Tuesday June 12, 2007 Four Yorkshiremen - Look Familiar?
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Yesterday, one of the books I reviewed (and really liked), was Literary Lapses by Stephen Leacock. Well, I found that it and 11 others are available via Project Gutenberg. The Wikipedia entry states that in 1911 more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada. I'm not sure what that says about Canada. |
I also mentioned that I thought the story Self-Made Men was very similar to a sketch by Monty Python. Now you can judge for yourself. After googling around, I discovered the Monty Python sketch is called The Four Yorkshiremen, and that it was written in the late 1960's or early 1970's. You can find Self-Made Men on this web page. Search for the second occurrence of "Self-Made". It's a short story. Only about three screens worth (unless you are reading this on your cell phone).
Look familiar?
To save somebody asking, the story that reminded me of the Smith and Jones sketch was The Force of Statistics, also found here. And yes, (as if there would be any doubt), YouTube has two very funny videos of Smith and Jones playing these two characters [1] [2] (complete with sub-titles). Note that the conversation in the second one discusses body piercings that some people might find offensive. You've been warned.
Makes me wonder whether Leacock was inspired by the writings of some sixteenth century monk, and he in turn was influenced by somebody named Biff who lived two thousand years ago. Perhaps there was only ever one funny person in this world, and we are just repeating the same old jokes over and over again (with some adjustments to make them contemporary).
( Jun 12 2007, 07:27:43 AM PDT ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [1]
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Posted by DoomHammer on June 12, 2007 at 08:23 AM PDT #