Monty Python Comic
 

This comic well captures my feelings for rampant Monty Python quoters.

http://spamusement.com/index.php/comics/view/323

I'm actually not all that fond of random quotation of anything. I prefer it when people say things funny things of their own devising.

I can't argue with that, even though (shame face) I used to be one.

I saw Life of Brian....loved it.

Saw Quest for the Holy Grail...hated it. Why?

I knew all the damn lines to Holy Grail before I saw the movie. It pissed me off.

Surely you can draw better than that, Alex.
:D

I find that *really* funny in light of your avatar:


:D

:rolleyes:

There's a difference between walking around spouting quotes (as mocked in Alex's cartoon) and using a funny avatar. I was referring to people who answer every question I ask with a quote from the Simpsons, which I've encountered way too much (despite my love for the Simpsons.) Pbllllllt.

But I'm not smart enough to think of anything on my own.

Thanks for bringing up the Simpsons ... which, for random and oft-annoying quotability, is the new Python.

In fact, it's probably been about 20 years since more than 5 people were constantly quoting Python, so ... um, Alex, I think it's time to let that one go.

Still, you gotta admit that was pretty funny ;)

As for the cartoon, what's the joke? All I can think is, you can erase the words and replace them with whatever else you're sick of and have them beat the crap out of whichever geek you want.

I'd make fun of people who quote things, but then I remembered that we're Disney geeks (and I got here by way of Star Wars geekery - wanna hear my Jabba impersonation?). Sure, there are extreme cases, but for the most part this is a matter of being able to keep your quotes group-related. Keep your quotes within your respective geek societies and no one complains.

Maybe it is the crowd one hangs with. Either I never hear Simpson's quotes or am too ignorant to recognize them. I hear (and make) Python references an a fairly regular basis (relatively speaking).

I don't dislike The Simpson's (I used to watch them almost religiously when I was in college many moons ago), but for whatever reason have not watched in recent years. I actually admire the wit, satire and longevity of the show! But yet, I do not watch

I do 'Simpsons' quotes all the time.
:D

Simpsons quoting applies as well. And I know plenty of people who still quote Monty Python at every conceivable opportunity.

I don't really consider Monty Python worse than any of the other examples of this and find it equally annoying when someone is a random movie quote generator or everything has a corrolary in Star Trek.

Of course there are circles where this more appropriate. If you're hanging out with a bunch of Monty Python geeks or Star Trek geeks or Simpsons geeks then it is fine. It is that fine line of controlling your geekness to appropriate places and groups of people.

Would throwing up on somebody's feet be considered quoting MP?

Depends on how you swallowed them in the first place.

Would that be considered quoting a porn?

^^^^ Hahaha


Ah, but all too true about the fine line of knowing when, where and with whom one can geek out being the true test of whether you are a fun nerd or a total dork.

I must admit I slip once in a while, as do a few of the fun nerds I know and love. It's but a small price to pay to hang with the eccentrics who have a liking for the fantastical, and yet are not hopelessly retarded or socially misfitting.

Yup, that about says it all.

i haven't really watched the "Symptoms", MP and I'm finding I don't want to see Pee Wee's Big Adventure because, since it was announced at the cemetery, all I've heard are people quoting lines.

Using a quote at a key moment can be interesting. However, it gets uninteresting REALLY fast. I don't care which geek community you belong to, it gets old.

Sigh.

I guess our little NA is destined to remain woefully uncultured :(

I guess so. Too bad. Contstant quoting can be offputting ... but I find it preferable to be put off by the person(s) who do to quoting, rather than by something cultural which is so oft quoted by so many different people that it is truly indicative of a thing widely beloved and beyond mere entertainment.

That's what gets me. I have seen most of the Monty Python stuff people quote (I've seen Life of Brian, Holy Grail, and The Meaning of Life. I have seen much of the TV show on DVD and Live at Hollywood Bowl on the Internet.

I just can't figure out why they would want to quote it so much, I just don't find it funny the first time around (yes they have on moments, but then so does Benny Hill and Carrot Top) and continuous repetition doesn't make it more funny.

Star Wars and The Simpsons are at least entertaining on their own (even if the geeks try to ruin it for "normal" people).

Some people just don't get British humor.



It usually takes me some time. On first viewings, I found nether AbFab nor Fawtly Towers to be funny at all .... and subsequently discovered them to be gutwrenchingly hilarious.

I love Ab Fab, and also, Are You Being Served. I will admit that both, as well as the Month Python films, did take some getting used to though.

I think everyone is getting cranky from the heat. We have threads about specific things we hate, words or phrases we dislike, etc, etc etc.....

I refuse to get worked up over any of it. I will continue to quote when and where I feel is appropriate, and if anyone thinks I'm unoriginal or repetitive or derivitive or whatever, then sorry in advance. I'm really not sorry, but I offer my insincerest apologies anyway.:D

Just this morning I was driving behind someone going 20 in a 35, and I said to myself "People on ludes should not drive", a' la Jeff Spicoli. Didn't make them go any faster, but strangely enough I felt better about it.

Yes, it may not be as classy as quoting Shakespeare, but finding a quote in your head from some popcultural whatever that perfectly fits a situation is nearly always better than coming up with your own bon mot for the ocassion.

Hey, Just Look On The Bright Side Of Life!;)

Back in college I did know a guy who quoted Shakespeare like some people quote The Simpsons or Monty Python. He could also play five games of chess simultaneously while unable to actually see any of the boards.

He was very annoying but in almost every aspect so I can't say for sure that excessive Shakespeare quoting is annoying.

Honestly, I don't have a quote that is just perfect for a situation and it can be very funny. However, every paper cut and stubbed toe and gunshot wound is not crying out for "it's just a flesh wound."

And there is plenty of "British" humor that I find funny (including much of Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, and even a lot of Bean). Monty Python is not in that category.

that sounds like a good plan to me. :evil:

I never had a problem "getting" British humor, but lots of people also don't "get" my humor. Perhaps I'm secretly British. I dunno, after watching Shaun of the Dead at tonight's outdoor movie I really do have an urge to swing a cricket bat.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Ab Fab. Love it. But, I would probably hate hate hate it if everyone I knew repeated lines from the show at obvious moments.

Quoting, is not a blanket bad thing, but when certain lines are constantly used, it become really tiresome and I don't find the lines on their own - accent or not - to be very funny.

Aahhhh... You cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding ! (For Better... or for worse.)

Exactly!

I'm really trying to think of a time when I thought quoting was tiresome. When I don't get the joke, I just let it go. When I do get the joke, the worst it will get is a smile from me.

Here's the disclaimer - we're talking about witty quoting here. I think quoting well is an art and there are those that are terrible at it. There's original or witty quoting and unoriginal, predictable quoting. Saying "we're not in Kansas anymore" is not original quoting because it's been done to death and is the obvious conclusion. I know one guy who thinks he's the bomb because he has a predictable movie quote (including "Kansas", seriously) for any situation. Lame.

There's also a difference between what I guess I'd label "conversational quoting" and "inspired quoting". Saying "it's only a flesh wound" when someone hurts themselves is not supposed to be the funniest thing ever - it's just a touchpoint. If I had a Pythonite friend land in the hospital (God forbid) due to some accident, I might pull that line just to make them smile.

As for inspired quoting, there's something really bonding about having a moment where someone pulls out the right quote that no one really expected and everyone laughs. This is what quoters are trying to achieve but some forget that inspiration is about quality, not quantity.

My eldest brother once said that it was his life goal to speak only in movie quotes, so I may be a bit biased ;)

Witty quoting - well that's me beat ! :)

Apparently, I must spread some cream cheese on a different bagel ... but CP stated the unstated obvious with daggerlike precision.

I guess it is just a difference. While I find reasonably appropriate quoting tolerable (though very few who do it, do it well) I don't really ever find it witty. It is just an exercise in memory and no more witty than someone mentioning a topic and being able to remember a Web site that has something interesting to say.

Saying you want to speak only in movie quotes is, to me, like saying you'd like to speak only in domain names or in words that consist of concatenations of element abbreviations (Beryllium-calcium-uranium-selenium Iodine calcium-nitrogen, Iodine americium lanthamum-molybdenum. Iodine tungsten-indium.). An exercise in cleverness perhaps, but not wit.

Is that going to be a cemetery screening?!

Here's the thing - he was mostly joking. Yeah, just mostly. In my family, "What's That From" is not a game, it's a bloodbath. I suck at it but my brothers are all in a never-ending attempt to claw their way to the top of the heap. Even so, it was a joke.

I can wax poetic on the concept...that as children of the cable/VHS generation, many more of us can be movie buffs, and movie buffs in our own way, whatever our favorites. The great thing about movies is very similar to the great thing about message boards - every sentence is planned in advance, edited carefully to say the exact right thing in the exact right way at the exact right moment. Sure, it's not always done perfectly, but when it does hit the mark, wow! It's no wonder that the simple lines said in a movie can touch us so deeply and feel so profound. I admit to wishing everything I said in face-to-face encounters was so well crafted.

Fair enough. Like I said it is just a difference between us. I can appreciate well-crafted dialogue in movies, I just don't so much see the craft in reusing well-crafted dialogue written by someone else.

But you do, so its all cool. Neither your view on that nor mine seems to me to have much to do with the nimrods who can't get through a conversation without quoting Monty Python (or any other single source - if you're going to do it, at least show off that you have watched more than one television program in your life) a half dozen times as depicted in the comic I posted.

Everything we say or do is an exercise in memory, Alex- we utilise our auditory/visual memory all the time, whether we be interacting with others, typing in a comment at a web forum, or even thinking a thought. What you seem to mean is anyone who quotes anything you find boring or dumb or whatever. I've yet to meet a human being who doesn't quote on a regular basis, whether it be Shakespeare, Monty Python or (wince) Rush Limbaugh. It's only painful or annoying when it's not something you 'get', or it's something or someone you dislike.

If it makes you feel any better, I've developed a cunning plan: I have the entire Black Adder series on dvd. I'll start researching some quotes tonight.....:evil:

Could you stick a tail on it and call it a weasel? (Says the wife who got her hubby the complete set for his recent birthday.)

When I saw the trout codpiece at KoL, I just about died laughing.......:D

I love the costumes in the third series. They're really very good. Except Nursie, perhaps.

Her cow costume was good.

My favorite is the first run with Brian Blessed- he made a fabulous king, although I really hated the helm cuts. Hugh Laurie in the Prince Regent run is good too.

Really? I hate the first one. Won't watch it if I can avoid it. wait - nursie's in the second, not the third, right?
I'm losing my mind. Second one has good costumes. Don't know enough about regency to make an assessment. I like the second and fourth the best.

He (Black Adder) is just such an incredibly slimy weasel in the first- how could you not love it? Really, they're all great. Immensely quotable.:evil:

In my experience relativley few people do. I know I certainly don't do so very often. No, it isn't necessary for it to be something I find boring or dumb, I like The Simpsons and find the people who respond to everything with a Simpsons quote to be just as eye-rollingly annoying as the Monty Python quoters. I found the Shakespeare guy annoying as well. It need not be entertainment quotes, people who excessively call back on the copy of Bartlett's they memorized when they were in high school are annoying as well.

Do it once and I really don't care. Do it five times in a conversation and it starts to get tiresome.

But really, my point isn't that it can't be funny or witty or droll or clever. Just that it isn't any of those things nearly so often as the people who do it all the time think it is. It's kind of like puns, in that it is just lazy humor. Sometimes it succeeds but not so nearly as often as it is employed. I've seen Worst...<noun phrase>...ever! used to good humorous effect. But most of the time the person doing it just looks at you like a puppy that just crapped on the carpet thinking they are funny just for having said it.

When it is funny, a large part of that comes from originality of source and application. Needless to say, there really aren't any original applications of Monty Python quotes any more. It is time for them to be retired.

And of course, this is a stupid thing to be arguing about. I found the comic funny, and apparently nobody else did. You all find stupid movie quoting funny and I don't. Humor is not something that you can talk another person into seeing. And we won't be the first to do it.

I thought only my movie quoting nuts in laws played that game. Mostly it's Goonies. I get really sick of movie quotes.

I thought it was hilarious. I loved Holy Grail, but I feel the same way about quoters as you. It was funny in the movie. Doesn't mean it's going to be funny everytime some schmuck says it at a random moment.

"It's a turnip..... shaped almost exactly like a thingy !!" :D


....... Later ......


"I found it particularly ironic, my lord, because I've got a thingy that's shaped like a turnip... I'm a big hit at parties… I hide in the vegetable rack and frighten the children."

Is that the royal we?

I picture you as a giant moss covered turtle billowing out "We, are... tired of movie... quotes"

There is nothing funny about being devoured by the nothing sir. Nothing at all.
Well perhaps this.

A friend of mine once quoted verbatim the whole 'Well, I didn't vote for you' scene for me doing all the voices. It was hysterical.
:)

No, it isn't.

NA should have made that her MiceChat name. Then there'd be General You and Royal We. :D

I've been known to do this on occasion. It's 'cause it's on one of the CDs.

I always thought that was something girls did while sitting on the throne.

There is an excellent book on the subject I believe it is called "Princess and the pee" :rolleyes:

I know, but it was still funny ;)

Like it couldn't be changed?

This is #144 on the 'Notre Dame Computer Science Quote List':

SWhat I want to know is WHY you were reading the Notre Dame Computer Science Quote List!