“The Goodies” vs. “Python:” Are you kidding?

England’s Guardian newspaper today publishes an interview with the British comic troupe that should’ve been happy with being named in the same sentences as “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” But, apparently, “The Goodies” have bigger fish to fry.

The headline, “We’re Not Remotely Bitter,” suggests just how bitter those guys really are. They’ve embarked upon a reunion tour to argue how progressive they really were.

"There's some Python stuff that any of us would have felt comfortable doing," former Goodie Bill Oddie says. "And some of the Python people would have felt comfortable doing Goodies stuff."

Well, maybe, but the Pythons – who are now worldwide comic icons – didn’t do your material and became worldwide icons, while the Goodies didn’t manage to come up with anything so clever as the Pythons, and now you’re desperately striving for legitimacy. Hmm …. Whom should we take seriously?

Not that this should be taken for comic gospel, but when I was a kid, “Python” kept me in stitches, while “The Goodies” – foisted upon me at an impressionable age, when ostensibly I should’ve been embracing all manner of British comedy with a certain level of discernment – felt to me – even as a youthful dupe, with purportedly diminished comic sensibilities – like utter “Benny Hill”-style crap.

But that’s just me. Does anybody remember “The Goodies” favorably?