Monty Python

Monty Python, or The Pythons, were the creators and stars of Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy series which first aired on October 5, 1969 with the first episode Whither Canada?. As a television series it consisted of 45 episodes over 4 seasons. However, the Python phenomenon was much greater, spawning stage tours, four films, numerous audio recordings, several computer games and books, as well as launching the members to individual stardom.

Flying Circus and the Python style

The Pythons had a very definite idea about what they wanted to do with the series, and were a little dismayed when they saw Spike Milligan recording his series Q5, as it seemed like he'd beaten them to it. The group immediately scurried for a new style to call their own. After much debate, Terry Jones remembered an animation Terry Gilliam had done for Do Not Adjust Your Set called Beware of the Elephants which had no real theme, and was more of a stream of consciousness. Jones felt it would be a good concept to bring to the series, allowing sketches to blend into each other. Michael Palin was just as fascinated by another piece by Gilliam, called Christmas Cards. "It was absolutely brilliant," he later recalled, "with missiles coming out of church steeples. Terry's stream-of-consciousness animation was one of the examples of a way of doing things differently." As a result, the style of Monty Python was born.

Related Topics:
Spike Milligan - Q5 - Animation

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The first series of the television show was originally planned as a vehicle for Cleese's career. Cleese, however, wanted to work in collaboration, and so the group was assembled in an organised and disciplined manner. Each day of writing started at 9 am and finished at 5 pm. At the start of a typical week, Cleese and Chapman worked as one pair of writers isolated from the others, Jones and Palin worked together, and Idle wrote alone. After a few days of working in this configuration, the entire group would get together with Gilliam and critique their scripts and exchange ideas. Their approach to writing was democratic. If the majority found the idea to be humorous, it would be included in the show. The casting of roles for the sketches was a similarly unselfish process, since each member viewed himself as a writer rather than an actor desperate for screen time. When the themes for sketches were finally chosen, Gilliam had free creative reign to decide for himself how to merge them together with fanciful animations, armed with his camera, scissors, and airbrush.

Related Topics:
Collaboration - Democratic - Role

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Several names for the show were bandied about before the title "Monty Python's Flying Circus" was settled upon. Some of the more memorable were "Owl Stretching Time", "The Toad Elevating Moment" and "Bun, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot". "Flying Circus" came into the title when the BBC explained to the group that they had already written the name onto their schedules in ink and did not want to cross it out, leaving the Pythons not much choice. Many variations then came and went. "Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus" was named after a woman Michael Palin had read about in the newspaper, thinking it would be amusing if she were to discover she had her own T.V. show. "Barry Took's Flying Circus" was an affectionate tribute to the man who had brought them together. "Arthur Megapode's Flying Circus" was suggested, then discarded. Cleese then added Python, liking the image of a slippery, sly individual it conjured up. The origin of "Monty" is somewhat confused, but Idle claims it was a popular and rotund fellow who drank in his local pub. People would often walk in and ask the barman "Has Monty been in yet?", forcing the name to become stuck in his mind.

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Flying Circus pioneered some innovative formal techniques, such as the "cold intro", in which an episode began without the traditional opening titles or announcements. On several occasions the Pythons would even trick viewers by rolling the closing credits halfway through the show. Inspired by Milligan's earlier Q series, they also realised that they did not necessarily have to conclude a sketch with the traditional punchline. They experimented with ending segments by cutting abruptly to another scene or animation, walking offstage, addressing the camera, or introducing a totally unrelated event or character. A classic example of this approach was the use of Chapman's "Colonel" character, who walked into several sketches and ordered them to be stopped because they were "too silly."

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The use of Gilliam's surreal, collage stop motion animations was another innovative intertextual element of the Python style. Many of the images Gilliam used were lifted from famous works of art, and from Victorian illustrations and engravings. The giant foot, which crushes the title at the end of the opening credits, is in fact the foot of Cupid, cut from a reproduction of the Renaissance masterpiece Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time by Bronzino. This foot, and Gilliam's style in general, have become considered the visual trademarks of the series.

Related Topics:
Surreal - Collage - Stop motion animation - Victorian - Engraving - Cupid - Renaissance - Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time - Bronzino - Trademark

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The Pythons built on and extended the great British tradition of cross-dressed comedy. Rather than dressing a man as a woman for comic effect, the (entirely male) Python team would don frocks and make-up and play middle-aged women in an entirely straight manner (straight as in comedy style, rather than in a sexual preference respect). Thus a scene requiring a housewife would feature one of the male Pythons wearing a housecoat and apron, speaking in falsetto; the comic effect was accentuated by this, but the comedy itself was based on the role, not the cross-dressing aspect -- had a genuine woman played the role, the sketch would still have had great comic effect.

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Nonetheless, where sexual attraction was a required part of the sketch the Pythons were quite happy to include genuine (and usually busty) women in their sketches, such as

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the "unofficial female Python" Carol Cleveland: the cross-dressing was reserved for roles such as housewives, waitresses, secretaries, and other traditionally female roles where a sexual element was unnecessary or irrelevant.

Related Topics:
Carol Cleveland - Female

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Information about Monty Python

Information about Monty Python and the cast can be found in the book:

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• From Fringe to Flying Circus - 'Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960-1980' - Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980.