Monty Python Comic

[innerSpaceman]

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

[Alex]

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.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

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.

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.

[Alex]

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.

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

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

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

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.

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.....

[Prudence]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

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.....

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.)

[wendybeth]

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

[Alex]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

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.

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.

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

I found the comic funny, and apparently nobody else did. You all find stupid movie quoting funny and I don't.

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.