I can't speak for America but Britain in the 70s was a very productive time for comedy. These are the people who'd be appearing on our TV screens. My personal favorite was a guy called Dick Emery, a comedian who would do end-to-end sketches and had a repertoire of about 10 different characters, half of them women (he seemed to love dressing up in women's clothes). There would always be a familiar catchphrase or punchline at the end of the sketch. For example, he'd play a middle aged woman who looked a bit like Barbara Cartland, who would be walking down the street and then an interviewer would come up to her and start asking her questions. She'd be all flirtatious and then he's say something innocently which she'd perceive as a come-on or innuendo, and then she'd say her catchphrase: "ooh you are awful, but I like you" and then hit him really hard. (Just writing this is making me giggle).



Another late middle-aged woman (ugly this time) would be chasing men down the street she was so desperate. The sketches were quite ridiculous, but it was a very popular show, and I think it's influenced today's sketch-format comedy such as the programme "Little Britain" (where they also like to dress up in women's clothes!).

Then we had the likes of Benny Hill - which I know has transferred well to the States. Personally I found the show fairly sexist as it always featured VERY under-dressed women (bordering on soft porn) who would end the show by chasing Benny Hill all over the place. But again it was very popular here.


We had a double act called Morecambe and Wise who dominated TV for years. Eric Morecambe was innately very funny and Ernie Wise was probably in his shadow somewhat, but together they were great. There was one sketch they did where they'd be sharing a flat together and actually slept in the same bed, which by 70s standards would probably be considered a bit odd considering they were meant to be straight middle-aged men, but no-one really thought anything of it!



So who were your favorites? Who was big in America?

You're mention of Dick Emery made methink of Jonathan Winters, whose most famous character was a prim looking but extremely bawdy old woman named Maude Frickett. He also appeared on the television program Mork and Mindy alongside Robin Williams, another popular comic of the time.
Others of note include Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, and the late, lamented George Carlin.

Monty Python's Flying Circus was a favorite of mine, but most of my classmates just didn't "get" it. As a teenaged boy, I especially enjoyed the infrequent (and wholly gratuitous) nudity, as it almost always was a curvaceous female in the spotlight. For some odd reason, the Pythons had a weekly slot on the local Public Broadcasting Station-at the time, it seemed to be their mission to bore everyone to death with endless nature documentaries, political debate and commentary, and horrid local theatre productions of such "classics" as Waiting for Godot ( I always imagined him finally arriving, being very rude, and the protagonists asking him to leave) and Our Town, an early "minimalist" play-as such, the less said about it, the better.

The mid-seventies were a real dry spell for comedy in the U.S., and about the only relief we got was the occasional guest on The Tonight Show.

As for Benny Hill, I didn't get to see any of his stuff until the 80s, and I think his popularity here was based on the very reasons you cited. American guys are fascinated by scantily clad, buxom women.

Oh, don't get me going on Monty Python - how could I forget to mention dear old John Cleese, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin etc. I loved them.

I think I was a bit too young to "get" the humour in the Flying Circus series because it was obviously very alternative for its time - even when it was first shown it had a cult rather than popular status for a while as people couldn't quite understand it.

While the British guys in the troupe were obviously very talented and funny on their own, I think what made Monty Python stand-out unique was Terry Gilliam's input (with the strange cartoons). Somehow that really identifies what MP was about.

When they hit a wider audience with the films "Holy Grail" and, in particular, "Life of Brian" they had probably reached the pinnacle of their success (as well as controversy in the case of Life of Brian - there were several heated religious debates here including TV interviews between Cleese, Palin and two theologians (from what I can remember).

Interestingly my 10 year-old nephew's favorite film is in fact Life of Brian. So it's obviously a classic. I think I've seen it about 10 times now myself.

About the same time Life of Brian came out there was also the spoof film "Airplane", which is another of my favorite comedy movies of the time - totally daft but a classic.

Speaking of humor...I heard this today.

Q: What is red and bad for your teeth?
A: A Brick.

For some reason, that reduced me to helpless, twitching giggles on the floor.