismissing those that implemented the idea first, you're minimizing the genius involved. Things like humor just become dated, that doesn't mean that it isn't genius for its time. It just becomes so integrated into society that we become immune to it. It'd be like suggesting Newton wasn't a genius because a 12-year-old can understand Newtonian mechanics. There are those gems that survive the test of time and remain funny (for me: "Who's on First", "Caddyshack", "Office Space", "Dumb and Dumber"), but that doesn't minimize the landscape altering humor of such stuff as Austin Powers, South Park, Napoleon Dynamite, even if you're sick of hearing "Yeah Baby, Yeah!" And yes, Arrested Development is bloody amazing.

zimbabwe 17y ago
But that's exactly what I said. The Simpsons implemented an idea, then, as other people implemented as well, their original triumph became dated. That doesn't always happen, because if the end result is really labored away on, then it lasts the test of time, at least to some degree. South Park is actually a good example, where even as it's no longer the most offensive thing out there, you can still get a big kick out of Season 3 because they were putting in some genuinely brilliant jokes.
- chops 17y ago
  Meta-comment: I think people are being excessively harsh in downvoting you. Your comments are contributing to the topic at hand. People shouldn't be downvoting you simply for disagreeing. Back on Topic: But as you said, I don't think we disagree all that much, though I do feel that brilliance or genius can be attributed to something that is extremely funny at first, but may diminish in strength over time. Indeed, I have a feeling that perhaps the funniest stuff (laughing out loud and peeing your pants funny) is the stuff that eventually gets old, because it becomes overused.

yason 17y ago

I don't think how poorly a skit is done affects its quality. Most of original comedy comes from the cheap early times when the team was on a low budget and nobody but them really believed in the show. Fame probably has a negative effect since once you got something you start worrying about losing it and then you're likely to stop being original.

zimbabwe 17y ago
You just babbled a lot. I don't think how poorly a skit is done affects its quality. There's a difference between idea and execution. You can have a good idea and pull it off shittily, or you can take a bad idea and make it work brilliantly. Most of original comedy comes from the cheap early times when the team was on a low budget and nobody but them really believed in the show. Fame probably has a negative effect since once you got something you start worrying about losing it and then you're likely to stop being original. Do your research a bit more. This is not at all a common trend. Comedians are like normal people: Most of them don't feel the need to innovate at all. But the ones that do tend to be unaffected by fame insofar as it affects their comedy. George Carlin, Ricky Gervais. Gervais especially, as he possibly outdid his original work in response to becoming famous.