Do Not Adjust Your Set
Teatime 1968. In millions of homes in England something strange was happening and TV comedy around the world would never be the same again - 'Do Not Adjust Your Set'. Hitting audiences like a wet fish in the face it was weird, wonderful and above all hilarious. 'Do Not Adjust Your Set' combined the writing and performing skills of Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, added a dash of David Jason, a dollop of the legendary Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and a hint of Terry Gilliam. Feast your eyes on the madness and discover how something completely different began....
Originally planned as a children's show 'Do Not Adjust Your Sets' soon gained a large adult following. Featuring Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, David Jason and Denise Coffey with animations by Terry Gilliam and music interludes by Neil Innes' Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, the program brought together some of the great writers and performers who would eventually create Monty Python.
Member Reviews
Proto-Python Interesting but of Inconsistent Quality - KevinJaques
I've only seen Disk 1 so far, episodes 1-5. It's black and white, and has suffered degradation of quality from time.
The Python members seem quite good, but it's astonishing how their humour suffers from being encased in conventional skit format. Denise Coffee was pretty good. David Jason was good, but looked bad in comparison with the others.
The "Captain Fantastic" segment is the only ongoing element and it is putrid, really annoyingly stupid and bad. When I was a kid, I tried to make campy spoofs with crude special effects using my Dad's Super 8mm soundless movie camera. Captain Fantastic is slightly better than my 8 year old efforts but much louder.
Obviously for a Python fan, this is a must-see. I'm not a fanatic, but I have much love for Python, so that added a lot of interest and pleasure.
The band, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, was surprisingly good. But musical acts in a comedy show is too old-school even for me.A children's show you say? ;-0 - Ford_Prefect
How could it not be funny? Well here we see some ideas that fuelled Monty Python but my personal discovery was how hilarious David Jason (Inspector Frost) can be. I think he inspired Rowan Atkinson! At any rate excellent skits and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band is just a hoot!
It was conceived as a children's show but... Well I can see why parents wanted to get home and watch this one!
Long live Captain Fantastic!
Member Reviews
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Proto-Python Interesting but of Inconsistent Quality - KevinJaques
I've only seen Disk 1 so far, episodes 1-5. It's black and white, and has suffered degradation of quality from time.
The Python members seem quite good, but it's astonishing how their humour suffers from being encased in conventional skit format. Denise ...A children's show you say? ;-0 - Ford_Prefect
How could it not be funny? Well here we see some ideas that fuelled Monty Python but my personal discovery was how hilarious David Jason (Inspector Frost) can be. I think he inspired Rowan Atkinson! At any rate excellent skits and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band ...