Monty Python, also known as the Pythons,Wilmut (1980), p. 250. were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. The group initially came to prominence in the UK for the sketch comedy television series Monty Python's Flying Circus, which aired on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Their work then developed into a larger collection that included live shows, films, albums, books, and musicals; their influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music. (The live version of the Web page does not contain the quoted line, but the archived version does.) Their sketch show has been called "an important moment in the evolution of television comedy".
Monty Python's Flying Circus was loosely structured as a sketch show, but its innovative stream of consciousness approach and Gilliam's animation skills pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content. A self-contained comedy unit, the Pythons had creative control that allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. They followed their television work by making the films Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), and The Meaning of Life (1983). Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while it has coloured the work of the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to absurdist trends in television comedy.
At the 41st British Academy Film Awards in 1988, Monty Python received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. In 1998, they were awarded the AFI Star Award by the American Film Institute. Holy Grail and Life of Brian are frequently ranked on lists of the greatest comedy films. A 2005 poll asked more than 300 comedians, comedy writers, producers, and directors to name the greatest comedians of all time, and half of Monty Python's members made the top 50.
History Before Flying Circus Jones and Palin met at Oxford University, where they performed together with the Oxford Revue. Chapman and Cleese met at Cambridge University. Idle was also at Cambridge, but started a year after Chapman and Cleese. Cleese met Gilliam in New York City while on tour with the Cambridge University Footlights revue Cambridge Circus (originally entitled A Clump of Plinths). Chapman, Cleese, and Idle were members of the Footlights, which at that time also included the future Goodies (Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, and Graeme Garden), and Jonathan Lynn (co-writer of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister).Hewison, Robert (1983). Footlights! – a hundred years of Cambridge comedy. Methuen London Ltd. . During Idle's presidency of the club, feminist writer Germaine Greer and broadcaster Clive James were members. Recordings of Footlights' revues (called "Smokers") at Pembroke College include sketches and performances by Cleese and Idle, which, along with tapes of Idle's performances in some of the drama society's theatrical productions, are kept in the archives of the Pembroke Players.
The six Python members appeared in or wrote these shows before Flying Circus: I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (radio) (1964–1973): Cleese (cast member and writer), Idle and Chapman (writers) The Frost Report (1966–1967): Cleese (cast member and writer), Idle (writer of David Frost's monologues), Chapman, Palin and Jones (writers) At Last the 1948 Show (1967): Chapman and Cleese (writers and cast members), Idle (guest star and writer) Twice a Fortnight (1967): Palin and Jones (cast members and writers) Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–1969): Idle, Jones, and Palin (cast members and writers), Gilliam (animation) We Have Ways of Making You Laugh (1968): Idle (cast member and writer), Gilliam (animation) How to Irritate People (1968): Cleese and Chapman (cast members and writers), Palin (cast member) The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969): Palin and Jones (cast members and writers) Doctor in the House (1969), Cleese and Chapman (writers)
The BBC's satirical television show The Frost Report, broadcast from March 1966 to December 1967, is credited as first uniting the British Pythons and providing an environment in which they could develop their particular styles.
Following the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set (which was broadcast on ITV from December 1967 to May 1969), Thames Television offered Gilliam, Idle, Jones, and Palin their own late-night adult comedy series together. At the same time, Chapman and Cleese were offered a show by the BBC, which had 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 and erratic personality. Cleese had fond memories of working with Palin on How to Irritate People and invited him to join the team. With no studio available at Thames until summer 1970 for the late-night show, Palin agreed to join Cleese and Chapman, and suggested the involvement of his writing partner Jones and colleague Idle—who in turn wanted Gilliam to provide animations for the projected series. Much has been made of the fact that the Monty Python troupe is the result of Cleese's desire to work with Palin and the chance circumstances that brought the other four members into the fold.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
By contrast, according to John Cleese's autobiography, the origins of Monty Python lay in the admiration that writing partners Cleese and Chapman had for the new type of comedy being done on Do Not Adjust Your Set; as a result, a meeting was initiated by Cleese between Chapman, Idle, Jones, Palin, and himself at which it was agreed to pool their writing and performing efforts and jointly seek production sponsorship.So, Anyway ... by John Cleese; Crown Archetype, London, 2014 According to their official website, the group was born from a Kashmir tandoori restaurant in Hampstead on 11 May 1969, following a taping of Do Not Adjust Your Set which Cleese and Chapman attended. It was the first time all six got together, with their first meetings then taking place at Cleese's apartment in Basil Street, Knightsbridge in central London.
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Development of the series
According to show director Ian MacNaughton, the first discussion about Monty Python's Flying Circus occurred when BBC comedy advisor Barry Took gathered MacNaughton, the Pythons and John Howard Davies (director of the first four episodes) in a conference room at the BBC Television Centre.Monty Python's Flying Circus (LP vinyl) liner notes; Archived image. The Pythons had a definite idea about what they wanted to do with the series. They were admirers of the work of Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore on Beyond the Fringe—seminal to the British "satire boom"—and had worked on Frost, which was similar in style.
They enjoyed Cook and Moore's sketch show Not Only... But Also. One problem the Pythons perceived with these programmes was that though the body of the sketch would be strong, the writers would often struggle to find a punchline funny enough to end on, and this would detract from the overall sketch quality. They decided that they would simply not bother to "cap" their sketches in the traditional manner, and early episodes of the Flying Circus series make great play of this abandonment of the punchline (one scene has Cleese turn to Idle, as the sketch descends into chaos, and remark that "This is the silliest sketch I've ever been in"—they all resolve not to carry on and simply walk off the set)."The Silliest Interview We've Ever Had / The Silliest Sketch We've Ever Done" . MontyPython.net. Retrieved 23 January 2013 However, as they began assembling material for the show, the Pythons watched one of their heroes, Spike Milligan, whom they had admired on The Goon Show (a show the Pythons regard as their biggest influence) recording his groundbreaking BBC series Q... (1969). Not only was Q... more irreverent and anarchic than any previous television comedy, but Milligan also would often "give up" on sketches halfway through and wander off set (often muttering "Did I write this?"). It was clear that their new series would now seem less original, and Jones in particular became determined the Pythons should innovate. Michael Palin recalls "Terry Jones and I adored the Q... shows...[Milligan] was the first writer to play with the conventions of television." (quote at (a), p. 157) Charles Isherwood writes that the Pythons "derived their sketch formats in part from the rowdy tradition of the music hall." Cleese has said that the show will seem more innovative to modern viewers than it actually was, because several programmes that were influences on it were mostly destroyed due to BBC policy at the time to not keep most programmes it made.After much debate, Jones remembered an animation Gilliam had created for Do Not Adjust Your Set called "Beware of the Elephants", which had intrigued him with its stream-of-consciousness style. Jones felt it would be a good concept to apply to the series: allowing sketches to blend into one another. Palin had been equally fascinated by another of Gilliam's efforts, entitled "Christmas Cards", and agreed that it represented "a way of doing things differently". Since Cleese, Chapman, and Idle were less concerned with the overall flow of the programme, Jones, Palin, and Gilliam became largely responsible for the presentation style of the Flying Circus series, in which disparate sketches are linked to give each episode the appearance of a single stream-of-consciousness (often using a Gilliam animation to move from the closing image of one sketch to the opening scene of another). The BBC states, "Gilliam's unique animation style became crucial, segueing seamlessly between any two completely unrelated ideas and making the stream-of-consciousness work."
Writing started at 9:00a.m. and finished at 5:00p.m. Typically, Cleese and Chapman worked as one pair isolated from the others, as did Jones and Palin, while Idle wrote alone. After a few days, they would join with Gilliam, critique their scripts, and exchange ideas. Their approach to writing was democratic. If the majority found an idea humorous, it was included in the show. The casting of roles for the sketches was a similarly unselfish process, since each member viewed himself primarily as a "writer", rather than an actor eager for screen time. When the themes for sketches were chosen, Gilliam had a free hand in bridging them with animations, using a camera, scissors, and airbrush.
While the show was a collaborative process, different factions within Python were responsible for elements of the team's humour. In general, the work of Jones and Palin was more visual and more based on fanciful concepts—such as the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition in a suburban home—while the sketches of Cleese, Chapman and Idle tended to be more verbal and more aggressive (for example, Cleese and Chapman's "confrontation" sketches, where one character intimidates or hurls abuse, or Idle's characters with bizarre verbal quirks, such as "The Man Who Speaks In Anagrams"). Cleese confirmed that "most of the sketches with heavy abuse were Graham's and mine, anything that started with a slow pan across countryside and impressive music was Mike and Terry's, and anything that got utterly involved with words and disappeared up any personal orifice was Eric's".Wilmut (1980), p. 211 Gilliam's animations ranged from the whimsical to the savage, with the cartoon format allowing him to create extremely violent scenes without fear of censorship.