10 Best Sketch Comedy Series Of All Time
3. Monty Python's Flying Circus
Anyone who does absurdist sketch comedy worships at the temple of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Period. It is the Granddaddy of surrealist comedy shows, first airing on the BBC in 1969. Though they only made four series consisting of 45 episodes and were off the air by 1974, the enduring legacy of the Pythons cannot be denied.
It produced some of the most influential comedians of the next several decades, including John Cleese, Michael Palin and Eric Idle. The series popularized the use of new TV production techniques like the cold open. The Pythons also produced several cult classic movies such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But it all comes back to the comedy.
The Pythons took the sketch comedy premise and turned it on its head by removing logic and reason. Not every sketch necessarily told a story or even a joke. Often times, it was just funny because it made no sense. Not to put to fine a point on it but Monty Python's Flying Circus was funny just because.
The greatest gift the Pythons gave other comedians was the license to be strange for the sake of being strange and trust that your audience with catch on. That's why people still talk about them decades later.