Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974)
Trivia
The usual casting process for a sketch was that the lead role would be given to the member who came up with the idea. Sir Michael Palin has said that if he'd known the abuse he would have to tolerate as the "It's..." man, he never would have suggested the idea.
The Pythons did almost all of their own stunts, including Graham Chapman (a qualified mountaineer) reading a sketch while hanging upside-down on a rope, and Sir Michael Palin plummetting fifteen feet into a canal in "The Fish-Slapping Dance" after John Cleese smacked him in the head with a trout.
The internet term "spam" was inspired by Monty Python's Flying Circus: Spam (1970), depicting a restaurant scene with a menu that offered a mandatory helping of Spam with each and any ordered item.
The phrase "And now for something completely different" was taken from a real phrase often used by the BBC during their television and radio broadcasts.
Following a television interview in which Graham Chapman mentioned (not for the first time) that he was a homosexual, the Pythons received a letter from an enraged woman who said she heard an "anonymous" member of Monty Python had confessed to being gay. She enclosed several pages of prayers for his salvation and said that if he repeated them every single day he might acquire some form of purgatory. Eric Idle replied to her saying that they had found out who it was and had stoned him. The woman never wrote back.
The Knight in shining armor who cropped up sporadically throughout the show was played by Terry Gilliam, the American member of Monty Python, who normally provided the animated sequences. He worked seven days a week on them, and usually two all-nighters.
The first few episodes were filmed in front of an older audience, due to the BBC Program Planners. Apparently, some of these older people thought they were actually going to see a circus. Many of the audience members didn't really understand what was happening, and the cast realized they weren't laughing as much as they should. Consequently, they asked family and friends to come to the studio for tapings so that there would be more laughter. Eventually, the BBC Planners recruited younger audience members, but also aired the show at a later hour, making it difficult to get younger viewers at home. As a result, the Monty Python troupe were constantly poking fun at BBC Program Planners, insinuating that they were uneducated and dim: stupider than penguins, easily replaced by penguins, being unable to be a Planner if you've got a degree, and even an entire sketch in "The Light Entertainment War", where particularly stupid Planners sit around a table talking nonsense.
One of the first things the Pythons decided was to get rid of the obligatory, though often disappointing, punchline of most comedy sketches. The "Restaurant Sketch" (or "Dirty Fork Sketch") poked fun at this.
After three seasons of thirteen episodes each, John Cleese refused to return for a fourth because he believed the show was becoming repetitious and had run out of ideas. The rest of the cast only managed to produce a final fourth season of just six episodes without him. Despite this, Cleese had a writer's credit on most of the final six, because of sketches used, to which he had contributed, before leaving. He also had a cameo in one episode, and has continued to collaborate with the other Pythons in various combinations over the years.
The BBC made the Pythons edit out the word "masturbation" from the "All-England Summarize Proust Competition", in which one of the contestants (Graham Chapman) claimed his hobbies included "golf, strangling small animals, and masturbation". While the vocal track was edited to remove the last word, the huge laugh from the audience remained in the final recording. During one of the negotiation meetings on the topic, Eric Idle reportedly asked the head of the BBC, "Everyone masturbates. Don't you masturbate, sir?" He was not given a response.
Terry Gilliam was the only American in the group, and although he appeared occasionally on-screen, his roles were generally non-speaking or with few lines. Gilliam's primary contributions, the animated sequences that "linked" the various live sketches, were one of the the key components that set this show apart from its peers, and remain amongst the most memorable elements of the show.
The entire videotape library of this show came close to being completely disposed of by the BBC as per their prevailing policy of recycling videotapes as a cost-saving measure and with no idea at that time of how commercially valuable such archived material would be. Fortunately, Terry Gilliam learned what was about to happen and personally arranged the purchase of all of the videotape masters of this show and stored them at his house. Subsequently, when the BBC was persuaded to re-air this show with the troupe's growing popularity, they had to approach Gilliam for permission to use the tapes he preserved.
This series was one of the first to deviate from the norms of television credits. Amongst the odd credits gags were: an episode where the credits scrolled sideways, credits that used gag names for the cast and crew; ending credits rolled at the beginning of the episode (or the opening titles delayed until nearly the end), and credits that roll a few minutes early, followed by spoof versions of BBC broadcast announcements (even incorporating the BBC "rolling Earth" logo in use at the time).
Carol Cleveland appeared in thirty-four of this show's forty-six episodes. Though the six members of the Python team never shied away from portraying women, they realized the necessity of Cleveland whenever an attractive female was needed.
The head of comedy at the BBC said that the title had to include the word "Circus", because the people at the BBC had referred to the six cast members wandering around the BBC offices as a circus, so they added "Flying" to make it sound less like a real circus and more like something out of World War I. And in front of that, added "Monty Python" because it sounded like a really bad theatrical agent, and also that the large, constricting snake was appropriate imagery.
Other possible names for the series were "Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus", "Owl-Stretching Time" (which was used as the name for one episode), "Bun, Whackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot", "A Toad Elevating Moment", "Sex and Violence", "A Horse, a Bucket and a Spoon". One early working title for the series was simply, "It's..."
The Pythons wrote all of their sketches in teams. Cambridge graduates John Cleese and Graham Chapman wrote together, as did Oxford men Terry Jones and Sir Michael Palin. Eric Idle, another Cambridge alumnus, wrote alone. "Links" between sketches were the only pieces written by the entire group collectively. Animator Terry Gilliam worked independently of the five core members, but joined them for writers' meetings to help them piece it all together and act as a sort of test audience.
Despite its ground-breaking reputation and huge influence on a generation of comedians and writers, John Cleese believes that much of this show has not aged very well. He feels that only about one or maybe two sketches in each episode still retain their quality and impact and the rest of the writing and production is weak, rather amateurish, and under rehearsed.
Doctors, lawyers, politicians, academics, and Police Officers were frequent targets for sketches. Graham Chapman was a qualified (but never licensed) physician, and the son of a constable. John Cleese attended law school. Terry Gilliam majored in political science. Terry Jones and Eric Idle majored in English.
The theme music is the opening portion of John Philip Sousa's "Liberty Bell March". Reportedly, one of the chief reasons was that it was in the public domain, meaning no royalties would have to be paid.
Although it later became John Cleese's famous line, Eric Idle was the first Python to say "and now for something completely different."
The main logo for the show (as seen in the end credits) is written in the same font as the similarly-named Pussy Galore's Flying Circus from the James Bond movie, Goldfinger (1964).
Although the Ministry of Silly Walks is one of the most popular gags in the Monty Python canon, John Cleese has no particular warm feelings for it. He admitted that the idea was born during the filming of the show, when the group would get bored between takes. In one such instance, Cleese came up with his silly walk in order to amuse the rest, who immediately thought it as a great idea for an entire sketch. Cleese felt the laughs it generated were cheap ones, and no balance was provided by what could have been the true satirical centerpoint.
The famous "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch is not originally Monty Python. They performed it at some concerts, but it first appeared on At Last the 1948 Show (1967), performed by Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Marty Feldman.
The Pythons were inspired by Spike Milligan and The Goon Show more than anything else, but they wanted their humor to be impossible to categorize, so the term "Pythonesque" was coined to describe it. Terry Jones jokingly said that the fact they'd inspired a new word in the dictionary shows how miserably they had failed.
Inspired from the title of this show, Guido van Rossum created Python programming language, which was first released in 1991.
At least two sketches can trace their origins back to David Frost Presents: How to Irritate People (1969), a television special that John Cleese starred in and wrote with Graham Chapman. The "Silly Job Interview" in which Cleese rings a bell and has people score Chapman's reaction came directly from the special. The "Parrot Sketch" was adapted largely from a sketch about a car salesman who flatly refused to admit that there was anything wrong with a car that was literally falling apart on-stage.
John Cleese was Rowan Atkinson's idol growing and inspired him to be a comedian. Atkinson performed with the Monty Python cast in The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979) and The Secret Policeman's Other Ball (1982); and Cleese made a cameo in one episode of Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979), in which Atkinson was a regular performer.
The show premiered in the U.S. after it was off the air in the U.K. Its first U.S. broadcast was on KERA, a PBS station in Dallas, Texas, on October 6, 1974.
Sir Michael Palin is the youngest Python, being born on May 5, 1943, and John Cleese is the eldest Python, being born on October 27, 1939. Palin was twenty-six when this show first recorded and aired, and Cleese was twenty-nine.
While each of the Pythons performed in drag, the core performers all had their own characteristic female characters. As the tallest and lankiest of the troupe, John Cleese most often played awkward, slightly masculine women. Graham Chapman excelled at playing more deranged women. Sir Michael Palin's women tended to be more grandmotherly types, while Terry Jones played loud "ratbag" women. Finally, Eric Idle played slightly younger, more flirtatious women.
Eric Idle preferred writing alone because he felt it was less exhausting. He also stated that he tried several team-ups, but those didn't work for him. When teaming up with Graham Chapman, he tried to let Chapman take the initiative, which resulted in Chapman not saying anything until it was time to leave. When teaming up with Michael Palin, they would have lots of fun without producing anything. Idle did manage to write a few sketches with John Cleese but thought it was exhausting due to Cleese's perfectionism. Cleese immediately questioned almost every sentence, while Idle preferred to writing a first draft and then polish it afterwards.
John Cleese tells an interesting story about the effect of the show on viewers: a friend sat down to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969) and saw a man giving a historical lecture while standing near a forest. After chuckling for a few minutes the friend thought to himself "this sketch is going on rather long, isn't it?" It was only then that he realized that his local BBC channel had exercised their option to preempt the show with another program and that he was in fact watching a legitimate historical documentary.
According to John Cleese, when he and the fellow Pythons were pitching the show to the BBC, they went into a meeting not having prepared anything. When asked what the show would be about and feature, they reportedly stated that the show would be a "comedy, with some skits in it", and that it would possibly feature occasional guest stars. The men got the green light from the studio mainly based on this vague pitch, and because the show would be cheap to produce, since it involved mainly studio work with a limited cast.
Although the fourth season (after John Cleese had parted ways with the group) shortened the title to simply "Monty Python", the title "Monty Python's Flying Circus" still appears at the beginning of the introduction.
When John Cleese wrote what would become the dead parrot sketch, it was initially about a broken toaster. Graham Chapman later suggested that the main subject should be a dead parrot, reasoning that it was funnier.
One reason for John Cleese to leave the show, was his working relationship with Graham Chapman. According to Cleese, Chapman didn't contribute much during writing, while being notoriously late for every writing session, rehearsal or shooting. Chapman's alcoholism also became worse, so that by the afternoon he had forgotten what they had written in the morning. According to his fellow Pythons, Chapman's contribution was mainly that he added absurd elements to the material and that he usually knew what was funny and what not. Also, he was quite helpful in convincing Cleese into doing sketches which Cleese felt unsure about.
The first three episodes filmed in season one were aired in reverse order. Episode one, "Whither Canada?" was filmed on September 7, 1969, and aired on October 5, 1969. Episode two, "Sex and Violence" was filmed on August 30, 1969, and aired on October 12, 1969. Episode three, "How to Recognize Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away" was filmed on August 14, 1969, and aired on October 19, 1969.
When the show debuted on PBS in 1974, they gained an unlikely fan: Fred Rogers. The star of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968) was given a copy of the first season on videotape and brought it home to show to his teenage sons. Years later, his sons recalled that while Rogers hated any kind of cruel humor, he had a fondness for the absurd, and found the Dead Parrot Sketch particularly hilarious.
For female roles in which performing in drag would not be convincing, the program employed various young actresses in the role of "Glamour Stooge" - a pretty but also funny woman comfortable with her sexuality. By far the most popular female performer on the show was Carol Cleveland, who was treated as practically a "Seventh Python". The Pythons admired Cleveland's comic skills and preferred working with her to any other actress. However, the BBC insisted on a different "pretty girl" performer for each episode. This was gradually phased out and by the end of the series, Cleveland was their regular female performer. This partnership continued on into the Python movies. On several occasions in the third season, Cleveland, Connie Booth and Rita Davies appeared in male drag as sort of reverse "Pepperpots".
None of the surviving Pythons can recall where the famous "stock footage of women applauding" came from. The clip, which appeared several times in the series, is referred to as the "Women's Institute" clip and seems to come from a long-forgotten news report. The Pythons have also joked that the clip accurately depicted the studio audience for their first few episodes, who found much of the humor incomprehensible.
The Pythons faced little censorship during the first season. This was due less to liberal attitudes at the BBC than it was to neglect. The people in charge didn't really understand the show. Apart from a line about drugs, there were few major cuts in the first season. This changed as the show became more popular, and by the end of the second season, the BBC was demanding more lines be cut. Ironically, one of the few times a sketch was cut from the show entirely was due to the objections of one of the Pythons. Eric Idle wrote a sketch mocking wine tasting in which every wine offered was actually "wee-wee". John Cleese vetoed the sketch, thinking it was too crass and vulgar.
Most of the music was provided by De Wolfe, a company specializing in production or "library" music. Other music used included modern symphonic pieces by composers like Prokofiev and even Mantovani.
"The Scott of the Sahara" sketch featured Carol Cleveland acting in a trench. According to the U.K. Telegraph, it's not unusual for tall Hollywood actresses to act in trenches.
Sir David Jason believed that this show was the grown-up version of Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) that Terry Jones, Sir Michael Palin, and Eric Idle had wanted to do on that show. He expected to be asked to join the series after working with them, but was sidelined.
Accorded to a tweet from Eric Idle, Spike Milligan called the Japanese dub of the show the funniest thing he'd ever seen. The dub starred the voices of Yasuo Yamada, Goro Naya, Takeshi Aono, Taichiro Hirokawa, Shozo Iizuka and Toshio Furukawa.
Every one of the A&E DVD discs has subtitles, though this is not immediately obvious. There is no way to turn them on using the DVD menus. The only way to enable them is to use the Subtitle button on the DVD remote.
DVD EASTER EGG: On the region 1 DVD box set (produced by A&E), each disc's main menu is a cartoon Policeman who opens his coat to show a female body, which is then (mostly) hidden by the episode selection menu. If you sit at this menu without making a selection, about every thirty to forty seconds, the Policeman's eyes move.
