Talk:Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus

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I seem to remember the Pythons on their reunion tour (particularly Eric Idle), talking about the 'German' Python series. Statements like " Ve haff no sense of humour and ve vould like you to help us get one" and them also talking about "Writing the scripts, getting them translated into German and then having to learn them phonetically".

84.130.119.234 19:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

I don't know about the latter, but the former was true only of the first episode of the pair. Michael Palin says that to this day, he can still sing "das Holzfäller-Lied" in German, having had to learn it phonetically. --JohnDBuell 22:30, 29 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

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Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I would be intrigued to know how the episodes were received ? Are there any reviews ? Does the existence of only two episodes imply failure ? Did it change the face of German comedy - any native homages ? de.wikipedia.org doesn't help much. --195.137.93.171 (talk) 17:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

I've once seen producer Biolek who had initiated the whole thing give an interview about it for Harald Schmidt's late-night show. The problem were mainly the broadcasting council of WDR who didn't understand the show's humor and hated it. The fact that none of the Pythons themselves had any grasp of German whatsoever and had to learn their lines like parrots certainly contributed to it, it must have been arduous for them. John Cleese's German pronounciation certainly is far from "perfection" as claimed in the article here, though he (along with Eric Idle reviewing the "Shakespeare with cow actors" play) is understandable at least somewhat by me as a native German (subtitles would've certainly helped a lot with most of that first episode, as exciting as it is for a change to hear their original voices in German instead of the dubs commonplace for their theatrial movies and the usual subtitling for their TV show over here). The German article mentions their thick accents and how TV audiences back then thought the reason they were THAT undecipherable was supposed to be funny exaggeration. --79.193.55.54 (talk) 19:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)Reply