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At Last the 1948 Show" triggered a revolution that was destined to change the face of TV comedy forever. Bursting onto the nation's small screens in an explosion of unrelated and often surreal sketches, its main perpetrators were John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor, and what 'At Last the 1948 Show' began the inestimable Monty Python would one day finish in mind-blowing style....
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THIS DVD IS NEW & FACTORY SEALED - BECOMING VERY COLLECTABLE
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32 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Don't miss this timeless treat - half the Pythons, Marty Feldman, Tim Brooke Taylor, Jo Kendall, Barry Cryer (occasionally) and Bill Oddie (once)! You will learn that "The Four Yorkshiremen" did NOT originate with Monty Python (and Tim Brooke Taylor co-wrote the sketch) and that Mr Brooke Taylor has immense comic talents. His demonstration of the new dance craze "The Chartered Accountant" and his performance as the NHS automated hospital visitor (used for lonely patient Bill Oddie) will make you want to cheer! Cleese and Feldman are superb, of course, and the extras are interviews with Tim Brooke Taylor and Terry Jones. The latter was in "Do Not Adjust Your Set" (1967 - 1969), which was released as a companion set to this one - both interviews are in both sets.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
The Missing Link between The Frost Report and Monty Python - indeed, the show's famous Four Yorkshiremen sketch is often misattributed as a Python sketch - this compilation of surviving sketches from the 1967 series teaming Marty Feldman, Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and the lovely Aimi MacDonald (with bit parts by Eric Idle and a beardless Bill Oddie) veers from the inspired to the silly. Moving away from the satire of the Frost Report into more music hall sketch territory, parts of it can be heavy going. Much of the first episode might even be enough to put you off the rest, though it's worth persevering for the sketches that do work, such as the Chartered Accountant dance demonstration, the Let's Speak English show, Tim Brooke-Taylor guiding a party of Arabs through a live broadcast of a Forsyte Saga-like show while Feldman's randy sheik tries it on with the leading lady as John Cleese adlibs desperately, the belligerent Scottish and English ballet hooligans (a sketch foreshadowing a later episode of The Goodies), the game show where Cleese's fascist host Nosmo Claphanger makes no attempt to disguise his utter contempt for the contestants, and the empty-headed egotistism of Aimi MacDonald - sorry, the Lovely Aimi MacDonald's links.
Although only six of the original 13 episodes survive in variable quality, this two-disc set only includes five 24-minute compilation episodes re-edited for Swedish TV, and those are ordered rather haphazardly - the first episode actually includes part of the last episode while a follow-up gag to the Make Ami MacDonald a Very Rich Lady Appeal appears before the appeal is launched in the subsequent episode. The remainder of the misleading 157-minute running time is taken up with two interviews with the undervalued Tim Brooke-Taylor about the show and Terry Jones about Do Not Adjust Your Set carried over from the DVD of that show. And to add to the haphazard feel of the discs, despite being labelled as PAL, they actually seem to be NTSC DVDs...
However, avoid the double-bill double-sided DVD of this and the inferior children's show Do Not Adjust Your Set that's available - that only includes half of the episodes of each title on a double sided disc.
Although only six of the original 13 episodes survive in variable quality, this two-disc set only includes five 24-minute compilation episodes re-edited for Swedish TV, and those are ordered rather haphazardly - the first episode actually includes part of the last episode while a follow-up gag to the Make Ami MacDonald a Very Rich Lady Appeal appears before the appeal is launched in the subsequent episode. The remainder of the misleading 157-minute running time is taken up with two interviews with the undervalued Tim Brooke-Taylor about the show and Terry Jones about Do Not Adjust Your Set carried over from the DVD of that show. And to add to the haphazard feel of the discs, despite being labelled as PAL, they actually seem to be NTSC DVDs...
However, avoid the double-bill double-sided DVD of this and the inferior children's show Do Not Adjust Your Set that's available - that only includes half of the episodes of each title on a double sided disc.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Before there was "Monty Python's Flying Circus," there were two other series produced by the legendary comedians later known as Monty Python. One of those was the hilarious "At Last the 1948 Show" -- not quite as funny as the series that came after it, but definitely hilarious and full of weird Pythonian moments.
Each episode (and most skits) are introduced by "The Lovely Aimi MacDonald," a blonde airhead who basically does nothing but pose and self-promote (such as the Make the Lovely Aimi MacDonald a Rich Lady Fund, or Aimi MacDonald songs), and occasionally make out with sailors.
Then there are the hilarious skits: a man visits a shrink because he thinks he's a rabbit, karate-chopping docs, a severely underfunded secret agent who has to burn down the Kremlin, a man who claims to be an underpaid gorilla, snake devourings, a game show where the only answer is "pork," a robotic visitor at a hospital, an invasion of tourists on a soap opera set, and others.
You can definitely see seeds of Monty Python here -- the constant chartered accountant jokes, cross-dressing, surreal sketches, mockery of the BBC, and John Cleese going ballistic ("OF COURSE YOU'RE NOT A RABBIT!"). Well, we don't have Terry Gilliam's weird animation, but at least we have Marty Feldman in a frothy dress and blonde wig.
In fact, the skits themselves are often comedy that could have been lifted from the Flying Circus -- lots of weird scenarios (Feldman desperately trying to answer the question of "Is there free speech?", but not being able to get a word in) and equally weird dialogue ("Just you and me... and an Arab"), which usually ends up in some explosive or strange confrontation. It's not quite perfect, though -- the Aimi MacDonald stuff gets old quickly, and a few skits (like the Charted Accountant dance) fall flat.
John Cleese and Graham Chapman are, obviously, hilarious -- lots of kooky stuff, like Chapman as the pitiful vicar begging the congregation to sing anything. But Tim Brooke-Taylor is also funny, albeit in a more hammy way. And there's the buggy-eyed Feldman of "Young Frankenstein" fame, who fits in seamlessly (even if he is of a different nationality).
It should be noted that this show is rather old, and apparently wasn't stored very well. As a result, the black-and-white prints have gotten a bit fuzzy over time, and occasionally the picture jumps. This apparently wasn't really reparable, but eventually you stop noticing it so much.
"At Last the 1948 Show" is not quite as hilarious as its successor, but it is a funny, surreal little show that is definitely worth watching. At last! The 1948 Show!
Each episode (and most skits) are introduced by "The Lovely Aimi MacDonald," a blonde airhead who basically does nothing but pose and self-promote (such as the Make the Lovely Aimi MacDonald a Rich Lady Fund, or Aimi MacDonald songs), and occasionally make out with sailors.
Then there are the hilarious skits: a man visits a shrink because he thinks he's a rabbit, karate-chopping docs, a severely underfunded secret agent who has to burn down the Kremlin, a man who claims to be an underpaid gorilla, snake devourings, a game show where the only answer is "pork," a robotic visitor at a hospital, an invasion of tourists on a soap opera set, and others.
You can definitely see seeds of Monty Python here -- the constant chartered accountant jokes, cross-dressing, surreal sketches, mockery of the BBC, and John Cleese going ballistic ("OF COURSE YOU'RE NOT A RABBIT!"). Well, we don't have Terry Gilliam's weird animation, but at least we have Marty Feldman in a frothy dress and blonde wig.
In fact, the skits themselves are often comedy that could have been lifted from the Flying Circus -- lots of weird scenarios (Feldman desperately trying to answer the question of "Is there free speech?", but not being able to get a word in) and equally weird dialogue ("Just you and me... and an Arab"), which usually ends up in some explosive or strange confrontation. It's not quite perfect, though -- the Aimi MacDonald stuff gets old quickly, and a few skits (like the Charted Accountant dance) fall flat.
John Cleese and Graham Chapman are, obviously, hilarious -- lots of kooky stuff, like Chapman as the pitiful vicar begging the congregation to sing anything. But Tim Brooke-Taylor is also funny, albeit in a more hammy way. And there's the buggy-eyed Feldman of "Young Frankenstein" fame, who fits in seamlessly (even if he is of a different nationality).
It should be noted that this show is rather old, and apparently wasn't stored very well. As a result, the black-and-white prints have gotten a bit fuzzy over time, and occasionally the picture jumps. This apparently wasn't really reparable, but eventually you stop noticing it so much.
"At Last the 1948 Show" is not quite as hilarious as its successor, but it is a funny, surreal little show that is definitely worth watching. At last! The 1948 Show!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Essential for historians of Python
If you are a Python geek and have watched all the series and films, got all the books, have followed all the solo post-Python exploits and are still hungry for more, you should get... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Little Eddy
wacky comedy
At last the 1948 show is an earlier show from 1967 and starred Tim Brooke taylor, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Aimi MacDonald, Eric Idle, Marty Fieldman and Bill Oddie. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Ms. M. Potter
oh come on
Old, dated, self aware, pretentious, unfunny, black and white........er,er. This is just embarrasing crap. Infantile, Oxbridge old boys showing off. Read more
Published 23 months ago by 70s
pure nostalgia
This is a must buy for any fan of Python. It's remarkable how many Python sketches were tried out here first. Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2010 by John H
The First Flower of 'Monty Python' Begins to Bloom
When watching both 'At Last, The 1948 Show,' and 'Do Not Adjust Your Set,' you could tell that whilst Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin and Terry Jones were all great writers... Read more
Published on 29 July 2009 by James Uscroft
A fossil but fun
Very dated but with flashes of brilliance. The five recovered episodes on this DVD are sloppily edited, with the Make the Lovely Aimi MacDonald Fund being introduced after... Read more
Published on 20 Nov 2008 by John L. Arnold
'At Last the 1948 Show' - must-see for Oxbridge Mafia fans
Wow. Anarchy in the U.K. back when Johnny Rotten was still picking his nose. "At Last the 1948 Show" is absolute must-viewing for all Oxbridge Mafia fanatics. Read more
Published on 6 Jun 2007 by gary shooter
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