And now, for something completely different…Earlier this month, legendary British comedy troupe Monty Python celebrated its 40th anniversary. The milestone was, of course, heralded with a flurry of accolades, tributes and awards, including honors from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.Many Americans know the Pythons almost exclusively in the context of their movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” But the five-man funny band’s primary body of work is actually their long-running, award-winning TV show, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.”In some ways, it’s ironic that the Pythons now celebrate such widespread acclaim. The group’s original aim was to create a subversive brand of humor that defied classification  — as Python Terry Jones said, “the fact that Pythonesque is now a word in the Oxford English Dictionary shows the extent to which we failed.”The reason is simple. The wit and wackiness of Flying Circus served to do more than just elicit laughs. Through their absurd sketches, they pointed out and tore down what is absurd about the world they lived in. “Ministry of Silly Walks,” for example, is funny without examination of a deeper meaning  — the mere sight of the towering Cleese scraping the floor with his knees is enough to make virtually anyone giggle. But the subversive social criticism is even funnier  — the Pythons were ridiculing the beauracracies of Britain, mocking their stringent observance of formality and their colossal inefficiencies.On a less subtle note, the sketch “Upper-class twit of the year,” displays a competition of upper-class Brits on a race-track, competing (ineptly) to complete simple everyday tasks like jumping over matchsticks and unhooking a lady’s bra, and racing to complete feats of annoyance, such as waking the neighbors by slamming a car door.The sketch is some of the most biting satire in the broadcast medium  — as John Cleese laments in an interview “It was probably that sketch that prevented me from getting knighted.”Such is the persuasive power of humor — by ridiculing the status quo, they exposed flaws in the social structure in a unique and powerful way.Sadly, there is little American comedy today that can accomplish this feat.Currently, most comedy we see is rooted in, at best, everyday trivia and, at worst, cheap sophomoric sex jokes. Even political comedians, while ocasionally funny, are hardly cunningly satrical. The average ones just one make easy cracks about how stupid George W. Bush or Sarah Palin are. The best, such as Jon Stewart and his team, occasionally land perfectly aimed criticism, but the humor is usually more a result of the truth of their observations, rather than the cleverness of the delivery.If any American show comes close to the Python ideal, it’s South Park.That’s right — think of Cartman as our John Cleese.The creators of South Park have repeatedly pointed to the Pythons as a huge influence in their work — from their comedic style to even their most basic animation techniques, which closely resemble Terry Gilliam’s surreal segue cartoons.Sometimes South Park rises up and reaches Pythonesque levels of creativity. But these episodes are sadly not the norm. Like most modern American comics, their writers rely too often on the crutches of obscenity, vulgarity (although their criticism of censorship sometimes legitimzes this) toilet humor and shock value, with no more aim than to get cheap laughs out of the less socially-minded demographics.It’s hard to blame anyone for not being as good as the Pythons — to do so would be like criticizing modern artists because we don’t have a Da Vinci. But it isn’t too much to ask our comedians to try.Instead of telling just another sex joke, instead of making fart noises and doing stuff while drunk or high, our comedians should aim a little higher. There’s nothing wrong with laughing just to laugh. But using humor for laughs alone is like using a calculator just to spell out words. And if that’s the case, then the Pythons were using their calculators to teach advanced calculus — and every comedian today is sitting in their classroom.Matthew Albright is a 20-year-old mass communication sophomore from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_malbright.——————Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]