Monty Python

“I think all the Pythons are nuts in some way,” Eric Idle once wrote, “and together we make one completely insane person.” That insane entity, the comedy supergroup Monty Python, convened in 1969, with the BBC sketch show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” Its six members—Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, and Graham Chapman, plus a lone American, Terry Gilliam—became the defining absurdists of postwar Britain, stomping their collective foot on polite society. You know the rest: the ex-parrot, the Comfy Chair, the Ministry of Silly Walks, the Knights Who Say “Ni!” If he had done nothing else, Idle would have given humanity an enduring gift with “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” the ditty that ends “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” sung by a group of unlikely optimists while they’re being crucified. At one point, it was ranked the most played song at British funerals.

But Idle’s work extends beyond Monty Python. His TV film “The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash,” from 1978, which chronicles the rise of a not-quite-the-Beatles rock band, was an early specimen of the mockumentary. (A sequel, “The Rutles 2: Can’t Buy Me Lunch,” appeared in 2003.) Based in Los Angeles since 1994, Idle has lent his trademark jolly obnoxiousness to everything from the English National Opera’s production of “The Mikado” to the reality show “The Masked Singer.” With his musical partner, John du Prez, he wrote “Spamalot,” a stage musical “lovingly ripped off” from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” which won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Musical and was revived on Broadway last season. Idle and the surviving Pythons—Chapman died in 1989, Jones in 2020—are now beloved octogenarians, the closest thing comedy has to living deities.

And yet there have been signs of disquiet in the Python kingdom. The group’s most recent (and, they insist, final) reunion was a decade ago, at London’s O2 Arena, and was motivated less by fan service than by financial straits. A producer of “Holy Grail” had successfully sued for “Spamalot” royalties, claiming that he’d been the “seventh Python.” (Idle called the idea “laughable.”) This past February, Idle tweeted about the Pythons’ money problems—“I never dreamed that at this age the income streams would tail off so disastrously”—and pointed the finger at their asset manager, Holly Gilliam, Terry’s daughter. Cleese came to Holly’s defense, calling her “very efficient, clear-minded, hard-working, and pleasant.” The two men, who had toured together as recently as 2016, traded barbs on X: Idle revealed that he hadn’t seen Cleese for years; Cleese posted, “We always loathed and despised each other, but it’s only recently that the truth has begun to emerge,” then said that he was joking. Still, fans wondered: Had the Spam soured?

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There’s a line that stood out to me from the diary: “On a positive note, I did realize this morning that the Grail is essentially about the Pythons: each knight’s character is a reflection of our own.” Can you tell me what that means?

You know, John Cleese is Lancelot, and he’s violent and keeps smashing people to bits. Michael Palin has got an eye for the girls, but he mustn’t do that. I’m Sir Robin, a friend of the musicians. Terry Jones is Bedevere: a bit batty, with odd theories. And Gilliam’s a kind of daft Patsy.

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In your “sortabiography,” from 2018, you write that, decades after “Holy Grail,” you were working on a sequel, “The Final Crusade,” and John Cleese didn’t want to do it.

Yes, in the end it was John. Funnily enough, I’ve got a little booklet of it, which I’m taking on tour to sell in the lobby. It’s called “Almost the Final Python Film: The Not Making of The Final Crusade.” I had this idea, and I wrote a little treatment. I go and see John, and we have a pleasant lunch in Montecito. He likes it, so I send it to all the others. We all meet in Cliveden, which is a hotel on the Thames owned by the Astors. And John announces that he doesn’t want to do it. Then Gilliam says, “Could you have mentioned this before we all gathered here?” [Cleese, who has a different memory of these events, says that he never thought the movie was a good idea, and still doesn’t.]

I liked the idea that we would all play the same knights, but twenty years have passed, and we would be much older and grumpier. They want us to take Arthur’s body back to the Holy Land, and Graham could still play Arthur: we could use vocal technology to have him say any lines we wanted from inside the sepulcher. I loved the idea of Graham complaining, “Get on with it!”

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Back in February, there was this exchange between you and John Cleese on X that got a little testy, but maybe tongue-in-cheek. How is your relationship with John?

Well, I would say poor. I’d been unhappy with the business and how it was working. And they aren’t unhappy. It’s odd with John, because things started to go a bit south during lockdown, and I got worried. I haven’t seen him for eight years. I think when you lose touch with people face to face, all sorts of things can happen. It’s a pity. It’s not how we were. Again, I met him in 1963, so that’s an awfully long time. I’ve known many versions of John: times of happiness, times of sadness, times of success, times of less success. You just have to take a long view. We don’t have to force each other to face each other on everything that has to be decided. I try not to get involved if I can, because I feel very lucky that I’ve survived. [Idle was given a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in 2019, but it was treated successfully.] I had a reprieve, and you shouldn’t spend the rest of your time bickering if you’ve had a reprieve.

Sir Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam have launched a £120,000 appeal to fund a statue of the late Terry Jones, their friend and fellow member of Monty Python. High profile celebrities are backing the campaign for the bronze memorial in Jones' native Colwyn Bay.

The statue, which would be placed on the town's promenade, will depict Jones as a nude organist, a nod to one of his famous Monty Python sketches. The campaign is supported by celebrities including Cerys Matthews, Steve Coogan, Jo Brand, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Emma Thompson, Alex Horne, Simon Fanshawe OBE and Steven Isserlis CBE.

Terry was born in Colwyn Bay and lived there for the first five years of his life until his family moved to Surrey. Later he became a Patron of Theatr Colwyn, a place where his grandfather, mother and aunt all appeared on stage as both amateurs and professionals.

Every time I think I’ve seen Magic: The Gathering’s most unexpected crossover yet – be that Hatsune Miku or the board game Clue – Wizards of the Coast figures out some way to surprise me yet again. This time it’s with a selection of cards set in the world of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Split across two Secret Lair drops, the latest Universes Beyond tie-in will have eight reprints and one token reskinned with references and jokes from the classic 1975 film. One drop will have five cards total, one of which is double-faced so you can choose if it’s either an African or European swallow, while the other will have three cards and a token.

It is possibly the most famous foot in modern screen history as it stamps down twice during the opening credits of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Now it has been revealed that its inspiration is a 16th century painting in the National Gallery.

“In the late Sixties I would come to the gallery to steal ideas - some from paintings and through buying posters and souvenirs of characters I liked,” says Python member Terry Gilliam. “I then went home to create wonderfully silly animations.”

In a documentary film to celebrate the gallery’s 200th anniversary, which falls this weekend, Gilliam tells how Bronzino’s Allegory with Venus, Cupid and Folly led to his creation of the descending bare foot. Gilliam, who later directed films including Brazil and 12 Monkeys, had noticed Cupid and a dove in a bottom corner of the painting.

“It seemed like his foot was about to crush the unsuspecting bird. I thought it would make a lovely punctuation - a sudden halt to what was going on. Cupid’s foot made it even better because what better than to be crushed by love,” he told The Telegraph.

Three members of Monty Python have reunited to celebrate Michael Palin‘s birthday.

John Cleese posted a dinner table picture on X (formerly Twitter) of himself alongside Palin and Terry Gilliam after Palin turned 81 on May 5.

Cleese captioned the photo: “An 18 foot Python celebrates Pallin’s 181st Birthday and 195th Travel Book. Photo taken at cafe on peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.”

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Eric Idle, who lives in Los Angeles, appeared to be absent from the festivities following his online spat with Cleese and Gilliam earlier this year.

Idle blamed mismanagement of the Python brand on Gilliam and his daughter Holly, while writing that it makes him “happy” that he had not seen Cleese in seven years.

Cleese bit back, saying he and Idle had always “loathed and despised” each other. He later clarified that he was joking, posting a series of messages on X lashing out at the reporting of his remarks.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/17714635

Prompt: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Style: stable cascade

You can vote for the best image here: https://sigmoid.social/@stablehorde_generator/112199002287056449

Even though it’s regularly held up as one of the greatest comedies ever made, the brains behind Monty Python and the Holy Grail have been happy to admit they were resolutely ill-equipped and under-prepared for making a feature film.

Co-directors Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones had never helmed a movie before but decided the best way to embark upon the steepest possible learning curve was to dive right in and pick it up on the fly. That’s reflective of the troupe’s anarchic nature as a whole, and the production was unsurprisingly gripped by several predicaments stemming from their lack of funds and experience.

The thrifty budget of under £200,000 was cobbled together from a myriad of assorted investors, including Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, and Elton John, among others. Still, the investment didn’t stretch far enough to afford more than one camera, which inevitably suffered from malfunctions on the very first day of shooting.

Descending upon Scotland’s Glencoe region, the ‘Bridge of Death’ sequence was first on the schedule, only for technical problems to arise on the first take on Holy Grail. As Gilliam shared in a making-of documentary, panic immediately set in when the novice crew couldn’t even capture a single frame of footage without incident.

“The first couple of days, we just sort of leaped into it. Immediately, we, first of all, had chosen an impossible location, about a half a mile up Glen Coe, so everything had to be hunked by sherpas up the mountain,” he explained. “We got up there, the very first shot of the film, the big moment, the camera turns and it jams.”

Being the only camera they had at their disposal, the circumstances were far from ideal, especially when the camera wouldn’t sync up with the audio once it was back up and running. To ensure that at least some work was getting done, close-ups that didn’t require any dialogue or external sounds were filmed.

John Cleese is making it clear that he – and a few other Pythons – are in complete disagreement with long-ago co-star Eric Idle, who last weekend slammed manager (and daughter of Python co-founder Terry Gilliam) Holly Gilliam for what Idle suggested were the troupe’s dwindling finances.

“We own everything we ever made in Python and I never dreamed that at this age the income streams would tail off so disastrously,” Idle posted on X/Twitter Saturday. “But I guess if you put a Gilliam child in as your manager you should not be so surprised. One Gilliam is bad enough. Two can take out any company.”

Cleese left no doubt where he stands on the matter.

“I have worked with Holly for the last ten years,” the Fawlty Towers creator tweeted today, “and I find her very efficient, clear-minded, hard-working, and pleasant to have dealings with.”

Cleese continued, “Michael Palin has asked me to to make it clear that he shares this opinion. Terry Gilliam is also in agreement with this.”

Apparently there’s no love lost between Cleese and Idle, with the latter responding, when asked by an X follower if the two remain close, “I haven’t seen Cleese for seven years.” When another follower replied saying that made him sad, Idle responded, “Why. It makes me happy.”

Today, Cleese responded with an assessment so blunt some followers wondered if it was all a gag: “We always loathed and despised each other, but it’s only recently that the truth has begun to emerge.”

Gag or not, Cleese’s comment is in line with a post by Idle’s daughter Lily, who wrote, “I’m so proud of my dad for finally starting to share the truth. He has always stood up to bullies and narcissists and absolutely deserves reassurance and validation for doing so.”

From farcical mechanisms for supreme executive power to the average speed of an unladen swallow, Monty Python And The Holy Grail has become part of the cultural lexicon. It might be a silly film for silly people but, nearly 50 years after its release it remains an eminently quotable and enduring comedy classic. But it and the iconic British comedy team’s follow-up The Life Of Brian might not have got off the ground if it wasn’t for funding from some of the world’s biggest rock stars.

Monty Python’s 1971’s And Now for Something Completely Different was bankrolled by Playboy′s UK executive Victor Lownes. It was a moderate success in the UK, even if it failed in its aim of breaking the troupe in the US. It was also a reworking of sketches from the first two series of the TV show Monty Python's Flying Circus. When they came to touting the script for the film that would become Monty Python And The Holy Grail, nobody wanted to know.

Asked by The Guardian in 2002 if there had been any studio interference in the film, director/animator and Python team member Terry Gilliam replied that there was no interference because no studio would give them any money.

“This was at the time income tax was running as high as 90%, so we turned to rock stars for finance,” he continued. “Elton John, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, they all had money, they knew our work and we seemed a good tax write-off. Except, of course we weren't. It was like [Mel Brooks satire] The Producers.”

More recently Eric Idle, Python mainstay and one-time member of parody rock band The Rutles, offered up more details. In a 2021 tweet he revealed that Led Zeppelin had stumped up £31,500, Pink Floyd had contributed £21,000 and Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson provided a further £6,300. Allowing for inflation this would be equivalent to around £285,000, £190,000 and £57,000 respectively.

Idle made no mention of Elton John but listed other backers including producer Michael White, who put in the biggest sum with £78,750. A number of record labels chipped in, with Island Records (£21,000), Chrysalis (£6,300) and Charisma Records (£5,250) all contributing. The final backer was musical theatre lyricist and Andrew Lloyd Webber collaborator Tim Rice’s private cricket team!

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“Originally, we had the money from EMI for this film,” recalled Terry Gilliam. “It was, I believe, the Thursday before the crew was leaving [to start filming], we got the news that EMI had pulled out because apparently [film executive] Lord Bernie Delfont had finally got around to reading the script, decided it was blasphemous, and didn’t want his company to be involved in it … Everything was canceled.”

Enter George Harrison, Python fanatic and close friend of Eric Idle. Idle and producer John Goldstone went to see Harrison at his home in the Hollywood Hills and the former Beatles man promised to pay for the whole thing. "I can't remember whether he'd read the script already or not,” Goldstone told The Guardian in 2003. “It didn't really seem to matter. I just couldn't believe it. I felt… rock’n’rollers, no sense of reality at all."

Back on Backerkit: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/dynamite-entertainment/monty-python-and-the-holy-grail-board-game

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QUcf7wExqHvA1UYjE8-8-q7iHPuvbETa/view?usp=sharing

Please use this power for the good of all mankind.

(edited to add the context from the original x-tweet)

Rabbit of Caerbannog, or, the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I ran a poll earlier this month on Patreon to decide on a classic monster to be turned into a cute girl, and, this happened

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/13102701

https://twitter.com/Parorou/status/1718338418944454777

cross-posted from: https://derp.foo/post/327845

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/3128679

Last year, the Monty Python legend announced that he would be hosting his own show on the news channel and that it would be a "no holds barred account of the news".

Entitled The Dinosaur Hour, Cleese appeared on GB News to discuss his decision to join the network, telling Michelle Dewberry: "They came to me a few months ago and they made me the most extraordinary offer that’s ever been made to anyone in the history of television."

He added: "They said 'would you like to do ten shows; you can do whatever you like'. Can you imagine the BBC doing that? It would be subject to committee A and then after committee A had approved it, you’d go to Committee B. They said you can do anything and I’ve had no interference of any kind and it has been joyful."

The show will be filmed at a thousand year old castle and feature Cleese having intimate conversations with a number of guests.

"The series had been sitting in the ITV vaults though mis-catalogued for decades, but through the identification programme we were able to make this remarkable find.

"We flagged it to our colleagues in streaming, had the film cleaned and restored from the 16mm telerecordings and then finally made available to our viewers for the first time since the original broadcasts."

All six half-hour shows are available to watch now via ITVX Premium.

"CARP License" and "Redundancy must be free"

Should look pretty fancy. I'm hoping for a short cinema run with the new release, as was done with The Wicker Man.

Anyway, it's aound 22 quid:

• Arrow
• Amazon
• HMV
• Zavvi

US import:

• Diabolik

Tech specs;

• Blu-ray.com

There is a US 4k release from Criterion:

• Criterion