Monty Python

"And now for something completely different..."

Monty Python is a comedy group made up of John Cleese (born: October 27, 1939), Terry Jones (February 1 1942 - January 21 2020 [aged 77]), Michael Palin (born: May 5, 1943), Graham Chapman (January 8 1941 - October 4 1989 [aged 48]), Eric Idle (born: March 29, 1943) and Terry Gilliam (born: October 22, 1940) who created the sketch comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus which first aired on the BBC in 1969, the film's Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) and Monty Python's Meaning of Life (1983) whose influence on comedy has seen them described as "The Beatles of comedy."

Pre-Python
John Cleese and Graham Chapman met at Cambridge University, where Eric Idle was also studying albeit enrolling a year after them, where the three were part of the university's Footlights society. In 1963, Cleese and Chapman were part of the Footlights revue Cambridge Circus (along with future Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie) that played at the Edinburgh Festival in 1963 before moving to London's West End later that year. In 1964 Cambridge Circus toured New Zealand, where they recorded a TV special and a series of radio shows between July-August, and following a successful tour the show transferred to Broadway in September 1964 which saw the revue gain additional exposure when appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show in October 1964, and during this time Cleese and Chapman first met with Terry Gilliam.

Terry Jones and Michael Palin met at Oxford University, where the two performed as part of the Oxford Revue, which performed at the Edinburgh Festival at the same time as Cambridge Circus.

Following their times at their respective revue societies, the future Pythons began working in radio and later television throughout the mid-1960s, with their first work being I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again where Cleese was a writer and performer while Chapman and Idle were part of the writing team which was first broadcast on the BBC Home Service in April 1964, continuing until December 1973 on the BBC Light Programme (later renamed BBC Radio Two) which also featured the future Goodies Oddie, Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden.

Moving into TV with The Frost Report, which ran on the BBC from March 1966 to December 1967, where Cleese was once again a writer and cast member while Idle, Chapman, Jones and Palin were all members of the show's writing team alongside Brooke-Taylor, Oddie, and future Two Ronnies Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker, with a compilation of the series winning the Rose d'Or at the 1967 Montreux Festival. Following this, Cleese and Chapman worked on several other comedy series, including At Last the 1948 Show (February-November 1967) for ITV, How to Irritate People (1968) for the BBC (which Palin was also a member of the cast), and Doctor in the House (1969-70) for ITV.

At the same time Jones, Palin and Idle were working with animator Gilliam on Do Not Adjust Your Set for ITV between December 1967 and May 1969, which was initially conceived to be a children's programme but quickly gained a following with adults, with Cleese mentioning that he and Chapman would watch the show during their writing sessions. Following this, Palin and Jones wrote and starred in The Complete and Utter History of Britain (January-February 1969) for ITV.

Off the back of these series, the BBC offered Cleese and Chapman their own show, while ITV offered Jones, Palin, Idle and Gilliam a late-night comedy series. As Cleese didn't want to work on a two-man show, and had issues with Chapman's sometimes difficult approach to writing, he reached out to Palin to suggest he join the show, and he agreed - as long as he could also involve his writing partner Jones and frequent collaborator Idle, and in turn Idle said that he wanted to bring Gilliam to provide animations for the prospective series

Monty Python's Flying Circus
"It's..."

On 5th October 1969 at 10:50pm BBC viewers were greeted with the sight of a Robinson Crusoe-type castaway emerging from the sea at Poole Harbour in Dorset, shambling up the beach towards the camera to say "It's..." before being cut off by the show's opening titles, where Terry Gilliam's collage animations to the tune of The Liberty Bell, with the titles ending with a large foot literally squashing the show's title. In a vision of what to come a decade later with the release of Life of Brian, the BBC faced a potential worker's strike due to the show replacing a late-night religious programme, only preventing the strike by assuring their staff that by replacing religious programming with a comedy programme they were giving clergymen the evening off on their busiest day of the week.

On paper it would be safe to assume that Monty Python's Flying Circus was an instant success considering the group's enduring fame, but that couldn't be further from the truth as the first episode drew 1.5m viewers, approximately 3% of the British population at the time while other comedy shows such as Dad's Army were pulling in 22% of the population, while BBC executives went so far as to describe the show as "disgusting and nihilistic" and also had to re-edit some sketches due to David Frost's real address and telephone number being included.

In spite of the show's initial stuttering start, as the first series continued it gained an audience and made its indelible mark, and during the first series some of Python's most iconic sketches such as the Dead Parrot sketch, The Lumberjack Song, Upper Class Twit of the Year, Self Defence Against Fresh Fruit and The Funniest Joke in the World were broadcast and made it impossible for pet shop owners and lumberjacks to ever be taken seriously ever again by the time the first series finished in January 1970.

For the second series, which began broadcast in September 1970, the show attracted a larger audience than the first, while also providing more iconic sketches such as The Ministry of Silly Walks, The Spanish Inquisition, and How Not to Be Seen, however the BBC were appalled with the Undertaker's sketch and criticised series producer Ian MacNaughton for failing to alert them about the sketch's content prior to broadcast which stressed the working relationship between the troupe and the BBC, while also leading to the BBC censoring Python's sketches from the third series onwards.

The third series began broadcast in October 1972, but while it continued providing iconic sketches such as The Fish-Slapping Dance, Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses, and Sam Peckinpah's "Salad Days" Cleese had grown dissatisfied with working on the show and left after the series finished in January 1973, feeling that they had begun to rehash previous sketches while also finding it increasingly difficult working with Chapman due to his alcoholism. A fourth season began airing in October 1974, but after only six episodes the five remaining Pythons decided to end the show.