Do Not Adjust Your Set

My mini review is to say how it should be judged.When it was originally aired in the UK.The show was shown in the children's slot around 5 pm .Bear in mind at the time the UK had at the most 3 TV channels.At the time those in the show also appeared with Spike Milligan.The Goodies followed later all though the audience for them was of an adult and family nature.

Finally seeing the light of day again thanks to the release of nine episodes of the series on DVD, "Do Not Adjust Your Set" is -- along with "At Last the 1948 Show" -- the clearest forerunner of "Monty Python's Flying Circus." Written by and starring Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, with David Jason, Denise Coffey and the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (as well as some animations by Terry Gilliam in the second series), "Do Not Adjust Your Set" aspires to be the same kind of anarchic free-form comedy series, albeit one suitable for children. (It was, after all, originally meant to be a children's show, but it quickly developed a cult audience among the grown-up set.)

The DVD only covers the first series, though, so none of Terry Gilliam's animations are present (don't let the packaging fool you). Even so, it's definitely worth checking out.

Along with the 1948 Show (which featured Pythons-to-be John Cleese and Graham Chapman), DNAYS is revered and sought-after as a missing piece of the puzzle of pre-Python lunacy. Bringing together the other four Pythons (Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle - all looking impossibly young - and cartoonist Terry Gilliam) it was an anarchic and silly series, aimed (supposedly) at kids but with much to offer everyone else.

Alongside Palin & co. there was David Jason (now a huge favourite of British TV with Only Fools and Horses, A Touch of Frost, and much more), Denise Coffey (now whatever happened to her?) and the musical antics of the wonderful Bonzo Dog (Doo Dah) Band. Basically a dozen or so twenty-something guys (and a girl) letting their hair down and having a laugh would sum up DNAYS perfectly.

Although the series has rarely been re-run - I think two episodes have been on TV in the last twenty years as part of retrospective telly nights, including the Christmas special Do Not Adjust Your Stocking - the good news is that over half the episodes as filmed have survived the ravages of time and the mass wiping of tapes that went on in the 1960s and 1970s. Occasionally liberated from archives for the odd screening, the series holds up well and is extremely off-the-wall and funny. It would be wonderful to see it out on DVD.

Just gotta shout it: This show is AWESOME! I've just watched my DVD of "Do Not Adjust Your Set" and it's really, really good! I read about it in a book about Monty Python, and at that time, no copies were know to exist. I thought it was dead forever. Then one day I found out that some had been found and it was on DVD. I was expecting it to be pretty good, but no-- it's REALLY good! So much fun. This show is much more "Pythonic" and slightly less dated than John Cleese and Graham Chapman's show "At Last the 1948 Show." Since it was supposedly a kid's show (but not really), it gets wonderfully silly. The way Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin appear in this series, they sound just like they do in Flying Circus. Yet D.N.A.Y.S. is its own scene, and it's groovy, man! And it's got the Bonzo Dog Dooh Dah Band from The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour playing weird, cool songs each episode. As if things couldn't get any better. And then they do-- Eric Idle occasionally plays and sings with them. Lovely! Whoever thought is was a good idea to erase this series deserves to be tarred and feathered. But he's probably dead by now anyway.

I was a kid in the 1960's and this was my favorite show on TV. I suppose I was about 9 or 10 when I was watching it. When I watch clips of it now on youtube I can't understand why I thought it was funny back then. This was the pre-humor established by the Pythons which people didn't find funny until the mid-1970's (and even then not everyone found it funny). This humor was way beyond it's time, so back then it shouldn't have been funny, especially not for a child, but I really did enjoy it. It was probably one of the first shows (if not the first show) to establish that link between the staid soaps, sitcoms and standup comedy humor of the 1950's and the 1960's and what came later, starting with Python. Strangely enough, when I was old enough to stay up late and start watching Python (around 1972) I didn't find it funny at all. However, it was "in" to watch Python and talk about it at school the next day, so I pretended back then to like it. But DNAYS was a show that I actually watched because I really enjoyed it, and nobody talked about it at school the next day (as I said, we were only about 9 years old). Before I started watching clips on youtube, the only people I remembered from the show were David Jason, Denise Coffey and Eric Idle. I didn't remember the other Pythons being in it at all. And of course I remembered the Bonzos. By the time I was 16 I had all their LPs. Now there was a band who should have had a much bigger cult following!