The Monty Python series
Monty Python's Flying Circus
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| Monty Python’s Flying Circus | |
|---|---|
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| Genre | Sketch comedy Surreal comedy Satire Black comedy |
| Created by | Graham Chapman John Cleese Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin Terry Gilliam |
| Written by | |
| Directed by | |
| Starring | Graham Chapman John Cleese Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin Terry Gilliam Carol Cleveland |
| Opening theme | "The Liberty Bell" by John Philip Sousa |
| Composer(s) | Neil Innes Fred Tomlinson Singers |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 45 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | approx. 25–30 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC1 (1969–1973) BBC2 (1974) |
| Original release | 5 October 1969 – 5 December 1974 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | And Now for Something Completely Different |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring the comedy group Monty Python. The first episode was recorded at the BBC on 7 September and premiered on 5 October 1969 on BBC1, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV.
The series stands out for its use of absurd situations, mixed with risqué and innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines. Live action segments were broken up with animations by group member Terry Gilliam, often merging with the live action to form segues. The overall format used for the series followed and elaborated upon the style used by Spike Milligan in his ground breaking series Q5, rather than the traditional sketch show format. The six troupe members, or "Pythons", play the majority of the series characters themselves, including the majority of the female characters, with a small team of regular supporting cast members, including Carol Cleveland (referred to by the team as the unofficial "Seventh Python"), Connie Booth (Cleese's first wife), series producer Ian MacNaughton, Ian Davidson, musician Neil Innes (in the fourth series), and Fred Tomlinson and the Fred Tomlinson Singers (for musical numbers).[1][2]
Much of the humour in the series's various episodes and sketches targets the idiosyncrasies of British life, especially that of professionals, as well as aspects of politics. The Monty Python troupe was highly educated; Terry Jones and Michael Palin are Oxford University graduates; Eric Idle, John Cleese and Graham Chapman attended Cambridge University; and American-born member Terry Gilliam graduated from Occidental College. Their comedy is often pointedly intellectual, with numerous erudite references to philosophers and literary figures and their works. The team intended their humour to be impossible to categorise, and succeeded (although, by their perspective, failed) so completely that the adjective "Pythonesque" was invented to define it and, later, similar material.
The opening titles of the series features as theme music the Band of the Grenadier Guards' rendition of John Philip Sousa's "The Liberty Bell" which was first published in 1893.[3] Under the Berne Convention's "country of origin" concept, the composition was subject to United States copyright law which states that any works first published prior to 1923 was in the public domain due to copyright expiration.[4] This enabled Gilliam to co-opt the march for the series without having to make any royalty payments.[5]
Contents
Title[edit]
The title Monty Python's Flying Circus was partly the result of the group's reputation at the BBC. Michael Mills, the BBC's Head of Comedy, wanted their name to include the word "circus" because the BBC referred to the six members wandering around the building as a circus, in particular, "Baron Von Took's Circus", after Barry Took, who had brought them to the BBC.[6] The group added "flying" to make it sound less like an actual circus and more like something from World War I. The group was coming up with their name at a time when the 1966 Royal Guardsmen song Snoopy vs. the Red Baron had been at a peak. Freiherr Manfred von Richthofen, the World War I German flying ace known as The Red Baron, commanded the Jagdgeschwader 1 squadron of planes known as "The Flying Circus."
The words "Monty Python" were added because they claimed it sounded like a really bad theatrical agent, the sort of person who would have brought them together, with John Cleese suggesting "Python" as something slimy and slithery, and Eric Idle suggesting "Monty".[7] They later explained that the name Monty "...made us laugh because Monty to us means Lord Montgomery, our great general of the Second World War".[8]
The BBC had rejected some other names put forward by the group including Whither Canada?, The Nose Show, Ow! It's Colin Plint!, A Horse, a Spoon and a Basin, The Toad Elevating Moment and Owl Stretching Time.[7] Several of these titles were later used for individual episodes.
Recurring characters[edit]
Compared with many other sketch comedy shows, Flying Circus had fewer recurring characters, many of whom were involved only in titles and linking sequences. Continuity for many of these recurring characters was frequently non-existent from sketch to sketch, with sometimes even the most basic information (such as a character's name) being changed from one appearance to the next.
Frequently recurring characters (six or more appearances)[edit]
- The "It's" Man (Palin), a Robinson Crusoe-type castaway with torn clothes and a long, unkempt beard who would appear at the beginning of the programme. Often he is seen performing a long or dangerous task, such as falling off a tall, jagged cliff or running through a mine field a long distance towards the camera before introducing the show by just saying, "It's..." before being abruptly cut off by the opening titles and Terry Gilliam's animation sprouting the words 'Monty Python’s Flying Circus'. It's was an early candidate for the title of the series.
- A BBC continuity announcer in a dinner jacket (Cleese), seated at a desk, often in highly incongruous locations, such as a forest or a beach. His line, "And now for something completely different", was used variously as a lead-in to the opening titles and a simple way to link sketches. Though Cleese is best known for it, Idle first introduced the phrase in Episode 2, where he introduced a man with three buttocks. It eventually became the show’s catchphrase and served as the title for the troupe’s first movie. In Series 3 the line was shortened to simply: "And now..." and was often combined with the "It's" man in introducing the episodes.
- The Gumbys, a dim-witted group of identically attired people all wearing gumboots (from which they take their name), high-water trousers, braces, Fair Isle tanktops, white shirts with rolled up sleeves, round wire-rimmed glasses, toothbrush moustaches and knotted handkerchiefs worn on their heads (a stereotype of the English working-class holidaymaker). Gumbys always stand in a hunched, square posture, holding their arms stiffly at their sides with their balled hands curled inwards. They speak slowly in loud, throaty voices punctuated by frequent grunts and groans, display a poor understanding of everything they encounter, and have a fondness for pointless violence. All of them are surnamed Gumby: D.P. Gumby, R.S. Gumby, etc. Even though all Pythons played Gumbys in the show's run, the character is most closely associated with Michael Palin.
- The Knight with a Raw Chicken (Gilliam), who would hit characters over the head with the chicken when they said something particularly silly. The knight was a regular during the first series and made another appearance in the third.
- A nude organist (played in his first appearance by Gilliam, later by Jones) who provided a brief fanfare to punctuate certain sketches, most notably on a sketch poking fun at Sale of the Century or as yet another way to introduce the opening titles. This character was addressed as "Onan" by Palin's host character in the ersatz game show sketch "Blackmail".
- The "Pepper Pots" are screeching middle-aged, lower-middle class housewives, played by the Pythons in frocks and frumpy hats, and engage in surreal and inconsequential conversation. "The Pepper Pots" was the in-house name that the Pythons used to identify these characters, and were never identified as such on-screen. On the rare occasion these women were named, it was often for comic effect, featuring such names as Mrs. Scum, Mrs. Non-Gorilla, Mrs. Thing, Mrs. Entity, or the duo Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion. "Pepper pot" refers to what the Pythons believed was the typical body shape of middle-class, British housewives, as explained by John Cleese in How to Irritate People.[9] Terry Jones is perhaps most closely associated with the Pepper Pots, but all the Pythons were frequent in performing the drag characters.
- Brief black-and-white stock footage, lasting only two or three seconds, of middle-aged women sitting in an audience and applauding. The film was taken from a Women’s Institute meeting and was sometimes presented with a colour tint.[10] This was used as a reference to the types of audiences they had to face during the first series.[citati
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