Cult TV Blog

This is really a post about blogging with reference to two shows, rather than really being about the shows so apologies if it is a bit navel gazing! One of my main motivations for starting this blog was to force myself to think more about the TV I watch, and not just watch passively. this has worked and since I make a point of reading up what the rest of the blogosphere is saying before blogging about a show, I am very aware that often my witterings here are in response to something I've read elsewhere. I try to make this explicit, although usually without attribution to avoid getting into rows or appearing to criticise someone individually. For example I will often say that a lot of the comment on the internet is about one aspect and try to write about another, or often I comment on how my own view differs from the prevailing one. I think some shows just aren't popular but would like to give them a bit of a push because I think they deserve it. So the content of my blogging is...

For some strange reason I have managed to blog about TV for this long and not once blogged about Monty Python and this is an omission which requires immediate correction. I have commented recently on the energy and youthfulness of TV comedy before everyone became very cynical in Thatcher's Britain, and of course Monty Python is no exception. The Pythons seemingly took whatever came to mind and made it hilarious. Their humour was not without relevance to the events of the day and the war against pornography referenced here was of course a real war being waged at the time: regular readers will have noticed how often Mary Whitehouse is referenced on this blog. If you want the other side of that story I would recommend the film about Mary Millington which I have recently watched with much enjoyment. The other thing the Pythons bring home is how the world has changed in the intervening decades. Part of this episode mentions Britain and trade with other nations, and of course the sev...

I'm a strange sort of cult TV fan – I'm not a fanatical Dr Who completist, for example. Another show which I do love dearly and which I realise I have never written about here, is Monty Python's Flying Circus. Come to think of it, I realise I have rarely written about any show which can vaguely be described as funny. Dick Emery has featured here, and I keep meaning to write a piece about local lad Tony Hancock, but on the whole my posts here have tended to be about my love for the weird and wonderful, which is on the whole an accurate reflection of my viewing. Of the comedy shows I watch fairly regularly, I think the only one which can be accurately described as 'cult' would be The Young Ones, and apart from one post I have fought shy of writing about that, since I could never do it justice. I also watch Bottom, Hinge and Bracket, To The Manor Born, Spitting Image, Hale and Pace, and French and Saunders. I was disappointed recently to find that I didn't think...