Kim "Howard" Johnson

The content itself was really good - quite helpful. I didn't care so much for the actual delivery, however. I am *not* a fan of SNL, and don't really see the 'genius' of Chris Farley and other SNL cast members (maybe in improv he was better? Definitely what I've seen of Tina Fey doing improv vs. sketch comedy supports that possibility). So in that sense it felt like a great offering at the altar of Lorne Michaels. And that name dropping really detracted from the experience of the book such that I found myself having to just remind myself of the value of the content even when the examples of *why* the content was good had just the opposite effect on me.… (mais)

review of
Kim "Howard" Johnson's Monty Python's Tunisian Holiday
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 19, 2012

I stopped watching tv when I was 16, around 1969 or 1970. I still think it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Monty Python's Flying Circus started broadcasting in England around the same time. I don't know when the program started being broadcast in the US but I'm sure I knew about it when it happened. Undoubtedly I witnessed bits & pieces of it here & there & found it extraordinarily funny & interesting but I STILL didn't sit there in front of the boob tube, even for programming that good. I was too busy living my life.

As the Monty Python movies came out I probably saw some of them in the movie theaters. I probably enjoyed them.. but, in the end, my own life was more interesting & I didn't exactly become addicted to them.

Recently, tho, I acquired a 6 box set of what appears to be the 1st 3 seasons (39 programs) of the tv program at a thrift store. I then made a point of checking them all out in chronological order. Mind you, this was 40 yrs later. They are BRILLIANT. I loved them. They pioneered so many formal subversions that I was astounded. They had visual black-outs - still a 'no-no' to this day, they started off their programs pretending to be other (nonexistent) programs - still a 'no-no' to this day.

I remember witnessing a few movies in the past by Python members spun off from the Python project & not being very impressed. A Fish Called Wanda, eg, struck me as mediocre. I'd decided that John Cleese wasn't really that great. Now, after 39 episodes of Python my enthusiasm for Cleese is much higher. The silly walks, alone, are comedic genius. I even checked out A Fish Called Wanda again & liked it more this time. No such luck w/ Fawlty Towers.

Finally witnessing the 39 episodes got me to listening to the records, wch I'd previously liked but not ultimately cared that much about. Even w/ all the repetition of routines of the live records, I find them utterly fantastic now. Monty Python's Flying Circus have reached the pantheon of the absurdist gods: they rank w/ Jarry, Albee, & Ionescu.

It's been a while since I've checked out Life of Brian but I remember it as being one of their best. Inspired at a level that few people are lucky enuf or talented enuf to ever approach. So here I am in Awesome Books in Pittsburgh, a bkstore I'm particularly fond of, &, Lo & Behold!, there's a hardcover bk about the making of it! This might be really interesting, right? Wrong. It was boring as heck.

I'd never heard of the author but he's touted as having written at least 3 other bks about the Pythons & others about comedians. Perhaps he's a 'successful' author who makes a living off his bks. But what he ultimately is is an uninspired & incredibly bland 'fan' whose writing has so few imaginative moments that reading the bk is like having yr blood drained from you. A colorful world goes white before yr eyes. This bk sells b/c there are people like me who love the work of the Pythons who are hungry for their special & liberating take on the world & we end up w/ this.. mediocrity.

Even the plentiful photographs reveal such a lack of "an eye" for such things that one's reminded of why most people are so boring: put the most exciting things in the world in front of them &, after they're done filtering them thru their utter lack of imagination, you get a world as bland as can be.

When I read bks, these days, I tend to write notes in pencil in the front of things that I'll want to refer to in my review. Sometimes I wrote nothing b/c I know that I won't need to refer to notes in the review. Sometimes I write an enormous amt & I'm overwhelmed by how specific I want to be - knowing that I'm creating a huge job for myself. In the case of Monty Python's Tunisian Holiday, I wrote 2 notes:

"53 Arabic nonsense phrase":

John Cleese tries to learn "I can kill bats with an egg spoon" in Arabic. This produces something like "Neshum noctul edebeya dim rafa ita cauwa".

"78 good line":

"Today was also Graham's nude scene. He was a bit apprehensive about it, as it involved standing completely naked in front of nearly two hundred people. Before the filming began, a couple of older Thomson's ladies were walking around the dressing caravans, apparently looking for autographs. They stuck their heads into Graham's quarters, only to find him standing there stark naked. Both of the women grew pale and were completely at a loss.

""It's all right, I'm a doctor," Graham reassured them."

& that's about all I got out of this bk, folks. The 'moral'? Maybe Kim "Howard" Johnson shd've given up watching tv too. He might've grown up to be a person who lived his life instead of blandly standing on the sidelines watching others do so.

Oh, yes, there's the possibility that the author is fictitious. On the back cover, there's the following bit from Python Eric Idle:

""Kim 'Howard' Johnson was invented by Graham Chapman during an idle moment on the set of Life of Brian. 'Let's invent a person," he said. 'An American fan from the Midwest,' chimed in Michael Palin, 'who keeps a daily diary of Python filming. And then doesn't publish it for years and years.' How we laughed, and each day we'd make up stuff this 'person' would write about us.""

As far as I can tell from a very superficial web-surf he doesn't appear to be a fictional creation of Monty Python. If he were, that wd be alot funnier to me but I doubt that the Pythons cd write a bk this boring - even as a joke. But, of course, I cd be wrong.… (mais)