This week (in fact, today) it will be 40 years since the first episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" aired on the BBC, unleashing the likes of famous historical deaths, an Italian language class, cycling artists, the composer Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson, and the funniest joke in the world, to an audience brought up on The Frost Report, At Last The 1948 Show, Do Not Adjust Your Set, and Q. The rest of course is history, with several episodes following, a movie series, stage shows, a Broadway musical, TV appearances, and a TV debate with the Bishop of Southwark. Not to mention millions of fans old and new, who can view the old material in books, DVDs, online YouTube clips, recite sketches and songs such as the Lumberjack Song, SPAM, the Cheese Shop, and the Spanish Inquisition, all at the drop of a pining Norwegian Blue. On a sadder note, yesterday was also the 20th anniversary of the passing of Graham Chapman, writing partner and friend of John Cleese during the Python years, and one of the six Pythons. As if I need to ask, any Monty Python fans here? Are there any favourite sketches, scenes, or songs you recall?
At the 20th, some interviewer was asking Eric Idle about chances for a reunion show or something. He looked (ok, maybe rolled his eyes) skyward and said "No, not really...we're still waitin' on Graham to come back from the dead." Given that Chapman had just passed, and Idle must have been feeling the loss of his friend, I feel it was a truly Pythonesque reply.
Fun fact: You know that early Python episode where a priest and a university professor decide the existence of God via wrestling? Those were real wrestlers. "It's perfectly easy for somebody just to come along here to the BBC simply claiming to have a ...bit to spare in the botty department..."
A nod's as good as a wink... The Parrot Sketch "You're husband checked the little box that said he's an organ donor, right? Well, we've come for his kidneys." Know what I mean, know what I mean? The Ministry of Silly Walks The Art of Not Being Seen Hours and hours of belly-splitting laughs. My best friend's bro was getting married and my buddy and the other groomsmen hollowed out coconuts the night before. As E made his way down the aisle of the large church the groomsmen followed him. CLOP, CLOP! CLOP, CLOP!
That was actually John Cleese, not Idle. Idle, at the time, was trying to get a sequel to Holy Grail off the ground.
They did a sort of reunion special some time ago (for the 30th?), but it wasn't very funny. The Pythons produced some very funny material in their time, but John Cleese was probably right about the series. It went a season (or two) too long. The change of format with the films (besides the pointless And Now for Something Completely Different, which produced lesser versions of old sketches) was welcome, but after three it felt tired as well. I'm happy to see the Pythons showing up in each others work (especially Palin and Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda; Palin in Terry Gilliam's Brazil), but as far as Monty Python goes, I'm glad it came to end. The complete series is still fantastic on DVD to this day, digital imperfections and all.
It wasn't pointless at the time, because we didn't yet have home video, and reruns weren't yet as ubiquitous as they later became. So remaking old sketches as a film was the only way for many people to get to see them, or to relive them if they'd seen them before. I actually saw Completely Different before I saw the series. So it was my introduction to many Python sketches, perhaps even to Python as a whole. (I remember a time in late grade school or thereabouts when I thought Monty Python was the name of a single person or character. I'd heard of it through my older sister but didn't really know what it was.)
I wonder if some of the lost sketches (such as Wee-Wee, Revolting Cocktails, and the original intro to one episode - with British politicians giving speeches in a dance format) could ever be recovered and released. AFAIK, they were all actually filmed, just never broadcast or put on DVD.
I think series 3 was still good, but not quite as good as the first two series. Also, it is impossible for me to watch the third series these days without noticing how bored Cleese seems to be by it all, and that does detract from my enjoyment. Trying for a fourth series was probably a mistake, there was still some good material ("Gooooooorn") but with Cleese gone and Chapman's drinking problems the show lost its balance. As for ANFSCD, it wasn't meant to seen by people who watched the show on TV, it was intended to be shown in the US as an introduction so I can forgive them for making it. The performances in the show were normally much better though. Anyway, my favourite sketch is the architect sketch, it covers a lot of ground in only a few minutes. I love that whole episode (The Bishop!, chemist sketch) because the audience really seemed to get into it and that helped the Pythons to relax and give great performances.
I believe Revolting Cocktails (and I think Wee-Wee too) was filmed, but edited out by the BBC prior to the original broadcast - some elements were still in the final cut, such as Gilliam's animated introduction to Revolting Cocktails, and a callback to that sketch later in the episode (with Palin emerging from a barrel). That whole episode (the one about Tudor pornography) was not one of their finest, I'll admit.
For some reason I always liked theminor sketchews where they latched on to a joke and just hammered to the ground. Arthur "two-sheds" Jackson Woody and tinny sounding words The playwrights son Dirty Hungarian phrasebook I have a theory about dinosaurs
The dinosaurs theory sketch is one of my favourites too. (Mark Kermode mentions it on one or two occasions on his Five Live podcast. ) I also loved the extended Bicycle Tour sketch that took up a whole episode, and I was also a fan of series 4's Michael Ellis episode.
I liked the Boxer Ken "Clean-Air" Systems. For lunch he would stop at the side of the road and rub dirt into his hair... That just tickled me so much when I was younger, now it doesn't seem as funny as I remember.... I also liked the one with the guy in the mansion and all of this bad stuff keeps happening to him by accident, such as he is holding a knife and the maid slips and falls right onto it, and the cop walks over to talk to him and the cop has a heart-attack right there.... at the end of the skit, he is rushing to escape the mansion which is collapsing around him, and as soon as he leaves the front door the whole mansion explodes!
Apparently Revolting Cocktails and Wee-Wee didn't survive, though, since they're not on the DVDs either. Or could the Pythons themselves have asked for the sketches to be left off the discs as well?
^ And the girl that Ken fights in the ring (the one who likes knitting and Cliff Richard records) was John Cleese's real life wife at the time, AFAIK. "For breakfast, Ken places a plate of liver and bacon under his chair and locks himself in the cupboard."
I liked the little bit near the start of that sketch where Ken's wife (Idle) and trainer (Palin) look on as he goes on his morning jog, then glance at each other and dive back indoors.
Richard Baker = legend. I also loved the moments where they pulled in David Hamilton of Thames TV ("But first, here's a rotten old BBC programme!") and News at Ten's Reginald Bosanquet. (I remember their "Monty Python's Big Red Book" which had a foreword apparently from Bosanquet, and the mock outrage [in the form of letters, memos and other correspondance] that followed throughout the book... ) And of course Jimmy Hill in a Queen Victoria costume.
^ Ah, that would be Reginald Bo-san-quay, whose name would be next to Norway in a rhyming dictionary....if it included proper names...and if he pronounced his name like that...