This show was required viewing in the early eighties, although in retrospect the second, and the third, series are the classics,whilst the bookends are admittedly patchy.
To compare this show with Monty Python is inaccurate, since NTNOCN was actually an eighties version of the sixties satire show, "That was the week that was". And like TW3, it is more of a nostalgia fest for those of us who were there at the time, rather than offering very much to those who were not.
The sketches were written around the persons, and the events which were then contemporary, and so they have lost their cutting edge. Also there us perhaps a feeling in retrospect that the writers were smug middle class intellectuals mocking the simpler pleasures of the plebeians. " Game for a Laugh" might have been perhaps a little silly, but it was harmless Saturday evening entertainment, and did not deserve the sarcastic send up it received. And, having lampooned "The Two Ronnie's" for relying on smutty formulaic comedy, NTNOCN closed with the crude song "Kinda Lingers" which was not witty, or even amusing, it was plain vulgar, & evidence that this show had run its course.
In all fairness, this show has aged better than has "The Young Ones", and some sketches, such as the unhelpful banking staff, the smug salesmen in the home entertainment store, and the bucolic train office manager, are still relevant today, since such characters and situations do still exist. But this is a show for the experienced, rather than for the innocent.
To compare this show with Monty Python is inaccurate, since NTNOCN was actually an eighties version of the sixties satire show, "That was the week that was". And like TW3, it is more of a nostalgia fest for those of us who were there at the time, rather than offering very much to those who were not.
The sketches were written around the persons, and the events which were then contemporary, and so they have lost their cutting edge. Also there us perhaps a feeling in retrospect that the writers were smug middle class intellectuals mocking the simpler pleasures of the plebeians. " Game for a Laugh" might have been perhaps a little silly, but it was harmless Saturday evening entertainment, and did not deserve the sarcastic send up it received. And, having lampooned "The Two Ronnie's" for relying on smutty formulaic comedy, NTNOCN closed with the crude song "Kinda Lingers" which was not witty, or even amusing, it was plain vulgar, & evidence that this show had run its course.
In all fairness, this show has aged better than has "The Young Ones", and some sketches, such as the unhelpful banking staff, the smug salesmen in the home entertainment store, and the bucolic train office manager, are still relevant today, since such characters and situations do still exist. But this is a show for the experienced, rather than for the innocent.