- Actors: John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Gillian Lind
- Directors: Ian Fordyce
- Writers: John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman
- Producers: David Frost, David Paradine
- Language English
- Classification: PG
- Studio: Sanctuary
- VHS Release Date: 30 Sep 2002
- Run Time: 68 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004CKK3
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 17,393 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
To sum it up, this film is just brilliantly funny! The first time I watched it I didn't really know what to expect, not really being a Monty Python fan. I immediately loved it! John Cleese shows himself to be completely devoted to the same purpose as me: being annoying! His wit had me in stitches and ripped the telephone service to pieces. The sketches aren't simply silly, like a lot of Monty Python, but are very clever and taken from real life. The Pepperpots remind me exactly of my grandmother and the bits about how annoying parents are completely true as well. This film may be old, but everything in it is still true today and still funny.
All in all, John Cleese and Monty Python pals Michael Palin and Graham Chapman have made a really clever and funny film which makes fun of society and provides some very helpful hints on how to be annoying.
35 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Chronologically, this 1968 show fits somewhere between 'Do Not Adjust Your Set' and 'Monty Python'. Although there are elements of wackiness, this is light-years away from the polished lunacy that was the first Python series. John Cleese is very irritating indeed -- no more so than when he introduces each sketch, reading from a tele-prompter in an echo chamber masquerading as a TV studio.
Half the Python team is here: Cleese, Chapman and Palin, plus Connie Booth pretending to have an English accent. The team clearly learnt by the mistakes they make here. I cannot recall Palin ever again browning up to play an Indian, for example. Every sketch here ends on a punch-line -- one of the rules the Python team was determined to abandon.
The other key player is Tim Brooke-Taylor who, it has to be said, plays a very fine old lady -- certainly up to the standard later set by Terry Jones. It has to be said that Graham Chapman also does not put a single foot wrong, but this film was made before the rest of the Pythons became aware of his drink problem.
There are a number of proto-Python sketches -- the 'Freedom of Speech' sketch, for example, is clearly a practice run for the 'Tell us about your latest film, Sir Edward' sketch in the first Python film. The 'First Letter of the Alphabet' sketch is an ancestor of the 'Spot the Brain Cell' sketch you can hear on 'Monty Python at Drury Lane'. Although most scenes were written by Cleese and Chapman, it's intriguing to see Marty Feldman's name appear on the credits.
But in the main, this is sub-Python humour -- an important historical document for Python completists in the same sense as those unobtainable items such as 'Do Not Adjust Your Set' on DVD, the Bert Fegg book and those three missing episodes of 'Ripping Yarns'. Coming to it new, I didn't find it as funny as many of the other reviewers here. Sorry.
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
This is an excellent sketch collection based around the theme of "how to irritate people". John Cleese presents it, and features in many of the sketches along with some of his Python friends. A lot of the humour is in the style of Python, though it is not a Python video. Most of the sketches are quite accessible and will be appreciated by most people, with less of the weird or less funny sketches that were found in "Flying Circus".
So, if you like John Cleese, you'll probably like this. A very enjoyable collection.
So, if you like John Cleese, you'll probably like this. A very enjoyable collection.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Beginning of Monty Python
Great little Sketches from parts of the MP Crew so if you like them... you will also like this DVD
Published 3 months ago by littlewanker
how true
This is so funny! Even the case and the menu are irritating! Buy it for yourself to get a few tips or for anyone who takes things too seriously- it will really get on their nerves.
Published 4 months ago by joybee
Good, but not python quality
This DVD is a 60 minute long John Cleese show, it features different methods of annoying people, some sketches are strong, they are very funny and make you laugh out loud, others... Read more
Published on 30 Aug 2007 by M. Peck
This thing has been ageing...
It's not bad but also not that funny, really. The humour has been fading in the last four decades (contrary to the Monty Python Series). I recommend it to Python-fans only.
Published on 7 Mar 2006 by eschbachfan
you have to buy this
I found this video in my cupboard at the age of 6 and barely gone a week without watching it since
(im 15 now). Read more
(im 15 now). Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2004 by helen
A documentry to shape a generation
Whether you are a fan the Python mob or not, this is a must see film for all teenagers. I was first introduced to this film at the tender age of sixteen, I had just turned twenty... Read more
Published on 22 Aug 2002
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