From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Monty Python |
 |
The troupe in 1969
.^ John Cleese plays Sit Lancelot in the film and other parts are embraced lovingly by Graham Chapman (King Arthur), Mike Palin (Sir Galahad), Eric Idle (Sir Robin) and Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere).
^ Colour code: John Cleese - Michael Palin - Eric Idle - Graham Chapman - Terry Jones - Terry Gilliam - Carol Cleveland .- Monty Python's Flying Circus: Just the Words - Episode 6 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: Original source]
^ In this version, it was Eric Idle who insisted that Gilliam should provide the graphics and animation.
Front row: Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin
|
| Medium |
Television, film, theatre,
audio recordings, Books |
| Nationality |
British (5 members)
British, formerly American (1 member)[1] |
| Years active |
1969–83 |
| Genres |
Sketch comedy, satire |
| Influences |
The Goons, Spike Milligan |
| Influenced |
Douglas Adams, Eddie Izzard, Reeves and Mortimer |
| Notable works and roles |
Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–74)
And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982)
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) |
| Members |
Graham Chapman
John Cleese
Terry Gilliam
Eric Idle
Terry Jones
Michael Palin |
| Website |
PythOnline |
.^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ Lego Monty Python Spam sketch!- Monty Python LEGO | SPIKE 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.spike.com [Source type: General]
^ A total of 45 episodes were made over four series.
.^ However, the Python phenomenon developed from the original television series into something much greater, in scope and impact: it spawned touring stage shows, four films, numerous albums, several books and a spin-off stage musical—as well as launching the members on to individual stardom.
^ The Flying Circus was structured as a series of sketches, following in a long tradition which extended from the British music hall to the stage revues of Oxford and Cambridge to Spike Milligan's television shows Q5 through Q9 , all of which influenced Python's particular version of sketch comedy.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ Until now, Python had really made no real inroad into American television.
.^ The group's influence on comedy has often been compared to The Beatles' influence on music, [1] [2] a self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work and changing the way performers entertained audiences.
[4][5]
.^ Maybe that's because Cleese, Palin and Jones, along with Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and the late Graham Chapman, will never be allowed to forget their early triumph.
^ Despite this, Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones are back together.
^ Well, they got there in the end; and the title that John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam settled on has entered the language.
.^ Loosely structured as a sketch show but with a highly innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Terry Gilliam's animations), it pushed the boundaries of what was then considered acceptable, both in terms of style and in content.
^ When the themes for sketches were finally chosen, Gilliam was free to decide how to bridge them with animations, armed with his camera, scissors, and airbrush.
^ The style of animation used for South Park was inspired by Gilliam's paper cut-out cartoons for Monty Python's Flying Circus.
.^ The group's influence on comedy has often been compared to The Beatles' influence on music, [1] [2] a self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work and changing the way performers entertained audiences.
^ But did they change the face of British comedy?
^ Topical satire (along Frost lines) they also wanted to avoid, and they were equally averse to the way in which that series had been literally anchored by one performer/presenter.
.^ The Pythons' creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding the established rules of television comedy and breaking new ground for those who came after (George Harrison, who became friends with several members of the cast, said that he regarded Monty Python as 'continuing the spirit' of The Beatles).
^ Python signalled the end of the days of the old variety-based comedy and the beginnings of a new era, when comedy performers would learn their trade on television.
.^ Their influence on British comedy of all kinds has been apparent for many years, while in America it has coloured the work of many cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy.
^ The Flying Circus was structured as a series of sketches, following in a long tradition which extended from the British music hall to the stage revues of Oxford and Cambridge to Spike Milligan's television shows Q5 through Q9 , all of which influenced Python's particular version of sketch comedy.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ He also has done work for Shrek 2 , and appeared in the first two Harry Potter movies, Rat Race , and several Saturday Night Live episodes.
"
Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.
In a 2005 poll to find
The Comedian's Comedian, three of the six members were voted by fellow comedians and comedy insiders to be among the top 50 greatest comedians ever—Palin was at number 30, Idle at 21 and Cleese at 2.
[6]In mid-November 2008, the Pythons created a
YouTube channel to reduce the incentive to download their products illegally from the Internet.
.^ Terry Gilliam's Beware of the Elephants animation The Pythons had a very definite idea about what they wanted to do with the series.
^ In 1989, the sixth Python, Graham Chapman, died, and the others vowed separately they would never work as a team again.
^ The point about Python is that they began a style of TV humour, so looking at them now, we can see where we've been, and see what's come out of them since.
[7]Before Monty Python
.^ Palin and Jones wrote together.
^ Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin were at Oxford, and featured in the university's revues.
^ Palin and Jones first met at Oxford University, while Cleese and Chapman met at the University of Cambridge.
.^ John Cleese and Graham Chapman met at Cambridge, where they played in Footlights.
^ John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle began their comedy work in revues at Cambridge, and Terry Jones and Michael Palin were writer-performers in the Cambridge cabarets.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ Eric Idle, who hailed from County Durham, arrived at Cambridge in Cleese's last year, just after Chapman had left.
.^ John Cleese and Graham Chapman met at Cambridge, where they played in Footlights.
^ Michael Palin idles through the Sunday Times, Eric Idle palins though John Cleese, though Graham Chapman isn't here because he's not wanted for shooting today.
^ Maybe that's because Cleese, Palin and Jones, along with Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and the late Graham Chapman, will never be allowed to forget their early triumph.
.^ Cleese met Terry Gilliam in New York when he performed there in Cambridge Circus , a revue based on Footlights, and when the illustrator moved to London, helped him to get television work.
^ The Footlights revue has often proved a valuable source of talent, and some BBC people thought Cleese had potential.
^ John Cleese and Graham Chapman met at Cambridge, where they played in Footlights.
.^ John Cleese and Graham Chapman met at Cambridge, where they played in Footlights.
^ Michael Palin idles through the Sunday Times, Eric Idle palins though John Cleese, though Graham Chapman isn't here because he's not wanted for shooting today.
^ Group member Graham Chapman: "Some time ago people from the BBC went over to the States with tapes in their briefcases but were rather embarrassed to show them.
During Idle's presidency of the Club,
feminist writer
Germaine Greer and broadcaster
Clive James were members.
.^ The Footlights revue has often proved a valuable source of talent, and some BBC people thought Cleese had potential.
^ Cleese met Terry Gilliam in New York when he performed there in Cambridge Circus , a revue based on Footlights, and when the illustrator moved to London, helped him to get television work.
^ John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle began their comedy work in revues at Cambridge, and Terry Jones and Michael Palin were writer-performers in the Cambridge cabarets.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
.^ Topical satire (along Frost lines) they also wanted to avoid, and they were equally averse to the way in which that series had been literally anchored by one performer/presenter.
.^ The Flying Circus was structured as a series of sketches, following in a long tradition which extended from the British music hall to the stage revues of Oxford and Cambridge to Spike Milligan's television shows Q5 through Q9 , all of which influenced Python's particular version of sketch comedy.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ Together the Python members created Monty Python's Flying Circus , an innovative comedy smash which ran on the BBC. The troupe's four seasons on television defined a particular comic style which came to be called "Pythonesque."- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ Get unlimited music for as low as $12.95 a month "" appears on the album, Monty Python Sings .- from Monty Python Sings by Monty Python on Napster — Play and download music by Monty Python without paying per song. 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC sms.napster.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
The Frost Report is credited as first uniting the British Pythons and providing an environment in which they could develop their particular styles:
.^ Chapman, Cleese and Idle were all members of the Footlights, which at that time also included the future Goodies —Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden—as well as Jonathan Lynn (co-writer of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister ).
^ I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (radio) (1964–1973) [Cleese: cast member & writer — Idle and Chapman: writers] The Frost Report (1966–1967) [Cleese: cast member & writer — Idle: writer of Frost's monologues — Chapman, Palin & Jones: writers] At Last the 1948 Show (1967) [Chapman & Cleese: writers & cast members — Idle: writer] Twice a Fortnight (1967) [Palin & Jones: cast members & writers] Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–1969) [Palin, Jones & Idle: cast members & writers — Gilliam: animation — Bonzo Dog Band: musical interludes] We Have Ways of Making You Laugh (1968) [Idle: cast member & writer — Gilliam: animation] How to Irritate People (1968) [Cleese & Chapman: cast members & writers — Palin: cast member] The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) [Palin & Jones: cast members & writers] Doctor in the House (1969) [Cleese & Chapman: writers] Several of these also featured other important British comedy writers or performers, or both, including Ronnie Corbett, Ronnie Barker, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie, Marty Feldman, Jonathan Lynn, David Jason and David Frost.
^ Notwithstanding Idle's lack of participation - the other five members (together with two "Associate Pythons" - Carol Cleveland and Neil Innes - all appeared together in the first Secret Policeman's Ball benefit - the 1976 A Poke In The Eye (With A Sharp Stick) performing several Python skits and in this first show, they were collectively billed as Monty Python .
.^ Animator Terry Gilliam's first TV hook-up with any of the team was on DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET, in which Palin, Idle and Jones also appeared.
^ Following the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set (originally intended to be a children's programme) with the adult demographic, ITV offered Palin, Jones, Idle and Gilliam their own series together.
^ Palin and Jones wrote together.
.^ At the same time Cleese and Chapman were offered a show by the BBC, having been impressed by their work on The Frost Report and At Last The 1948 Show .
^ Cleese was reluctant to do a two-man show for various reasons, including Chapman's supposedly difficult personality.
^ THE FROST REPORT was the first to involve John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle all at once - though, with the exception of Cleese, only as writers.
.^ Cleese was reluctant to do a two-man show for various reasons, including Chapman's supposedly difficult personality.
^ When Monty Python was first formed, two writing partnerships were already in place: Cleese and Chapman, Jones and Palin.
^ Forstater on the Pythons one at a time: "John is basically a lazy person and that's the reason he's leaving the show, John enjoys his leisure, he'll tell you that.
.^ John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle began their comedy work in revues at Cambridge, and Terry Jones and Michael Palin were writer-performers in the Cambridge cabarets.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ Cleese delivered copy for That Was The Week That Was (1963), then he and Chapman joined the Frost Report where they met Palin and Jones.
.^ In this version, it was Eric Idle who insisted that Gilliam should provide the graphics and animation.
^ Python animator Terry Gilliam and housewife-impersonator Terry Jones have been elected to direct the epic.
^ Another television show about the same time was Do Not Adjust Your Set, written by Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, with cartoons by Terry Gilliam.
.^ Together the Python members created Monty Python's Flying Circus , an innovative comedy smash which ran on the BBC. The troupe's four seasons on television defined a particular comic style which came to be called "Pythonesque."- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ The Python team has made one successful film (financed by Victor Lownes, who runs the London Playboy Club) and is working on another, to be called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ Sketchy Quotes The troupe Monty Python began as a collaborative effort among experienced comedy players.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
[8]
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Development of the series
.^ And then with the next series, they wanted to look at the shows before they went out.
^ This week they start work on the first custom built Monty Python film "Monty Python And The Search For The Holy Grail", and after that they'll be working on a new TV series for the Autumn.
^ The film will include John Cleese as Sir Lancelot, but Cleese has said he doesn't want to know about the next TV series.
.^ CRAZY PEOPLE, for instance, the radio show which was to become THE GOONS, was first broadcast 18 years pre-PYTHON. But even the Goons (Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe) and the Fringers (Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore) can't quite compare with the Pythons' success in almost every medium, from radio to records, from television to cinema, from print to performance - a success in no way diminished by the debt they undoubtedly owe not just to THE GOONS and BEYOND THE FRINGE, but to silent comedy and surrealism, the Theatre of the Absurd and the Marx Brothers.
^ And Peter Cook and Dudley Moore told me that when it had come out in England everyone had said they had not made the transition from the small screen - because in England they were known as TV people.
^ We'd seen Peter Cook and Dudley Moore doing so many great sketches where they traditionally had to end with a zinger.
They enjoyed Cook and Moore's sketch show
Not Only... But Also.
.^ The tangential quality of Python sketches contribute significantly to the adaptability of these lines.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ "In the States we had this probe that people thought Monty Python was just one man doing lots of funny voices.
^ It was the programme's slick inconsequentiality which really wowed the original audiences, the jumping from one sketch to "something completely different" by means of surrealistic linking devices.
.^ But by that time it was all set up and you've just got to carry on.
^ ARTHUR: Not at all, they could be carried.- Monty Python and the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.sacred-texts.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The Flying Circus was structured as a series of sketches, following in a long tradition which extended from the British music hall to the stage revues of Oxford and Cambridge to Spike Milligan's television shows Q5 through Q9 , all of which influenced Python's particular version of sketch comedy.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
.^ The clearest reference point for the Pythons was Goon show creator Spike Milligan's television series Q5.
^ The Flying Circus was structured as a series of sketches, following in a long tradition which extended from the British music hall to the stage revues of Oxford and Cambridge to Spike Milligan's television shows Q5 through Q9 , all of which influenced Python's particular version of sketch comedy.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ Spike Milligan should also take a share of the blame; it was his Q5 which freed the comedy format from an over-reliance upon skits with strictly regimented set-ups and punchlines.
.^ The Flying Circus was structured as a series of sketches, following in a long tradition which extended from the British music hall to the stage revues of Oxford and Cambridge to Spike Milligan's television shows Q5 through Q9 , all of which influenced Python's particular version of sketch comedy.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ Spike Milligan should also take a share of the blame; it was his Q5 which freed the comedy format from an over-reliance upon skits with strictly regimented set-ups and punchlines.
^ Miller asked: "How much of your fortune would you give to have strangers stop walking up to you on the street and asking you to do the silly walk?"
).
.^ For 30 years now, Monty Python has helped us look on the bright side of life Thirty years ago this weekend the Radio Times announced a new series from the BBC's Light Entertainment department.
^ But a Python insider said it is not clear exactly what new material was available.
^ It was not until 1975 that the Python troupe created a film of composed of original material done in the now familiar Pythonesque style.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
.^ Python animator Terry Gilliam and housewife-impersonator Terry Jones have been elected to direct the epic.
^ Instead, their mouths open and close as if hinged, resembling Gilliam's animated style more than the smooth motion of film.- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ Another television show about the same time was Do Not Adjust Your Set, written by Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, with cartoons by Terry Gilliam.
.^ Another one is Michael Palin saying: 'It's a bit runnier than you'll like it' about the Camembert in the 'Cheese Shop Sketch'.
^ He did a show [in which] one sketch would start and drift off into another; he made it so clear that we'd been writing in clichés, where we either did three minute sketches with a beginning, middle and end, or we did one joke with a blackout.
^ The cast would swing into a new sketch, delight you for a minute or two with some absurd comic conceit, then recycle the same joke over and over again.
.^ "We had the idea of a flow, one thing leading to another by association of ideas," says Terry Jones.
^ Interruptions of the normal sketch structure became the norm in Flying Circus .- Greg Smith, Greg M. Smith: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www2.gsu.edu [Source type: General]
^ Probably for reasons that have little to do with the comic talents of Cleese, Chapman, Palin, Jones and Idle.
Writing started at 9 am and finished at 5 pm.
.^ While the others arrange themselves in pairs (Chapman/Cleese, Jones/Palin), Idle chooses to write solo.
^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
^ John Cleese plays Sit Lancelot in the film and other parts are embraced lovingly by Graham Chapman (King Arthur), Mike Palin (Sir Galahad), Eric Idle (Sir Robin) and Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere).
.^ After a few of the inevitable raucous laughs and rude remarks there was silence as they looked critically at how the day had turned out.
^ If all the film villains got together - Freddy Krueger, Jason, the Joker, Jimmy Bond - you know they would pick The Humongous to be be their leader.- Mad Max Trilogy 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC minx.cc [Source type: General]
^ Apparently mechanical failure prevented both coupes appearing together at the All Ford Day, so for those who missed out, they are now pictured above...- Mad Max Movies 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC madmaxmovies.com [Source type: General]
Their approach to writing was democratic. If the majority found an idea humorous, it was included in the show.
.^ But I was fascinated a great deal of the time - since I was part of the process as well; I'm not suggesting I was standing in an Olympian way outside it - I was fascinated to see the way that friendships changed.
^ More coverage of Fury Road in today's papers, this time focusing on the casting, and the possibility of "non-Australians" landing the main roles.- Mad Max Movies 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC madmaxmovies.com [Source type: General]
^ Just to be up front with those who disagree with my view, Ive a Life Member of the National Rifle Association and Ive been an NRA member since 1964.
.^ When they were shooting the sketch, Cleese suddenly decided to add the goose step to show how the man must have been walking up the hill.
^ Journalists have used these phrases as a convenient shorthand, knowing they will be understood by readers - proof of how completely Python and its sketches have entered the national psyche.
^ At the time, I didn't like Terry Gilliam's animations, didn't think they fitted in, preferring the sketches, but now I find them charming.
.^ With half a dozen Python men credited as writers of the screenplay, I asked Chapman how the collaborative process worked?
^ Jump to: navigation , search And now for something completely different… Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974) was British sketch comedy television show .- Monty Python's Flying Circus - Wikiquote 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Although we worked in teams or individually, Python was collaborative, anarchic in the true sense, in that there was no one ruler.
.^ The man who speaks in anagrams (30) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ The man who speaks only the middles of words (26) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ Their writing was sharper on Python that it had previously been, almost certainly due to the creative tension between the two main writing factions - the Cambridge duo of Cleese and Chapman vs. Oxford team of Palin and Jones.
.^ John Cleese plays Sit Lancelot in the film and other parts are embraced lovingly by Graham Chapman (King Arthur), Mike Palin (Sir Galahad), Eric Idle (Sir Robin) and Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere).
^ But then don't we remember the BBC slicing up a sketch involving a man whose hobbies were strangling dogs and masturbating?
^ Python animator Terry Gilliam and housewife-impersonator Terry Jones have been elected to direct the epic.
.^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ Then someone came up with Monty Python's Flying Circus., and the name stuck.
^ It is not easy to recognise the zany star of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
.^ We finally decided on Bun, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot.
^ My personal favourite was The Toad Elevating Moment, which arose from Graham Chapman's fevered brain.
^ Owl Stretching Time [1.04] .- Monty Python's Flying Circus - Wikiquote 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
.^ In fact, the BBC had started calling it The Flying Circus .
^ Then someone came up with Monty Python's Flying Circus., and the name stuck.
^ We thought it might be Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus , because she was a name Michael had pulled out of a newspaper, and then somehow we went off it.
.^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ One more minute of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
.^ Then someone came up with Monty Python's Flying Circus., and the name stuck.
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus is the new late programme on Sunday night,' read the listing for 5th October 1969.
^ Another television show about the same time was Do Not Adjust Your Set, written by Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, with cartoons by Terry Gilliam.
.^ My boss at the time, an eccentric man by the name of Michael Mills, said: 'You're just like bloody Barry Von Richthoven and his Flying Circus.
^ Mike Palin suggested something along the lines of Elsie Parfitt's Flying Circus, named after the woman who played the piano at Southwold Women's Guild.
^ Then came Baron von Took's Flying Circus which mutated into Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus and thence...
.^ Mike Palin suggested something along the lines of Elsie Parfitt's Flying Circus, named after the woman who played the piano at Southwold Women's Guild.
^ In his book From Fringe To Flying Circus (the best on MPFC), Roger Wilmut has suggested that the Pythons "were perhaps the last people to benefit from Hugh Greene's influence at the BBC".
.^ "In the States we had this probe that people thought Monty Python was just one man doing lots of funny voices.
^ Funny, but you would have thought that these things would have been a BIG plot point in the original Mad Max.- Mad Max Trilogy 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC minx.cc [Source type: General]
^ JACK DEE I've always thought of Monty Python as the Beatles of comedy because they liberated it.
.^ The irreverent Monty Python comedy troupe present a series...- Monty Python: The 16 Ton Megaset - Sit On My Face! | SPIKE 2 February 2010 16:20 UTC www.spike.com [Source type: General]
^ Other people who want to be notified about Monty Python Spamalot tickets were also interested in the following events.- Monty Python Spamalot Schedule and Monty Python Spamalot Tickets 2 February 2010 17:19 UTC www.teamonetickets.com [Source type: General]
^ The Observer CultureShop, to 250 Western Avenue, London W3 6EE BIRTHDAY TRIBUTES Current comedy stars pay homage to Python Stewart Lee If Monty Python was made in the focus-group-driven climate of TV today, it would never get beyond the pilot, even on Channel 4.
.^ Then someone came up with Monty Python's Flying Circus., and the name stuck.
^ They threw in Monty Python as an afterthought, because it sounded like a bad theatrical agent.
^ Eric Idle decided we should have some name reminiscent of a seedy music hall entertainer, like Monty.
[10]
Style of the show
.^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
^ I rushed home and told my brother that after months we had finally got ourselves a title, Monty Python's Flying Circus.
^ This must-have set for any Python fan includes every episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus as well as the two-disc Monty Python Live performance!- Monty Python: The 16 Ton Megaset - Sit On My Face! | SPIKE 2 February 2010 16:20 UTC www.spike.com [Source type: General]
[11] .^ The only one who loves to play up to the Press, pull faces, jump up and down and make a fool of himself at the click of a camera shutter.
^ MONTY PYTHON SKETCHES FOUR YORKSHIREMAN SKETCH (Hawaiian music) Man#1 (Michael Palin) Aye!- Monty Python Quotes 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC homepage.tinet.ie [Source type: Original source]
On several occasions the cold open lasted until mid show, after which the regular opening titles ran.
.^ The BBC, however, begged for more, so the show continued, but only for six episodes rather than the usual 13 and with BBC2 as its new home.
^ To BBC men, too, the line was very familiar: radio producers on programmes like Today had used it for years to separate each item.
^ Python's reputation as a revolutionary comedy show usually hinges on the idea that it was Python that did away with the punchline.
On one occasion the credits ran directly after the opening titles.
.^ They had to cut it, and we had to wait around while they tried to get another camera, and for three days we had to use cameras not equipped for sound.
.^ "We'll be showing the less-often-seen things," says Dick Fiddy, who has programmed the season, "because there is a possibility that by the actual anniversary comes around, people will be fed up with the better-known sketches."
^ He did the silly walks sketch three-and-a-half years ago and has had to talk about it five times a day ever since.
^ The occasion was marked by an OMNIBUS tribute on BBC-2, accompanied by re-runs of some classic episodes featuring Silly Walks, the Spanish Inquisition, the Dead Parrot sketch and many other old favourites.
.^ Cut to knight in armour.- Monty Python's Flying Circus: Just the Words - Episode 6 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: Original source]
^ There was the well-dressed announcer; the knight with a chicken fetish; the Gumbies, complete with wellies and knotted hankies on their heads; comedy judges and lawyers; government officials; and Mr Praline (played by Cleese in a certain parrot sketch).
^ Before the play starts, I would like to apologize to you all, but unfortunately Miss Cicely Courtneidge is unable to appear, owing to...- Monty Python's Flying Circus: Just the Words - Episode 6 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: Original source]
Another innovative way of changing scenes was when
John Cleese, usually outfitted in a dinner suit, would come in as a radio commentator and say, "And now for something completely different."
.^ It was all set to the distinctive tune of John Philip Sousa's Liberty Bell .
^ Tags: 69 • a&e • cunnilingus • dvd • eric idle • fellation • graham chapman • john cleese • monty python • music Extras .- Monty Python: The 16 Ton Megaset - Sit On My Face! | SPIKE 2 February 2010 16:20 UTC www.spike.com [Source type: General]
^ The lights went down at 9pm to the rousing Flying Circus theme music, Sousa's Liberty Bell March .
[11]
.^ Apart from the films of Cleese and Gilliam, the former Pythons have not exactly been riding a wave of critical acclaim recently, perhaps because their style of comedy is not currently fashionable.
^ Python's reputation as the definitive surreal comedy show was also aided by Terry Gilliam's animation, a linking device which simply gave Python a stronger brand image than any other comedy show.
^ Indeed, it is not hard to trace elements of the Python style back even further, through The Goon Show and the rapid (often surreal) style of American radio shows broadcast on American Forces radio, back to The Marx Brothers.
Many of the images Gilliam used were lifted from famous works of art, and from
Victorian illustrations and
engravings.
.^ Terry Gilliam devised the delightfully daft opening title sequence featuring the words springing out of red roses, various naked ladies, a cardinal on wheels, a man's head being pumped up until it explodes and, of course, the soon to be famous giant foot, stolen from Bronzino's Cupid, which drops down at the end to the sound of a 'raspberry'.
This foot, and Gilliam's style in general, are visual trademarks of the series.
.^ Way before Eddie Izzard made cross-dressing cool as his executive transvestite, Python made it a topic of comedy.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.^ The Pythons were looking for someone to play the roles they couldn't play themselves.
^ Extras who utter less than 13 words are rewarded with 2 a day, and Python people - each of them playing a handful of roles - are reported to be working for zero...
^ Eric was saying you write very precisely and methodically, rather than spilling out.
.^ I would not let the younger ones watch one scene but over all, besides looks of fake blood and some language, it is pretty clean.- Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Movie Review 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.commonsensemedia.org [Source type: General]
These women were referred to as pepperpots.
.^ The Pythons were looking for someone to play the roles they couldn't play themselves.
^ Carol Cleveland ( actress who became the ensemble's token woman ) We didn't actually do a lot of rehearsal.
^ Carol Cleveland is the only woman in the team, a sort of thinking man's Barbara Windsor.
.^ Other people who want to be notified about Monty Python Spamalot tickets were also interested in the following events.- Monty Python Spamalot Schedule and Monty Python Spamalot Tickets 2 February 2010 17:19 UTC www.teamonetickets.com [Source type: General]
^ Extras who utter less than 13 words are rewarded with 2 a day, and Python people - each of them playing a handful of roles - are reported to be working for zero...
^ The Pythons were looking for someone to play the roles they couldn't play themselves.
Many sketches are well-known and widely quoted.
.^ Monty Python's Flying Circus: Graham Chapman's Personal Best - Colin Bomber Harris & Ministry of Silly Walks .- Monty Python: The 16 Ton Megaset - Sit On My Face! | SPIKE 2 February 2010 16:20 UTC www.spike.com [Source type: General]
^ Dead Parrots, Spam, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Ministry of Silly Walks await you.- Monty Python: The 16 Ton Megaset - Sit On My Face! | SPIKE 2 February 2010 16:20 UTC www.spike.com [Source type: General]
^ He did the silly walks sketch three-and-a-half years ago and has had to talk about it five times a day ever since.
The end of Flying Circus
.^ BBC2's return of the very first series of Monty Python's Flying Circus will give everyone the chance to find out.
^ By the end of the second series, John was bored, but we hadn't fallen out; he just wanted to do his own show.
^ BBC's anarchic series "Monty Python's Flying Circus," which over the past three-four years has become a merchandising hit in the bargain.
.^ When Cleese was offered his own show he asked the others to join him.
^ SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT It was 1969, we had got together as a team and starting writing sketches for a BBC series.
^ Their writing was sharper on Python that it had previously been, almost certainly due to the creative tension between the two main writing factions - the Cambridge duo of Cleese and Chapman vs. Oxford team of Palin and Jones.
[8] .^ The Government Accountability office findings are based on a statistical estimate of the number of people who could have passed through the entry points.
^ It seems to me that this is a list of great Monty Python sketches as written by someone who doesn't understand the finer points of some of their lesser known work.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.^ "John (Cleese) was quoted as saying that he's going to make sure there's a part for all the Pythons in his follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda .
^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
^ In the beginning, they would put us out at all these different times, and change it.
Why? I don't know. He gets bored more easily than the rest of us. He's a difficult man, not easy to be friendly with.
.^ "I don't think it'll ever be like it was at the beginning again - you'll never get that total concentration, but we'll just take it project by project and only do the things we really want to do."
^ But I do really like the Ministry of Funny Walks sketch because of its sheer absurdity.
^ With Python, it was never like that, because we were doing 13 shows at a time.
That gives him a certain fascinating, arrogant freedom."
[13]
.^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ Also, Monty Python never relay died.
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
.^ Cleese considers the script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail to be 'markedly different from anything we've ever done.
^ And one of the sketches began with a scene between King Arthur and some sentries on a wall...
^ Co-directing Monty Python and the Holy Grail was frustrating for Terry Gilliam, so it wasn't really surprising that he struck out on his own to direct Jabberwocky.
.^ The BBC, however, begged for more, so the show continued, but only for six episodes rather than the usual 13 and with BBC2 as its new home.
^ By the end of the first series, audiences of three million were enough to give them a second go, this time with a more stable time slot (albeit at 10pm when regional programming took over).
^ Three months later, Took was warming up the audience for the recording of the first episode of Monty Python, which aired on October 5.
.^ The United States Constitution first and foremost is a document that limits the power of the federal government.
^ It is generally agreed that the fourth series was the worst, yet the last ever programme, broadcast on December 5, 1974, was a belter.
^ PYTHON's fourth and final (Cleeseless) television series came to an end in 1974, the year of their first film "proper".
.^ Texas Station - Dallas Event Center .
He watched some, then acquired the entire series to put on the air.
[citation needed] The series was eventually aired on PBS stations across the country.
.^ The dull life of a City stockbroker (6) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ All This & 'Comedyworld' The show is into its first U.S. grind this summer via breakout sketch segments picked up for NBC's "Dean Martin's Comedyworld."
^ Broadcast, 12th June 1998, page 1 UNSEEN PYTHON TO AIR ON BBC The BBC is understood to be negotiating with the five surviving members of Monty Python for permission to show unseen sketches from the classic comedy series as part of a Python theme night, writes Jason Deans and Steve Clarke .
.^ "Python has saved the day many a time."
^ "People you expect to be interesting, just go winding on and on, and the whole procedure's such a waste of time."
^ For 30 years now, Monty Python has helped us look on the bright side of life Thirty years ago this weekend the Radio Times announced a new series from the BBC's Light Entertainment department.
[citation needed]
Life after the Flying Circus
Filmography
And Now For Something Completely Different (1971)
.^ Over there is Mark Forstater, Python's producer in the realm of feature-films.
^ The first Python film ran a slight profit and went well here and in Canada and Australia.
^ By way of revelation, Idle says he had a bit of a scare before the first Python series went out when he saw Spike Milligan's "Q.5".
.^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
^ The official Monty Python website: Python Online Monty Python's Words/Quotes/Full Scripts This website has the scripts of all 45 episodes from the original Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series .- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Last week, the first seven episodes of the first series of Python were released on video for the first time.
.^ Upper class twit of the year .- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ This is the best sketch Monty Python ever did.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Monty Python will continue the grinding, painful business of being funny.
The group did not consider the film a success.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
.^ It is generally agreed that the fourth series was the worst, yet the last ever programme, broadcast on December 5, 1974, was a belter.
^ The Monty Python team were on location making their second full-length feature film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the hotel was doubling as their production office.
^ So the first series was very much a fight between the Oxford contingent, if you like, trying to push this stream-of-consciousness into the thing, and the Cambridge group - they weren't against it, but they weren't particularly interested.
.^ Monty Python and the Holy Grail has two directors, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, and I talked with the former.
^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ Terry Gilliam, the cartoonist, co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Jones and built a career as a serious film director, with Time Bandits , 12 Monkeys and Brazil .
Again, the latter also contributed linking animations (and put together the opening credits).
.^ He said it was based on the King Arthur legend, and that a group of Python characters are told by God to search for the Holy Grail.
^ First, the show was filmed in colour, which makes it far more watchable now than the earlier black-and-white work of the Pythons-to-be.
^ This morning King Arthur (the lovely Graham Chapman) and his knights plan to exorcise the truculent beast who, alone, bards the way to The Holy Grail and a satisfactory conclusion to the film.
.^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ "The boys came to me and said: 'We've got this script; can we raise any money on it.'"# And raise money independently he did with finance from three record companies, a couple of pop groups - Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin - and theatre impresario, Michael White.
^ The rock/comedy parallel was echoed in the pairing of Pythonesque humour on DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SET with the music of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, and also by Eric Idle's film pastiche of the Beatles, The Rutles, the financial support for Monty Python And The Holy Grail given by "progressive" bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and by George Harrison's backing (through hi company Handmade Films), of Monty Python's Life Of Brian.
.^ "John (Cleese) was quoted as saying that he's going to make sure there's a part for all the Pythons in his follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda .
^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
^ The first film shown will be Mad Max, with Mad Max 2 being shown the following Thursday.- Mad Max Movies 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC madmaxmovies.com [Source type: General]
[14]
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
.^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ Then the team gathered for one final film.
^ He said it was based on the King Arthur legend, and that a group of Python characters are told by God to search for the Holy Grail.
.^ "Shut up and change your armour," replies the unhelpful King Arthur.
.^ He said it was based on the King Arthur legend, and that a group of Python characters are told by God to search for the Holy Grail.
^ This morning King Arthur (the lovely Graham Chapman) and his knights plan to exorcise the truculent beast who, alone, bards the way to The Holy Grail and a satisfactory conclusion to the film.
^ "But the film is an advance on our earlier work, and it's certainly a development on the last series, when we found it very difficult to write anything that seemed at all new to us."
.^ Users that register for Spike's wireless marketing services acknowledge, understand and agree that they will be charged by the user's wireless carrier for all messages sent to the user from Spike.- Monty Python LEGO | SPIKE 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.spike.com [Source type: General]
- Mad Max kills to Ace of Spades | SPIKE 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC www.spike.com [Source type: General]
.^ They're the ones who bring everyone down - and God knows why, since they have no interest in Python either way.
^ But I've only ever met two people who said they found writing was easy, and neither of them was very good.
Chapman was cast in the lead role of Brian.
The focus therefore shifted to a separate individual born at the same time, in a neighbouring stable.
.^ He is appearing in the new film, but does not intend to be part of the next Python television series planned for the autumn.
^ They are doomed to remain former Pythons first, actors, authors or film-makers second - even though what they achieved later was frequently much funnier than the sketches that made them famous.
The comedy begins when members of the crowd mishear his statements of peace, love and tolerance. ("I think he said, 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'")
.^ It will be spent writing with his wife, actress Connie Booth, and making industrial trading films on videotape, a form of filming he enjoys - "mainly because we do it in suits in warm offices.
^ First, the show was filmed in colour, which makes it far more watchable now than the earlier black-and-white work of the Pythons-to-be.
^ Apart from the films of Cleese and Gilliam, the former Pythons have not exactly been riding a wave of critical acclaim recently, perhaps because their style of comedy is not currently fashionable.
.^ Cleese considers the script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail to be 'markedly different from anything we've ever done.
^ CinemaTV Today, 4th May 1974, page 9 [A list of credits as Monty Python and the Holy Grail begins production.
^ The Monty Python team were on location making their second full-length feature film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and the hotel was doubling as their production office.
.^ It was Terry Gilliam's animations, curiously - which one remembered as the bread in the sandwich - that had weathered the years best.
^ Gilliam is one of the most original animators working in Britain today; Python wouldn't be the same without him.
^ Gilliam's animations, on the other hand, felt strangely timeless, as inventive as anything being produced today.
.^ Former Beatle George Harrison's Handmade Films stepped in and the project was revived.
^ Together they selected the locations for the film.
^ Don't miss the two rarely-seen 50 -minute specials made for German TV and shot on location.
He had a cameo role as the 'owner of the Mount.'
Despite its subject matter attracting controversy, particularly upon its initial release, it has (together with its predecessor) been ranked among the greatest comedy films.
.^ Jones, who will collect the award, directed five of the Monty films including the controversial The Life Of Brian and Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
^ What a load of knightly nonsense" Top left: Eric Idle, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman and Michael Palin on the trail of the Holy Grail.
[15]Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982)
.^ Python animator Terry Gilliam and housewife-impersonator Terry Jones have been elected to direct the epic.
^ The sketch is very funny, but it is more than routine comedy performed by professionals prepared to behave foolishly for the sake of entertaining the public.
^ Jones, who will collect the award, directed five of the Monty films including the controversial The Life Of Brian and Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
.^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ It is not easy to recognise the zany star of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
.^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus was indeed 'something completely different' and anyone around in the late 1960s or early 1970s will tell you just what an impact it had on this country, and later the world.
^ It is safe to say that Monty Python's Flying Circus went from a little known cult show to a fully fledged British institution in the space of 15 years.
.^ The film was basically a series of sketches which illustrated life as we know it, starting with birth, and ending with death, and covering most things in-between.
.^ However we describe them, most of the pre-PYTHON shows stand up well to reviewing today, and all of them reveal acorns from which Pythonesque oaks -or larches - were to grow.
^ Jones and Gilliam are co-directing, Innes has written the music and everybody has written the script.
^ Periodically, they revisited on screen some of the best and brightest moments in the prodigious Python repertoire, from Flying Circus sketches such as "The Undertaker" to clips from their biblical lampoon The Life of Brian .
The film is by far their darkest work, containing a great deal of
black humour, garnished by some spectacular violence (including an operation to remove a liver from a living patient without
anaesthetic and the morbidly obese Mr. Creosote exploding over several restaurant patrons).
.^ What Dennis Potter did for drama on TV, Monty Python did for comedy, at a time when everyone else was going down the Morecombe & Wise road.
^ Last week, the first seven episodes of the first series of Python were released on video for the first time.
.^ WOMAN: No one live there.- Monty Python and the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.sacred-texts.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It was the programme's slick inconsequentiality which really wowed the original audiences, the jumping from one sketch to "something completely different" by means of surrealistic linking devices.
^ At the time, I didn't like Terry Gilliam's animations, didn't think they fitted in, preferring the sketches, but now I find them charming.
.^ RIGHT HEAD: Oh, cut your own head off!- Monty Python and the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.sacred-texts.com [Source type: Original source]
(Television screenings also use it as a prologue.)
.^ In the beginning, they would put us out at all these different times, and change it.
^ "I felt a bit embarrassed to be going on and doing the dead parrot sketch again, but people definitely seem to like seeing things they know again."
^ The full complement played the Hollywood Bowl for four nights in 1980, and were last together in the same room for the recording of Steve Martin's introduction to the twentieth anniversary compilation, Parrot Sketch Not Included .
.^ Last week, the first seven episodes of the first series of Python were released on video for the first time.
^ In 1989, the sixth Python, Graham Chapman, died, and the others vowed separately they would never work as a team again.
^ Last year, however, the remaining Pythons met for the first time since 1983 to rediscover their old friendship: tentative plans were drawn up for a reunion tour, which would be announced at the dummy run in Aspen.
The Secret Policeman's Ball benefit shows
.^ Neil Innes (music) is part-time Python, ex-member of The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
The cause that has been the most frequent and consistent beneficiary has been the
human rights work of
Amnesty International.
.^ It was a lengthy sketch-by- sketch breakdown of every episode, detailing exactly where every sketch was then available to buy (videos, records, films, Secret Policeman's Balls, etc), and was accompanied by a beautiful colour snap of Graham Chapman in a waiting room from 'Michael Ellis'.
^ There were books, records, films and tours as well as the 45 TV programmes.
^ "Well, we've been working on the film quite a lot and in the last three or four months most of our time has gone into the stage shows in Canada and Drury Lane.
.^ In his farewell address to the nation as President, he stated that we should have trade and commerce with other nations, & not involve ourselves in their politics or wars.
^ The British-born members all wound up in one or the other (with Terry Gilliam going to Occidental College, California - but later becoming an honorary member of Oxford).
^ Many members of Congress and other Washington D.C. politicians and multi-national corporations made billions of dollars in the deal that wrote off our 800 live POWs.
.^ Extras who utter less than 13 words are rewarded with 2 a day, and Python people - each of them playing a handful of roles - are reported to be working for zero...
^ It seems to me that this is a list of great Monty Python sketches as written by someone who doesn't understand the finer points of some of their lesser known work.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ And their support was enough to convince the BBC that, despite its own reservations, Monty Python should not be grounded.
.^ Idle also got two runs for his RUTLAND WEEKEND TELEVISION (in 1975 and 1976) as well as a one-off success with THE RUTLES in 1978.
.^ The first entry is:] MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS BBC 46x30 minutes Four seasons and one special 1969-74 Conceived, written and performed by (seasons in brackets) Graham Chapman John Cleese (One-Three) Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin and featuring Carol Cleveland Connie Booth (One-Three) Neil Innes (Four) "Dear Sir, I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the song which you have just broadcast, about the lumberjack who wears women's clothes.
^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
^ John Cleese plays Sit Lancelot in the film and other parts are embraced lovingly by Graham Chapman (King Arthur), Mike Palin (Sir Galahad), Eric Idle (Sir Robin) and Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere).
Idle did not participate in the Amnesty shows.
.^ A 50th birthday gift, it depicts Cleveland as an extravagantly-coiffed, voluptuous barrage-balloon supporting a foot-shaped basket containing the other six Pythons.
^ I'd like to think that the more insane breed of Python fan will one day realise that we are all individuals and perhaps stop reciting sketches word for word.
^ The British-born members all wound up in one or the other (with Terry Gilliam going to Occidental College, California - but later becoming an honorary member of Oxford).
.^ Monty Python were the first to start this trend.
^ With the first and second series, nobody ever looked at the shows or anything until they went out.
^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
(
Peter Cook deputised for the errant Idle in one major sketch
The Courtroom.)
.^ Not actually a Python sketch, more a sketch that the Pythons performed in live shows.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Python was a satire on mankind, rather than on individuals or individual ideas."
^ I'd like to think that the more insane breed of Python fan will one day realise that we are all individuals and perhaps stop reciting sketches word for word.
.^ When we started out we developed for a couple of years, and then I think we sat and worked out the other variations without progressing.
^ It's an "At Last The 1948 Show" sketch performed by Python on some of their live albums and Secret Policeman's Ball...- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Sometimes I would say something in total seriousness and people would break out laughing.- Mad Max 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC www.cs.wcupa.edu [Source type: Original source]
.^ Extras who utter less than 13 words are rewarded with 2 a day, and Python people - each of them playing a handful of roles - are reported to be working for zero...
^ I suppose in the last five years of Python I have worked many more weekends than I've had off.
^ It lays a lot of weight on producing jewelry featuring newer, exceptional designs.It has been reported that silver tiffany & co was regularly melted to oxidization are general accessories.- Mad Max Trilogy 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC minx.cc [Source type: General]
.^ Apart from the films of Cleese and Gilliam, the former Pythons have not exactly been riding a wave of critical acclaim recently, perhaps because their style of comedy is not currently fashionable.
^ Innes showed considerable initiative in the Pythons' goal by moving the goalposts until they were no more than two feet apart.
^ The jurors have created a special award in recognition of the legendary comedy troupe founded by John Cleese, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.
)
Going solo
.^ The Python team has made one successful film (financed by Victor Lownes, who runs the London Playboy Club) and is working on another, to be called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ In recent years, she has continued to appear in the theatre but television work, aside from a few commercials, has dried up.
^ What made Python great was the tension between one team that wanted to break all the comedic conventions and another that wanted to understand those conventions so well that they could produce great work within them.
.^ He was Robin Hood in Time Bandits (180), a loony army officer in Privates on Parade (1982), the sheriff in Hollywood's Silverado (1985), a panic-stricken headmaster in Clockwise (1985) and a stripping barrister in A Fish Called Wanda (1988) in which he starred alongside Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline.
^ "John (Cleese) was quoted as saying that he's going to make sure there's a part for all the Pythons in his follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda .
^ Michael Palin's play The Weekend has opened in the West End; he'll appear in a new Channel 4 series Palin's Column later this month and he'll co-star in a sequel to A Fish Called Wanda this year.
.^ Palin and Jones wrote together.
^ Apparently mechanical failure prevented both coupes appearing together at the All Ford Day, so for those who missed out, they are now pictured above...- Mad Max Movies 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC madmaxmovies.com [Source type: General]
^ Despite this, Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones are back together.
.^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
^ He wrote, with Terry Jones, and starred in Ripping Yarns for BBC Television in the late 1970s and enjoyed a string of roles in films like Jabberwocky (1977, which he co-wrote), Brazil (1985), The Missionary (1981), A Private Function (1984), A Fish Called Wanda (1988) and American Friends (1991).
^ Making the Adventures of Baron Munchausen was even tougher and the movie flopped.
.^ All these computers are connected, connected, connected to one another, communicating with one another.- Mad Max 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC www.cs.wcupa.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The most brain-scarring Python story of all time involves not a droplet of excrement, not so much as one single sliver of animal remains.
^ Egypt, Jordan and the Saudis, all on our payroll in one way or another (Someday, these countries will turn on us.
.^ Palin and Jones wrote together.
^ He wrote, with Terry Jones, and starred in Ripping Yarns for BBC Television in the late 1970s and enjoyed a string of roles in films like Jabberwocky (1977, which he co-wrote), Brazil (1985), The Missionary (1981), A Private Function (1984), A Fish Called Wanda (1988) and American Friends (1991).
^ Jones and Palin delivered Ripping Yarns, and although Jones argues that "nobody had ever done anything like that before", the stories harked back to the kind of Boys' Own Britishness that is currently providing Harry Enfield with so much mileage.
.^ Palin was a keen actor and, like Jones, he loved to write what he performed.
^ SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT It was 1969, we had got together as a team and starting writing sketches for a BBC series.
^ John Cleese plays Sit Lancelot in the film and other parts are embraced lovingly by Graham Chapman (King Arthur), Mike Palin (Sir Galahad), Eric Idle (Sir Robin) and Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere).
.^ The company has done one short flight series a year since the "Python" format incepted, and this fall it will be in production with another BBC mini-series (six segs), but minus the "star" presence of Cleese.
^ Cleese, of course, has appeared briefly in sundry previous cinema films: The Statue, The Best House In London, Interlude among them.
^ He is appearing in the new film, but does not intend to be part of the next Python television series planned for the autumn.
[16] .^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
^ It will be spent writing with his wife, actress Connie Booth, and making industrial trading films on videotape, a form of filming he enjoys - "mainly because we do it in suits in warm offices.
^ John Cleese sharpened a gallery of classic English types into the turbo sitcom of Fawlty Towers, and brought Ealing to Docklands with A Fish Called Wanda.
.^ The official Monty Python website: Python Online Monty Python's Words/Quotes/Full Scripts This website has the scripts of all 45 episodes from the original Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series .- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus is the new late programme on Sunday night,' read the listing for 5th October 1969.
^ TV SERIES When the film is finished, the Python Circus goes back into the TV studios to start another series.
.^ BBC2's return of the very first series of Monty Python's Flying Circus will give everyone the chance to find out.
^ This Anniversary Special marks the day that Monty Python made its sparkling debut on television when the very first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
.^ Came out in the mid 80's.- Mad Max Trilogy 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC minx.cc [Source type: General]
^ Idle also got two runs for his RUTLAND WEEKEND TELEVISION (in 1975 and 1976) as well as a one-off success with THE RUTLES in 1978.
^ Eric Idle went straight from Python to his weekly BBC2 parody Rutland Weekend Television with Neil Innes.
.^ The best Python song, barring perhaps Always Look On The Bright Side of Life , The Lumberjack Song is both eminently hum-able and achingly funny.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ For 30 years now, Monty Python has helped us look on the bright side of life Thirty years ago this weekend the Radio Times announced a new series from the BBC's Light Entertainment department.
^ Loony: Cleese looks more like a banker than the loony comedian he is and the conventional appearance of the Python troupe is an important element of its success.
.^ To BBC men, too, the line was very familiar: radio producers on programmes like Today had used it for years to separate each item.
^ BUT ALSO (recently revived on BBC-2 after more than 25 years) and THE GOONS, which they did not contribute.
.^ Loony: Cleese looks more like a banker than the loony comedian he is and the conventional appearance of the Python troupe is an important element of its success.
^ The Guardian, Section Two, 12th May 1994, pages 8-9 The Pythons were, quite possibly, the most inventive comic troupe ever.
^ Eric Idle has appeared in a mixed bag of films, with Nuns on the Run and Casper, the Friendly Ghost the most successful.
.^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ This week they start work on the first custom built Monty Python film "Monty Python And The Search For The Holy Grail", and after that they'll be working on a new TV series for the Autumn.
^ Jones, who will collect the award, directed five of the Monty films including the controversial The Life Of Brian and Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
Written by Idle, it has proved an enormous hit on Broadway, London's West End and also Las Vegas.
[citation needed] This was followed by
Not the Messiah, which repurposes
The Life of Brian as an
oratorio. For the work's 2007 premiere at the
Luminato festival in
Toronto (which commissioned the work), Idle himself sang the "baritone-ish" part.
Post-Python reunions
.^ Last year, however, the remaining Pythons met for the first time since 1983 to rediscover their old friendship: tentative plans were drawn up for a reunion tour, which would be announced at the dummy run in Aspen.
^ Now 58, he appeared frustrated that, 15 years after the Pythons' last film, The meaning of Life , their worldwide following of fans refuses to accept that they are an ex-team of comedians, that they have met their maker, that they have joined the Choir Invisible.
^ Monty Python gives meaning to life, they are the greatest people alive, thank you for your wisdom.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.^ This is the best sketch Monty Python ever did.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Scripts from the Monty Python sketches .- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
.^ He died of throat cancer in 1989 on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Python.
^ With the death of Graham Chapman almost a decade ago, there can never be a complete Python reunion again - let alone another film.
.^ Basically, there are five or six of us putting it together, all tending to share the same ideas.
.^ The ashes supposedly belong to Graham Chapman, the wildest Python, who died in 1989 but was bought along when the team reunited in public for the very first time in 17 years at a comedy festival at the weekend.
^ He did the silly walks sketch three-and-a-half years ago and has had to talk about it five times a day ever since.
^ When the team was presented with an honorary American Film Institute Star award for its significant and enduring influence in film and television, Cleese stepped to centre-stage with the award and faced the audience with a thin smile.
.^ In its satirical, sinister and sadistic sketches, the show communicates a special form of relief from the onslaught of the gloomy news that has inflicted itself upon the British media - and the British people.
^ Some of the sketches have dated, and some have been so much imitated that they now look like clichés, but it is interesting to see how the material stands up, so to speak.
^ Some of the sketches that we refined worked better, others worked worse.
.^ One more thing: As Huey Newton said, An unarmed people are slaves or are subject to slavery at any given moment .
.^ It's full of old men coughing and struggling into mediaeval pantyhose and a sour make-up girl who keeps slipping me dirty looks.
A significant amount of the ashes were brushed under the rug.
.^ Monty Python's Flying Circus is the new late programme on Sunday night,' read the listing for 5th October 1969.
^ And why Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2) still makes him laugh.
^ Monty Python were the first to start this trend.
.^ A few years later, when there were problems financing Life Of Brian , the Pythons considered using the two German shows as the basis of a film.
.^ Their innovation stemmed from the experience of the members, who "had done just enough comedy to be fed up with all the comic conventions of the time".
^ He did the silly walks sketch three-and-a-half years ago and has had to talk about it five times a day ever since.
^ I'd like to think that the more insane breed of Python fan will one day realise that we are all individuals and perhaps stop reciting sketches word for word.
.^ The best Python song, barring perhaps Always Look On The Bright Side of Life , The Lumberjack Song is both eminently hum-able and achingly funny.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ "Lumberjack Song (George Harrison Version)" .- from Monty Python Sings by Monty Python on Napster — Play and download music by Monty Python without paying per song. 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC sms.napster.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ "Sit On My Face (Monty Python Sings)" .- from Monty Python Sings by Monty Python on Napster — Play and download music by Monty Python without paying per song. 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC sms.napster.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
The reunion also included regular supporting contributors
Neil Innes and
Carol Cleveland, with a special appearance from
Tom Hanks.
In an interview to publicise the DVD release of
The Meaning of Life, Cleese said a further reunion was unlikely.
.^ Cleese said: "The trouble with a film is that we would have to get together for six to eight months to write it."
^ "I'm sure we'll make a whole lot of bad taste jokes about Graham Chapman being dead," said Cleese, with a naughty smile.
^ We had dinner together quite recently, all of us except Eric, and we all said afterwards we don't really laugh with anyone else the way we laugh together.
.^ I am not sure that is strictly true, but creating humour does tend to be a rather more serious business than the general public is inclined to think.
[17] A sketch appears on the same DVD spoofing the impossibility of a full reunion, bringing the members “together” in a deliberately unconvincing fashion with modern bluescreen/greenscreen techniques.
The Pythons on the
Meaning of Life DVD, using special effects to have a reunion...but not very seriously
.^ Former Beatle George Harrison's Handmade Films stepped in and the project was revived.
^ The Courier and Advertiser, 8th May 1974 [With great picture of the Pythons (Idle, Innes, Palin and Cleese) lounging about in Doune Castle.
When asked in November 1989 about such a possibility, Harrison responded: "As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as
John Lennon remains dead." Idle's version of this was that he expected to see a proper Python reunion, "just as soon as Graham Chapman comes back from the dead", but added, "we're talking to his agent about terms."
[citation needed]
.^ From Monty Python's The Quest for the Holy Grail , this mini-plush stands 7-inches tall and features velcro assisted dismemberment.- Monty Python @ The Entertainment Memorabilia Superstore 2 February 2010 16:20 UTC www.stevescollectibles.com [Source type: General]
^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ Cleese considers the script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail to be 'markedly different from anything we've ever done.
.^ Cleese agrees that it could imply a deprivation of the spirit, but in the case of the Python lot he feels that the 'team' is usefully integrated nevertheless.
^ Cleese wishes them well, but doesn't hold with pretentious talk about the intellectual significance of Python and the great "breakthrough" it has made in comedy.
^ Forstater on the Pythons one at a time: "John is basically a lazy person and that's the reason he's leaving the show, John enjoys his leisure, he'll tell you that.
.^ The six regulars of the Monty Python gang have collaborated in writing and performing their second cinema film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which according to the advance blurb 'makes Ben-Hur look like an epic'.
^ Jones, who will collect the award, directed five of the Monty films including the controversial The Life Of Brian and Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
^ A few years later, when there were problems financing Life Of Brian , the Pythons considered using the two German shows as the basis of a film.
)
.^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ Jones was most taken, Cleese least so.
^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
.^ But a Python insider said it is not clear exactly what new material was available.
^ They'd colonised publishing ( The Brand New Monty Python Papperbok et al) and records ( The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief etc).
^ But we will be doing new material, perhaps bringing in something more current.
This idea had also hit the buffers at Cleese's refusal, this time with the backing of other members.
The members have continued to appear in each other's films.
.^ Eric Idle We had all worked together as writers and actors.
^ [Photos accompanying the main article include: a picture of the knights laughing between takes; a grid featuring nine faces from the film (Jones, Chapman, Gilliam, Innes, Palin, Cleese, Mark Forstater, Idle, and Andrew Tyler, "freelance journalist of this parish"); the two Terrys directing; Cleese playing football in full Lancelot gear; Idle and Innes with a guitar; and the knights marching in long shot.
^ "John (Cleese) was quoted as saying that he's going to make sure there's a part for all the Pythons in his follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda .
.^ Extras who utter less than 13 words are rewarded with 2 a day, and Python people - each of them playing a handful of roles - are reported to be working for zero...
^ "John (Cleese) was quoted as saying that he's going to make sure there's a part for all the Pythons in his follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda .
^ Python animator Terry Gilliam and housewife-impersonator Terry Jones have been elected to direct the epic.
.^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
^ John Cleese plays Sit Lancelot in the film and other parts are embraced lovingly by Graham Chapman (King Arthur), Mike Palin (Sir Galahad), Eric Idle (Sir Robin) and Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere).
^ Cleese, of course, has appeared briefly in sundry previous cinema films: The Statue, The Best House In London, Interlude among them.
.^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ The Python team has made one successful film (financed by Victor Lownes, who runs the London Playboy Club) and is working on another, to be called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ Cleese considers the script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail to be 'markedly different from anything we've ever done.
.^ A Python stage show will visit London, New York and Los Angeles (at the least) in the autumn of 1999.
^ Broadway Theatre-New York .
^ Basketball City New York (New York, NY) .
.^ Mike Palin suggested something along the lines of Elsie Parfitt's Flying Circus, named after the woman who played the piano at Southwold Women's Guild.
^ Mike and I were usually the people who could play each other's parts.
.^ John Cleese plays Sit Lancelot in the film and other parts are embraced lovingly by Graham Chapman (King Arthur), Mike Palin (Sir Galahad), Eric Idle (Sir Robin) and Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere).
^ John Cleese and Graham Chapman met at Cambridge, where they played in Footlights.
.^ Inspired by Monty Python's Flying Circus, this keychain is truly one of a kind!- Monty Python @ The Entertainment Memorabilia Superstore 2 February 2010 16:20 UTC www.stevescollectibles.com [Source type: General]
^ This is the best sketch Monty Python ever did.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ It is not easy to recognise the zany star of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
.^ The best Python song, barring perhaps Always Look On The Bright Side of Life , The Lumberjack Song is both eminently hum-able and achingly funny.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ John Cleese, 58, Eric Idle, 54, Terry Jones, 56, Gilliam, 58, and Palin driven to the Wheeler Opera House in a fleet of stretch limousines and reminisced to a packed house for two hours, with screenings of the Lumberjack Song and the Fish-Slapping Dance, and a soulful rendition of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from the film The Life of Brian .
^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
.^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
^ Last week, the first seven episodes of the first series of Python were released on video for the first time.
.^ Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin were at Oxford, and featured in the university's revues.
^ Maybe that's because Cleese, Palin and Jones, along with Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and the late Graham Chapman, will never be allowed to forget their early triumph.
^ John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Eric Idle have in principle given their backing to the project, due to air on BBC 2 in autumn 1999, the 30th anniversary of the first series of Monty Python's Flying Circus .
.^ New York Comic-Con 2009 .- Mad Max 4: Fury Road: Movies: UGO 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC movieblog.ugo.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ This Anniversary Special marks the day that Monty Python made its sparkling debut on television when the very first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Monty Python went on, of course, to become as big as the Beatles in the States, prefiguring the cliché of the century that comedy is the new rock 'n' roll.
[20]
The Pythons
.^ John, Graham Chapman and Eric were the Cambridge team.
^ John Cleese and Graham Chapman met at Cambridge, where they played in Footlights.
^ Both got involved in the Footlights theatre club there, and after experiencing some success in the areas of performing and writing, Cleese decided he didn't want to be a lawyer and Chapman gave up a promising medical career.
He completed his medical training and was legally entitled to practise as a doctor.
.^ Graham Chapman (King Arthur) is the quietest, except when he has had a lot.
^ ARTHUR: Look, you're a busy man, uh-- TIM: Yes, I can help you find the Holy Grail.- Monty Python and the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.sacred-texts.com [Source type: Original source]
^ That is your purpose, Arthur -- the Quest for the Holy Grail.- Monty Python and the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.sacred-texts.com [Source type: Original source]
Chapman appeared in films such as
The Odd Job (which he also produced) and
Yellowbeard (which he co-wrote), also making an appearances on
Saturday Night Live in 1982. He died of spinal and throat
cancer on 4 October 1989. He is now lovingly referred to by the surviving Pythons as "the dead one." At Chapman's memorial service, Cleese delivered the irreverent speech he felt his co-writer would have wanted: after declaring "Good riddance to the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries!", he announced that, having been the first person to say “shit” on British television, Chapman would never have forgiven him had he missed the opportunity to become “the first person ever at a British memorial service to say 'fuck'.” In an XM radio interview, Cleese later explained that he was originally planning on doing a serious speech but he could imagine his friend being disgusted at what he was writing.
.^ Until now, Python had really made no real inroad into American television.
^ When we finally came up with Monty Python it made everyone laugh for about five minutes.
.^ "I'm sure we'll make a whole lot of bad taste jokes about Graham Chapman being dead," said Cleese, with a naughty smile.
^ I'd like to think that the more insane breed of Python fan will one day realise that we are all individuals and perhaps stop reciting sketches word for word.
^ One notable sketch, involving a certain dead parrot nailed to its roost, starts halfway through the show, but doesn't finish until the encore.
.^ Michael Palin idles through the Sunday Times, Eric Idle palins though John Cleese, though Graham Chapman isn't here because he's not wanted for shooting today.
^ If so, it was appropriate that hard on the heels of his return to Caernarvon Castle to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his installation as the (Welsh Nats please note) traditionally English figurehead of the Principality, that the Beeb should be reshowing, 25 years after its debut, the brief oeuvre of Monty P. The understanding by John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Graham Chapman that brevity is the soul of wit and that they should not outstay their welcome, gives this revival a marvellous freshness.
^ John Cleese plays Sit Lancelot in the film and other parts are embraced lovingly by Graham Chapman (King Arthur), Mike Palin (Sir Galahad), Eric Idle (Sir Robin) and Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere).
.^ "John (Cleese) was quoted as saying that he's going to make sure there's a part for all the Pythons in his follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda .
^ And why Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2) still makes him laugh.
^ John Cleese was born in Weston-Super-Mare in the second month of the War and his ancestry is replete with solicitors, insurance men, and auctioneers.
.^ During World War II, small zeppelin-type balloons were used by the U.S. military to patrol enormous amounts of U.S. coastal areas in a short period of time.
.^ The idea developed from notions shared by Cleese and Graham Chapman.
^ John Cleese plays Sit Lancelot in the film and other parts are embraced lovingly by Graham Chapman (King Arthur), Mike Palin (Sir Galahad), Eric Idle (Sir Robin) and Terry Jones (Sir Bedevere).
^ I wondered if his Python work, whether writing or performing, served incidentally to get something out of his system that needs to be gotten out.
.^ It will be spent writing with his wife, actress Connie Booth, and making industrial trading films on videotape, a form of filming he enjoys - "mainly because we do it in suits in warm offices.
^ Everyone knows that John Cleese scored a big hit with his 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers (he based Basil on a real hotelier the Pythons had once encountered).
^ The most brain-scarring Python story of all time involves not a droplet of excrement, not so much as one single sliver of animal remains.
.^ Apart from the films of Cleese and Gilliam, the former Pythons have not exactly been riding a wave of critical acclaim recently, perhaps because their style of comedy is not currently fashionable.
^ I did the same to one of the earlier James Bond films.- Mad Max Trilogy 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC minx.cc [Source type: General]
.^ He was Robin Hood in Time Bandits (180), a loony army officer in Privates on Parade (1982), the sheriff in Hollywood's Silverado (1985), a panic-stricken headmaster in Clockwise (1985) and a stripping barrister in A Fish Called Wanda (1988) in which he starred alongside Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline.
^ "John (Cleese) was quoted as saying that he's going to make sure there's a part for all the Pythons in his follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda .
^ 'When I went into the film of It's a 2' 6" Above-the-Ground World, in which I was very bad, it was a long time since I worked on my own, out of the context of a team.
.^ Terry Gilliam (co-director) does the animation and is American as well.
^ It was Terry Gilliam's animations, curiously - which one remembered as the bread in the sandwich - that had weathered the years best.
^ Monty Python and the Holy Grail has two directors, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, and I talked with the former.
[21] .^ The February 2004 issue of Petit garage (Japanese model magazine) features an article on Back 2 The Max / LAST-V8 on pages 60 & 61.- Mad Max Movies 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC madmaxmovies.com [Source type: General]
^ An upcoming issue of the magazine will be featuring an article on Mark's Blown Interceptor .- Mad Max Movies 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC madmaxmovies.com [Source type: General]
^ Cleese: "Talking of Terry Gilliam, do you realise he only ever says one of two things: 'I really like that' or 'that really pisses me off.'"
.^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ One more minute of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ It is not easy to recognise the zany star of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
.^ Jones, who will collect the award, directed five of the Monty films including the controversial The Life Of Brian and Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ The Python team has made one successful film (financed by Victor Lownes, who runs the London Playboy Club) and is working on another, to be called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
.^ Terry Gilliam, the cartoonist, co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Jones and built a career as a serious film director, with Time Bandits , 12 Monkeys and Brazil .
^ Supported by Universal, the rather ambitiously titled Meaning of Life again saw Jones in the director's chair, although Gilliam contributed the prologue.
^ Though inseparable from the essence of Python, if you consider him solely as the maker of Time Bandits, Brazil and The Fisher King, there seems no reason why he hasn't been loudly hailed as a rule-breaking film-maker touched with genius.
Eric Idle was born on 29 March 1943 in
South Shields,
Tyne and Wear, England.
.^ Monty Python were the first to start this trend.
^ Python Periphery will include programmes such as the two BBC documentaries on Python first shown in the 1970s, the second German Monty Python special (the first was recently shown on the BBC), the spoof travelogue shorts that accompanied the Python movies, the pre-Python shows such as At Last The 1948 Show (which featured Cleese and Chapman) and The Complete And Utter History of Britain (with Palin and Jones).
^ THE FROST REPORT was the first to involve John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle all at once - though, with the exception of Cleese, only as writers.
That left two in their own corners: Gilliam, operating solo due to the nature of his work, and Idle. Regular themes in his contributions were elaborate wordplay and musical numbers.
.^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus is the new late programme on Sunday night,' read the listing for 5th October 1969.
^ Mail On Sunday, Night & Day magazine, 10th July 1994, page 29 By Hunter Davies: Goodness, is it really 25 years since the first Monty Python's Flying Circus?
.^ The Python team has made one successful film (financed by Victor Lownes, who runs the London Playboy Club) and is working on another, to be called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ It is safe to say that Monty Python's Flying Circus went from a little known cult show to a fully fledged British institution in the space of 15 years.
^ Evening Standard, 1st July 1994, page 31 [The picture, of the Pythons looking depressed it seems, not included] By Geoffrey Phillips.
.^ No writer credited] THE ARTS NEW MONTY PYTHON FILM Monty Python are to make their second feature film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ He said it was based on the King Arthur legend, and that a group of Python characters are told by God to search for the Holy Grail.
.^ Python's roots included John Cleese and Graham Chapman's collaborations on At Last, The 1948 Show; Do Not Adjust Your Set and sundry contributions to The Frost Report.
Together with
Lynn Ahrens and
Stephen Flaherty he conceived
Seussical. He also wrote
Not the Messiah, an oratorio derived from the
Life of Brian.
.^ He also played Ko-Ko in Jonathan Miller's production of the Mikado and sang the theme tune to One Foot In The Grave.
Terry Jones was born on 1 February 1942 in
Colwyn Bay,
Conwy,
Wales.
.^ Meanwhile, the other members of the team are preparing a TV series without him.
^ Most of the other members of the team come from the same sort of strata, and their feelings were probably best expressed by the "Twit of the Year Contest", another famous Python sketch.
^ Taglines include:] AND NOW! AT LAST! ANOTHER FILM COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM SOME IF THE OTHER FILMS WHICH AREN'T QUITE THE SAME AS THIS ONE IS From the team that brought you breakfast!
Recent Python literature has highlighted his lead role in maintaining the group's unity and creative independence.
.^ But, even if I were to grant you that Max is the reincarnation of that unfortunate recluse, why should we grant him this robot-body, given that he has threatened us with harm?- Mad Max 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC www.cs.wcupa.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ To tell you the truth, I'm really somewhat pissed-off because I feel my age, and with my experience, this should be my time."
in a moment you will find yourself hopelessly out of your depth, floored by his knowledge."
.^ Jones the Serious and Gilliam the Good-Natured goof with Quinn the Eskimo features and a boundless capacity to accommodate Eric Idle's rancid put-downs.
.^ Cleese The great joy of the group was that we made each other laugh immoderately .
^ Despite this, Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones are back together.
^ While the others arrange themselves in pairs (Chapman/Cleese, Jones/Palin), Idle chooses to write solo.
.^ Actor Ted Danson was sitting in the fifth row, along with other cast members from his old show, Cheers .
^ Python animator Terry Gilliam and housewife-impersonator Terry Jones have been elected to direct the epic.
^ Jones, who will collect the award, directed five of the Monty films including the controversial The Life Of Brian and Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
.^ It's not all that surprising that Thatcher should deliver Cleese's lines well; there are unnerving similarities between classic Python style and that of political oratory.
^ However we describe them, most of the pre-PYTHON shows stand up well to reviewing today, and all of them reveal acorns from which Pythonesque oaks -or larches - were to grow.
^ And this may not be unconnected to the fact that television was always one of the Pythons' main targets, while cinematic conventions have remained (by and large) untouched by their films, except obviously for the utterly brilliant cinema short Away From It All released to support Life Of Brian.
[22][23] .^ Since the mid-Seventies, some of that savagery seems to have been replaced by a softer parodic tone - through this is more evident in the individual Pythons' own subsequent TV series than it is in the films, and particularly Life Of Brian.
^ The point about Python is that they began a style of TV humour, so looking at them now, we can see where we've been, and see what's come out of them since.
He was diagnosed with bowel cancer in October 2006, undergoing a successful operation to remove it weeks later.
[24]
.^ Michael Palin, the son of an engineer from Sheffield, went to Oxford to read history.
.^ Their writing was sharper on Python that it had previously been, almost certainly due to the creative tension between the two main writing factions - the Cambridge duo of Cleese and Chapman vs. Oxford team of Palin and Jones.
^ Two weeks earlier the team had met for the first time, after a recording of Do Not Adjust Your Set (which starred Idle, Palin and Jones, along with David Jason and Denise Coffey).
^ They split up to write material - Chapman and Cleese, Jones and Palin, and Idle on his own.
.^ The Monty Python team wrote the script together, provided their own music and two of them are co-directing.
.^ Palin and Jones wrote together.
^ The other thing I've found is that it's enormously time-consuming, and I really do want to have more time to pursue the things that I enjoy.
^ Despite this, Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones are back together.
.^ The sketch is very funny, but it is more than routine comedy performed by professionals prepared to behave foolishly for the sake of entertaining the public.
^ Michael Palin, one of the other partners, says that, for all his seriousness, Cleese can be "delightfully silly".
^ 'One day,' shouts his distraught son, 'you'll realise there's more to life than culture...'
.^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus is the new late programme on Sunday night,' read the listing for 5th October 1969.
^ Mail On Sunday, Night & Day magazine, 10th July 1994, page 29 By Hunter Davies: Goodness, is it really 25 years since the first Monty Python's Flying Circus?
.^ "I don't," he explains, "want to be too dependent on one thing" - and he and his wife have written a new half-hour comedy series which, he hopes, will appeal to the programme planners.
^ So we began moving from one sketch to the next without ant transition, while the rest of the comedy shows still tie themselves in knots over punch lines."
^ It used to be said - much to the Pythons' pleasure - that one effect of watching the programme was that it was impossible to take whatever followed seriously.
He eventually announced his retirement from comedy in the late 1990s.
. His most recent travel doc was 2007's
Michael Palin's New Europe.
^ Michael Palin told me: "Any new material we write would have to be in the style that we've always had.
Palin released a book of diaries from the Python years entitled
Michael Palin Diaries 1969-1979, published in 2007.
Associate Pythons
Several people have been accorded unofficial "Associate Python" status over the years. Occasionally such people have been referred to as the
7th Python, in a style reminiscent of associates of the
Beatles being dubbed "The
5th Beatle." The two collaborators with the most meaningful and plentiful contributions have been
Neil Innes and
Carol Cleveland. Both were present and presented as
Associate Pythons at the official Monty Python 25th anniversary celebrations held in
Los Angeles in July 1994.
.^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
.^ Not actually a Python sketch, more a sketch that the Pythons performed in live shows.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ This is the best sketch Monty Python ever did.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Scripts from the Monty Python sketches .- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.^ Several members of the Python team have recorded extra audio material - hints, directions, trivia questions etc - but these had not been added to the pre-release version.
^ Journalists have used these phrases as a convenient shorthand, knowing they will be understood by readers - proof of how completely Python and its sketches have entered the national psyche.
^ They're the ones who bring everyone down - and God knows why, since they have no interest in Python either way.
For example, he took the place of Cleese when he was unable to appear at the
Concert for George.
.^ I read this out to Terry Gilliam, once Python's animation supremo and currently in the midst of a pyrrhic struggle for funding a new movie.
^ From anyone else, much of it would have seemed stunning, but from the Pythons themselves it was something of a disappointment.
.^ Neil Innes (music) is part-time Python, ex-member of The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
^ So when I left college I joined the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, writing and also playing keyboards.
.^ If all the film villains got together - Freddy Krueger, Jason, the Joker, Jimmy Bond - you know they would pick The Humongous to be be their leader.- Mad Max Trilogy 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC minx.cc [Source type: General]
^ So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty big pointy teeth.- Monty Python and the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.sacred-texts.com [Source type: Original source]
^ You don't have to go through all this business of getting to know people, as you would in a play or a cinema film.
.^ When we started out we developed for a couple of years, and then I think we sat and worked out the other variations without progressing.
^ Eric Idle went straight from Python to his weekly BBC2 parody Rutland Weekend Television with Neil Innes.
^ Python sketches weave in and out of each other, without beginning or end.
.^ The Courier and Advertiser, 8th May 1974 [With great picture of the Pythons (Idle, Innes, Palin and Cleese) lounging about in Doune Castle.
^ Neil Innes is Python's unharried goalie and Idle a vigorous full-back who sometimes cuts into the attack.
And no further." Innes has remained silent on the dispute.
.^ The answer is Carol Cleveland, also known as the Python Girl.
^ Carol Cleveland ( actress who became the ensemble's token woman ) We didn't actually do a lot of rehearsal.
^ For the Pythons fully deserve their reputation as perhaps the most innovative comedy writers and performers of the last quarter of a century.
.^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
^ John Howard Davies, producer of the first Python Shows, said he is unaware on any 'risqué' material held back.
^ Not least, Python has appeared on stage.
.^ I suppose Python was pretty sexist - Carol Cleveland was the token, occasional woman and she just played outrageous bimbos - but we didn't understand sexism then.
Other contributors
.^ Just an FYI Miller only directed part of Part III, Thunderdome, with George Olgivie directing the other half due to the on set death of a Miller co-worker/friend.- Perez Hilton: Mad Max Is Back! Charlize Set To Star (Not As Max) 25 January 2010 17:017 UTC perezhilton.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
^ It will be spent writing with his wife, actress Connie Booth, and making industrial trading films on videotape, a form of filming he enjoys - "mainly because we do it in suits in warm offices.
.^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ He said it was based on the King Arthur legend, and that a group of Python characters are told by God to search for the Holy Grail.
^ The Python team has made one successful film (financed by Victor Lownes, who runs the London Playboy Club) and is working on another, to be called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
.^ Cleese met Terry Gilliam in New York when he performed there in Cambridge Circus , a revue based on Footlights, and when the illustrator moved to London, helped him to get television work.
^ The Footlights revue has often proved a valuable source of talent, and some BBC people thought Cleese had potential.
^ On 5th December, 1974, television Python came to an inglorious end.
.^ A doctor whose patients are stabbed by his nurse (45) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ Meanwhile, the other members of the team are preparing a TV series without him.
^ It will be spent writing with his wife, actress Connie Booth, and making industrial trading films on videotape, a form of filming he enjoys - "mainly because we do it in suits in warm offices.
He also had two cameo appearances in this season. Firstly, in the episode
The Light Entertainment War, Adams shows up in a surgeon's mask (as Dr. Emile Koning, according to the on-screen captions), pulling on gloves, while Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another, and never actually gets started. Secondly, at the beginning of
Mr. Neutron, Adams is dressed in a "pepperpot" outfit and loads a missile onto a cart being driven by Terry Jones, who is calling out for scrap metal ("Any old iron...").
.^ This is the best sketch Monty Python ever did.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ Scripts from the Monty Python sketches .- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Stand-up comedian
Eddie Izzard, a devoted fan of the group, has occasionally stood in for absent members.
.^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
^ BBC2's return of the very first series of Monty Python's Flying Circus will give everyone the chance to find out.
^ It seems to me that this is a list of great Monty Python sketches as written by someone who doesn't understand the finer points of some of their lesser known work.- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.^ Catherine Jordan reports on a change of heart The night before Monty Python's reunion gig last weekend at the annual US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, John Cleese appeared on the TV talk show Dennis Miller Live .
^ Dennis Miller Live was taped the night before the gig in the same venue - Aspen's Wheeler Opera House.
^ He is appearing in the new film, but does not intend to be part of the next Python television series planned for the autumn.
Cultural Influence of Monty Python
By the time of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Monty Python in 1994, the point was already being made that "the five surviving members had with the passing years begun to occupy an institutional position in the edifice of British social culture that they had once had so much fun trying to demolish".
[25] A similar point is made in a 2006 book on the relationship between Monty and philosophy: "It is remarkable, after all, not only that the utterly bizarre
Monty Python's Flying Circus was sponsored by the BBC in the first place, but that Monty Python itself grew into an institution of enormous cultural influence"
[26]World Record Holders
.^ Python animator Terry Gilliam and housewife-impersonator Terry Jones have been elected to direct the epic.
^ I read this out to Terry Gilliam, once Python's animation supremo and currently in the midst of a pyrrhic struggle for funding a new movie.
^ Inside the castle director Terry Gilliam was setting up a shot in which Sir Galahad's vow of chastity is put under severe strain by the attentions of a lustful lady.
.^ The Pythons were looking for someone to play the roles they couldn't play themselves.
^ You can imagine what she made of Python and, for the first time, cuts looked inevitable.
^ For 30 years now, Monty Python has helped us look on the bright side of life Thirty years ago this weekend the Radio Times announced a new series from the BBC's Light Entertainment department.
[27]
'Pythonesque'
.^ The term derives, of course, from Monty Python's Flying Circus (the title means nothing in particular), the notorious television comedy show, which since 1969 has been a favourite English indoor sport.
^ Either reality has become more Pythonesque, or perhaps the Python point of view was always closer to reality than we realised.
^ Like so many other things in English, Monty Python is difficult for the foreigner to comprehend.
.^ You can look up "Pythonesque" in a dictionary and find it means "surreal or bizarre".
[28] .^ Better still relax, sit back, and enjoy a good story about MONTY PYTHON making a film in Scotland.
^ He went to public school, and thinks that a good deal of the Monty Python comedy comes from a reaction against the system.
^ And, as such, he is in process this week and for some weeks to come of helping to put the inimitable Monty Python team on celluloid - the making of their second feature film.
These themes cannot be said to be essential to surrealist comedy as a whole.
The term has been applied to animations similar to those constructed by Gilliam (e.g. the cut-out style of
.^ Ben Elton, for instance, might acknowledge a debt to Python, but, says Jones, "I can't see how we influenced him.
^ "And we decided that, as next year is the 30th anniversary of Monty Python, we are going to do something.
^ Python's roots included John Cleese and Graham Chapman's collaborations on At Last, The 1948 Show; Do Not Adjust Your Set and sundry contributions to The Frost Report.
[29]Terry Jones commented on his disappointment at the existence of such a term, claiming the initial aim of Monty Python was to create something new and uncategorisable and that "the fact that Pythonesque is now a word in the
Oxford English Dictionary shows the extent to which we failed".
[30].^ The official Monty Python website: Python Online Monty Python's Words/Quotes/Full Scripts This website has the scripts of all 45 episodes from the original Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series .- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC gnews.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Ben Elton, for instance, might acknowledge a debt to Python, but, says Jones, "I can't see how we influenced him.
^ It used to be said - much to the Pythons' pleasure - that one effect of watching the programme was that it was impossible to take whatever followed seriously.
[31] .^ Apart from the films of Cleese and Gilliam, the former Pythons have not exactly been riding a wave of critical acclaim recently, perhaps because their style of comedy is not currently fashionable.
Things named after Monty Python
.^ Catch phrases: quite apart from their other achievements, Monty Python has the distinction of being the first TV comedy show to really enter the nation's vocabulary in a big way.
.^ Then someone came up with Monty Python's Flying Circus., and the name stuck.
^ The clearest reference point for the Pythons was Goon show creator Spike Milligan's television series Q5.
^ The jurors have created a special award in recognition of the legendary comedy troupe founded by John Cleese, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.
.^ Many of those Python sketches now recognised by shorthand - the dead parrot, the lumberjack, the cheese shop, "nudge, nudge, say no more" - will continue sparkle on the 14th viewing.
^ John and Graham also wrote together, and in the early days they were responsible for the more cerebral, linguistic bits like the Parrot and Cheese Shop sketches.
.^ A few years later, when there were problems financing Life Of Brian , the Pythons considered using the two German shows as the basis of a film.
^ He certainly has a well-developed contempt for platitudes, and has put it to good use in commercials as well as the Python series.
.^ They've gone ahead with my blessing and good wishes - in fact, I think they've got some of my material which I wrote with Graham in the first show, and I'm glad about that.
^ JACK DEE I've always thought of Monty Python as the Beatles of comedy because they liberated it.
^ They threw in Monty Python as an afterthought, because it sounded like a bad theatrical agent.
.^ The Python team has made one successful film (financed by Victor Lownes, who runs the London Playboy Club) and is working on another, to be called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ My favourite of the Python team was Eric Idle - it was obvious he wasn't a patrician who viewed comedy as an artform.
^ Then someone came up with Monty Python's Flying Circus., and the name stuck.
[32] .^ Better still relax, sit back, and enjoy a good story about MONTY PYTHON making a film in Scotland.
^ They threw in Monty Python as an afterthought, because it sounded like a bad theatrical agent.
^ The term derives, of course, from Monty Python's Flying Circus (the title means nothing in particular), the notorious television comedy show, which since 1969 has been a favourite English indoor sport.
The name "Minty Python" had been suggested before, according to a Ben and Jerry's tour guide.
Each member of Monty Python has an asteroid named after him (9617 Grahamchapman, 9618 Johncleese, 9619 Terrygilliam, 9620 Ericidle, 9621 Michaelpalin, and 9622 Terryjones).
In 1999, Black Sheep Brewery released an ale named "Monty Python's Holy Grail Ale."[33]
The character Monty in the comic strip with the same name, created by Jim Meddick, is named after Monty Python. .^ Monty Python were the ultimate in surreal, quirky British humour.
^ Given this kind of approach, the Python brand of humour clearly cannot be to everyone's taste.
^ Monty Python inspired a whole new generation of comics and is still doing so today (where would Alexei Sayle, Steve Martin or Vic and Bob be without Python?
.
The band Toad the Wet Sprocket drew its name from the Eric Idle monologue "Rock Notes" on Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album from 1980.
The band Boxhamsters, which is the German translation of Brook-Hampster, the winner of the Upper Class Twit of the Year.^ Monty Python went on, of course, to become as big as the Beatles in the States, prefiguring the cliché of the century that comedy is the new rock 'n' roll.
^ Get unlimited music for as low as $12.95 a month "" appears on the album, Monty Python Sings .- from Monty Python Sings by Monty Python on Napster — Play and download music by Monty Python without paying per song. 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC sms.napster.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Then someone came up with Monty Python's Flying Circus., and the name stuck.
[34]
A philosophy lecture series entitled Themes in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy as Reflected in the Work of Monty Python [35][36]
According to the Internet Society and other sources, the term spam is derived from the 1970 SPAM sketch of the BBC television comedy series "Monty Python's Flying Circus."
In the MMORPG RuneScape, there are numerous references to the series and its movies scattered throughout the game as easter eggs.
Python media
Television
- The show that started the Python phenomenon. See also List of Monty Python's Flying Circus episodes
- Two 45-minute specials made by WDR for West German television. .^ The first episode, actually recorded second, contained a telling blend of items, giving a good indication of what to expect in future.
- Six one-hour specials, each episode presenting the best of one member's work.
Films
There were five Monty Python productions released as theatrical films:
- A collection of sketches from the first and second TV series of . purposely re-enacted and shot for film.^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
^ It is not easy to recognise the zany star of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
^ A giant stride for comedy - the arrival of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
- King Arthur and his knights embark on a low-budget search for the Holy Grail, encountering humorous obstacles along the way. Some of these turned into standalone sketches.
- Brian is born on the first Christmas, in the stable next to Jesus'. He spends his life being mistaken for a messiah.
- A videotape recording directed by Ian MacNaughton of a live performance of sketches. Originally intended for a TV/video special. Transferred to 35mm and given a limited theatrical release in the US.
- An examination of the meaning of life in a series of sketches from conception to death and beyond, from the uniquely Python perspective.
- Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyers Cut) (2009)
- This film features interviews with all the surviving Python members, along with archive representation for the late Graham Chapman. The Pythons will tell their life story and reveal deeper truths alongside the more tried and tested Python history lessons. “This is the documentary I always hoped that would be made - something so complete and so faithful to the truth that I don't need to watch it,” said Terry Jones.
Albums
Theatre
.^ Six more minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (29) .- Monty Python Flying Circus: Just the Words - Index of Characters 22 September 2009 23:30 UTC www.ibras.dk [Source type: General]
^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
.^ Spamalot is entering the home stretch at the Palace Theatre, where the stage musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is now on its fifth King Arthur—the role originated on Broadway and then the West End by Tim Curr...
^ Features a picture of three knights standing heroically (caption: "Sirs Eric Idle, John Cleese and Mike Palin") and a fascinating allusion to Fawlty Towers.
^ Sanjeev Bhaskar has signed on to play King Arthur in the London production of Monty Python's Spamalot, beginning June 23.
Entitled
Not the Messiah, it had its world premiere as part of
Luminato, a "festival of arts and creativity" taking place June 1–10, 2007 in
Toronto. Not the Messiah was conducted by
Peter Oundjian, Music Director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, who is Idle’s cousin. It was performed by a narrator, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, with guest soloists and choir. According to Idle, "It will be funnier than
Handel, though not as good".
Books
Games
.^ Monty Python's Flying Circus had landed.
^ It is not easy to recognise the zany star of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
^ A giant stride for comedy - the arrival of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
[37]
.^ Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time has been developed by Gilliam and a Los Angeles-based software house, 7th Level.
^ The are making a film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
^ Our quest is to find the Holy Grail.- Monty Python and the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.sacred-texts.com [Source type: Original source]
.^ Also, Monty Python never relay died.
^ The first Python film ran a slight profit and went well here and in Canada and Australia.
^ Monty Python went on, of course, to become as big as the Beatles in the States, prefiguring the cliché of the century that comedy is the new rock 'n' roll.
.^ "And now for something completely different" was easier.
^ Something completely different indeed.
^ With the death of Graham Chapman almost a decade ago, there can never be a complete Python reunion again - let alone another film.
[38]
.^ Obviously the original is copyrighted and anyone attempting to exploit this file commercially without permission of Monty Python is a looney...--sacred-texts editor .- Monty Python and the Holy Grail 13 January 2010 23:27 UTC www.sacred-texts.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Monty Python and the Holy Grail will have a West End opening in November to be followed by a nationwide release in January.
[39]
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Gilliam was born American and obtained British citizenship in 1968. In protest at George W. Bush, he renounced his American citizenship in January 2006 and is now only a British citizen. oew/dpa/ddp (10 February 2006). Kopflos am Potsdamer Platz. tagesspiegel (German. Retrieved 15 September 2007.
- ^ Wilmut (1980), p. 250.
- ^ The Pythons by 'The Pythons' IBSN 0752852930
- ^ Todd Leopold (2003-12-11). "How Monty Python changed the world". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/10/monty.python/index.html. Retrieved 2007-03-30. "Python has been called "the Beatles of comedy,""
- ^ Mark Lewisohn. "Monty Python's Flying Circus". The bbc.uk.co Guide to Comedy. BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/m/montypythonsflyi_1299002137.shtml. Retrieved 2007-03-31. "In essence, the Monty Python team are the comedy equivalent of the Beatles."
- ^ "Cook voted 'comedians' comedian'". BBC News. 2 January 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4141019.stm. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
- ^ "YouTube - The Monty Python Channel on YouTube". YouTube. 14 November 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGqX-tkDXEk. Retrieved 2008-12-07.
- ^ a b The Pythons Autobiography By The Pythons—Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, John Chapman, David Sherlock, Bob McCabe—Thomas Dunne Books; Orion, 2003
- ^ Wilmut (1980), p.211
- ^ "BBC - Comedy - Monty Python". http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/montypython/index.shtml.
- ^ a b Museum of Broadcast Communications. "Monty Python's Flying Circus". http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/montypython/montypython.htm.
- ^ Monty Python's Flying Circus Just The Words Volume 1, p33. Methuen, 1990
- ^ Richard Ouzounian, "Python still has legs", Toronto Star, 16 July 2006
- ^ Interview with John Cleese on Q-The Podcast with host John Ghomeshi on July 16, 2009
- ^ "50 Greatest Comedy Films". channel4.com. http://www.channel4.com/film/newsfeatures/microsites/G/greatest-comedyfilms/index.html. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
- ^ IMDB; as of January 2005; includes pre-release items.
- ^ Monty Python reunion 'unlikely', BBC News, 9 September 2003
- ^ Exclusive new Monty Python specials slated to premiere in 2006, PBS, 13 July 2005
- ^ mollyblack wrote: (2009-07-11). "retrieved 6 July 2009". Independent.co.uk. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/monty-python-stars-to-stage-reunion-1733638.html. Retrieved 2009-08-19.
- ^ "Pythons receive BAFTA Special Award". Bafta.org. 2009-10-18. http://www.bafta.org/access-all-areas/videos/monty-python-special-award,877,BA.html. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
- ^ David Morgan (October 6, 2006). "Terry Gilliam Sounds Off, Director Of 'Brazil' Says Current Events Parallel His Cult Movie". CBSNews. http://www.showbuzz.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/06/movies/main2071659.shtml. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
- ^ Philip French, Mark Kermode, Jason Solomons, Akin Ojumu, and Killian Fox (July 22, 2007). "The last laugh: your favourite 50". The Observer. http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2131880,00.html. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
- ^ Sarah Womack (19 February 2002). "Life of Brian wins the vote for film's best laughter line". Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1385293/Life-of-Brian-wins-the-vote-for-film's-best-laughter-line.html. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
- ^ "Ex-Python star has cancer surgery". BBC News. 23 October 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6077480.stm. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
- ^ Perry, George (1999). The Life of Python. London: Pavilion Books. p. 6. ISBN 1-85793-441-5.
- ^ Hardcastle, G.L., & Reisch, G.A. (2006). "”What’s All This Then?” The Introduction". in Gary L. Hardcastle & George A Reisch. Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think!. Chicago: Open Court. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-8126-9593-9. Also ISBN 0-8126-9593-3
- ^ BBC-Spamalot cast sets coconut record.
- ^ "Monty Pythonesque." Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7). Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. 23 November 2007. Pythonesque
- ^ "Monty Python meets South Park". BBC News. 1999-10-04. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/464765.stm. Retrieved 2008-09-21.
- ^ Monty Python: Live at Aspen, 1998
- ^ Marc Berman (27 September 2009). "Mr. TV: Food for Thought". Mediaweek. http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/community/programming-insider/column/e3icbd5f8a8048766fc980ec4910fe71b25. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
- ^ Monty Python - a Brief History, BBC, 29 January 2002
- ^ Monty Python's Holy Grail
- ^ "Boxhamsters". www.boxhamsters.net. http://www.boxhamsters.net. Retrieved 2009-08-19.
- ^ Gary L. Hardcastle: Themes in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy as Relfected in the Work of Monty Python
- ^ Gary L. Hardcastle & George A Reisch, ed (2006). Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think!. Chicago: Open Court. ISBN 978-0-8126-9593-9. Also ISBN 0-8126-9593-3
- ^ "Monty Python's Flying Circus on World of Spectrum". Worldofspectrum.org. http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0003260. Retrieved 2009-08-19.
- ^ "Toy Vault web site for Python-opoly, retrieved November 20, 2008". Toyvault.com. http://www.toyvault.com/pythonopoly/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-19.
- ^ "Web site for Monty Python Fluxx". Fluxxgames.com. http://fluxxgames.com/. Retrieved 2009-08-19.
Further reading
- Chapman, Graham (1997). Graham Crackers: Fuzzy Memories, Silly Bits, and Outright Lies, Career Pr Inc. ISBN 1-56414-334-1
- Landy, Marcia (2005). .^ Monty Python's Flying Circus was indeed 'something completely different' and anyone around in the late 1960s or early 1970s will tell you just what an impact it had on this country, and later the world.
^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
^ Then someone came up with Monty Python's Flying Circus., and the name stuck.
Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-3103-3.
- Morgan, David (June 1999). .^ Monty Python went on, of course, to become as big as the Beatles in the States, prefiguring the cliché of the century that comedy is the new rock 'n' roll.
^ EDIT NEWS: Monty Python - Press Coverage 1990 - 99 .
^ Monty Python inspired a whole new generation of comics and is still doing so today (where would Alexei Sayle, Steve Martin or Vic and Bob be without Python?
ISBN 0-380-80479-4
- Wilmut, Roger (1980). .^ In his book From Fringe To Flying Circus (the best on MPFC), Roger Wilmut has suggested that the Pythons "were perhaps the last people to benefit from Hugh Greene's influence at the BBC".
ISBN 0-413-50770-X
- The Secret Policeman's Balls, 3-DVD set (2009)
- Monty Python: 40 Years of Insanity
- "Monty Python: 40 Years of Insanity".^ A graduate of Cambridge University, and a onetime NEWSWEEK staffer, Cleese explains that "Monty Python was the result of four years of frustration writing for television.
^ We Monty Pythons started together 29 years ago.
^ It is safe to say that Monty Python's Flying Circus went from a little known cult show to a fully fledged British institution in the space of 15 years.
Life.com. .
- The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches (40th Anniversary)
- "The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches".^ By Hugh Hebert Another 25th anniversary, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2), the very first, now fragile episode.
^ Jones, who will collect the award, directed five of the Monty films including the controversial The Life Of Brian and Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
^ But Pythonmania still feels like something recent although, like them, Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC2) is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
Gnews.com. ..
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