Un-Treasured Island - a "Barry Crocker!"

It's amazing what a thin line there is in comedy between hit & miss. Despite Yellowbeard having 50% of the Pythons, the great Peter Cook, Marty Feldman, Spike Mulligan & Cheech & Chong, what worked in Life of Brian, largely fell flat in this lame pirate comedy. Written in the main by Chapman & Cook, a lot of the jokes in Yellowbeard seemed laboured, whereas the comedy in Brian had been fresh, original & moved along at a brisk beat. The script was abysmal, just not funny & the plot barely evident (Cleese later distanced himself from the script & the movie). The efforts of the star cast seemed to be disjointed, all off doing their own things independent of each other (direction?). Maybe people weren't ready for a pirate spoof in 1983 ... but if the talent pool involved had better material to work with in i]Yellowbeard[/i] the result could have been very successful & would certainly have been appreciated by cinema-goers at the time.