Talk:Les Shadoks

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"Pre-dating and in many ways exceeding the strangeness of the bizarre humour "pioneered" by Monty Python nearly a decade after the Shadoks first appeared..."

Sigh. Yes, it's true that the Pythons were innovative, but they weren't the first. Once again the legacy of The Goon Show, Round the Horne, Beyond the Fringe and At Last the 1948 Show is conveniently airbrushed out of history...

The Pythons freely admit (as is shown in the Wikipedia Monty Python article) that the 'degree of strangeness' (my term) of their material was 'spurred on' by Milligan's Q series (i.e., series of series, starting with Q5).

Essentially, the distinguishing feature of Milligan's and the Python's material was the introduction of 'stream of consciousness' surrealism, where the connections between successive elements was, although not necessarily entirely absent, not dependent upon any 'traditional' or at least familiar thematic consistency, and even if a thematic aspect was being developed at any point, it was not necessarily obvious or necessarily sustained throughout the rest of the material.

What the Python's Gilliam did in his animations (which where, it seems, a not inconsiderable driving force behind certain aspects the overall Python approach) was to exploit the additional freedom gained from not having to use sets and actors, in terms of scale, cost and abstractness, to add a degree of bizzarreness which even Milligan's most surreal material could not exceed.

There was something which characterised the Goons and their material (although I wouldn't be surprised if Goons experts can find exceptions to this) where the audience interaction (mostly 'timing' to get laughs) of the 'actors' intrudes ininhibitedly (and essentially intentionally) into the overall 'feel' of the material, which makes it possible to characterise the material as 'surreal music hall comedy', or 'radio pantomime' where traditional music hall and pantomime comedy actors were essentially live theatre 'artistes' whose skill was primarily derived from successfully building a direct rapport with the audience (Kenneth Williams perhaps being the master).

What the Pythons did which was different, was to avoid the 'direct' audience interaction (although there was a live audience soundtrack).

The Pythons material, was thus more subversive because, despite being comedy, it seemed to be 'taking itself seriously' in a way that Milliagan's Q5 (essentially a direct transfer of Goons-type ideas to television) only did with the material that was not 'recorded in front of a studio audience'.

What Rouxel's Shadoks did, was what Gilliam did, but in a completely animated format (rather than in a live action-animation combination) and did it nearly a decade earlier

Ericross 23:53, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Shadoks on UK Television

Added reference to UK television screening