WHAT WAS COMEDY like before Judd Apatow?
It’s hard to remember what was funny in the years before man-boys running away from responsibility but finally realizing the importance of love, parenthood and companionship took over the silver screen; before Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill were household names; before every person who was in the depressingly short-lived “Freaks and Geeks” started unexpectedly popping up as the pot-smoking friend in the background of an important scene. If you can’t remember, we’ll give you a hint: Monty Python. The comedians who created “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” a sketch comedy show that aired on the BBC in 1969, brought an outlandish stream-of-consciousness style into the mainstream, mocking and spoofing everything and anything for a laugh. That idea may have come to seem commonplace after the creation of “Saturday Night Live” a few years later, but don’t get it twisted — Monty Python influenced “SNL,” even if Lorne Michaels won’t admit it. With films such as “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” “Mont
