I assumed that because of it's age, it would be at least a bit outdated.
Perhaps it was just way ahead of it's time?
John Cleese has said that the Goon Show "influenced us enormously", and many well-known Monty Python's sketches like "The Funniest Joke in the World" [5] can be traced to the Goon's jokes like dropping 1918 calendars on Berlin to force Germans surrender (in episode "World War One").
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goon_Show
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-69K1MQ4YJE
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwSQ0CBQuA0
For some reason, it also made a successful radio show in South Africa, Finland and Sweden. The latter two are translations (but set in UK like the original). Taylor wrote new episodes for Finland even after the show was discontinued in UK.
There was also an Indian spin off sometime in the nineties.. did sort of ok but iirc got called since it ruffled a few feathers here
They took a lot of ideas and turned them up to absurd. One or two turned out to be actually happening like they thought they'd only imagined. Others were grounded on real events.
One of the two writers, Jonathon Lynne I think, went to Oxford or Cambridge, and took part in the debating society. He mentioned something I heard mentioned again recently regarding Boris Johnson and his government cronies university and school days - so perhaps no wonder it seems horribly familiar again. Something roughly along the lines of university debate club being filled with self-important overblown and pompous asses, sure of their right to rule the world, and to be in the right by mere opening of their mouth, endlessly spouting crap and winging it. Yes Minister was born here. :)
A decade or two later all those pompous asses were populating the government and opposition benches, spouting the same crap.
Because, like, no Facebook and stuff?
Heck, most of Connie Willis' earlier books--which I do like but also involve people running around and constantly not being able to locate someone--really don't make sense in a world where people carry phones.
Some stuff is excellent but not all. It made more sense when the BBC interstitial was contemporary. (Goodies did the same thing with itv ad break intro pattern). The 'fake end of transmission' was also done by Spike Milligan. It got so we'd stay watching ten minutes after broadcast in case something was coming back.
One time in 1974 the BBC cancelled the broadcast for pompidou's death and we rang to complain. Outrage! How dare surreal humour be stopped for some french presidents carcass?
Given Chapman's homosexuality it has to be ironic. The cross dressing and ooo you are awful mincing stuff: It just doesn't seem funny to me any more.
Saw them live in the seventies, they were an excellent ensemble and Niel Innes (rutles) deserves more recognition for his pythyon role (he brought the kings theatre, edinburgh to a standstill reprising Elton John's 'tommy' gig with one chord)
Terry Gilliam nude at a piano and John Cleese nude as BBC presenter felt like some of the first male nudity on screen.
The concept of the boarding schools were because they worried the compassion of women raising young men would make them too weak. Their whole foundation was frankly of the "so misogynistic it winds up automatically homosexual because women can't be considered people by them". I state homosexual as opposed to gay because it refers to behavior rather than preferences. Surprisingly the majority won't choose celibacy over their preferred gender - so women are subsitited for men despite a preference for them. The crossdressing speaks to both the "boys club" society and the "easy to laugh at" - comedy actors are usually about average or below in attractiveness.
Graham Chapman also was very to the "ubermanly men". It could have been a "stop being stereotypical" thing - a "it should be laughed at because the mincing is ridiculous" attitude.
Life of Brian is the Python that really aged well for me because it does have that satirical element that goes deeper than most of the things they did.
I immediately remembered several movies with Peter Alexander from the early 60s like "Charlys Tante" or Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot".
Although in the latter there are several scenes going beyond "men in women's clothes are funny" and homosexual acts are evoked in the viewer's minds (but of course never actually called on screen).