Monty Python's Flying Circus (also known as simply Monty Python) is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, who became known collectively as "Monty Python", or the "Pythons". The first episode was recorded at the BBC on 7 September 1969 and premiered on 5 October on BBC1, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV. A feature film adaptation of several sketches, And Now for Something Completely Different, was released in 1971.
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 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 groundbreaking series Q..., rather than the traditional sketch show format. The Pythons play the majority of the series's characters, along with 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, and Fred Tomlinson and the Fred Tomlinson Singers for musical numbers.
The programme came about as the six Pythons, having met each other through university and in various radio and television programmes in the 1960s, sought to make a new sketch comedy show unlike anything else on British television. Much of the humour in the series targeted the idiosyncrasies of British life, especially that of professionals, as well as aspects of politics. 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 so completely that the adjective "Pythonesque" was invented to define it and, later, similar material. Their humour was not always seen as appropriate for television by the BBC, leading to some censorship during the third series. Cleese left the show following that series, and the remaining Pythons completed a final, shortened fourth series before ending the show.
The show became very popular in the United Kingdom, and after initially failing to draw an audience in the United States, gained American popularity after PBS member stations began airing it in 1974. The programme's success on both sides of the Atlantic led to the Pythons going on live tours and creating three additional films, while the individual Pythons flourished in solo careers. Monty Python's Flying Circus has become an influential work on comedy as well as in popular culture. The programming language Python was named by Guido van Rossum after the show, and the word spam, for junk email, took its name from a word used in a Monty Python sketch.
Premise Monty Python's Flying Circus is a sketch comedy show, though it does not adhere to any regular format. The sketches include live-action skits performed by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, along with animations created by Gilliam, frequently used as linking devices or interstitial between skits. During the first three series, Cleese would be dressed in a dinner jacket and introduce the show with the phrase "And Now for Something Completely Different". Afterwards, a long-haired man (called the It's man) played by Michael Palin would run all the way to the camera and say "It's.." which would start the show proper. The show's introductory theme, which varied with each series, was also based on Gilliam's animations and was accompanied by a rendition of The Liberty Bell march by John Philip Sousa, as performed by the Band of the Grenadier Guards. The march was first published in 1893; Gilliam chose it as the show's theme because it had fallen into the public domain under the terms of the Berne Convention and United States copyright law, and could thus be used without royalty payments.All Music Guide to Classical Music: The Definitive Guide to Classical Music. San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books, 2005. Retrieved February 11, 2018Clark, Philip. "Monty Python: Sousa, two-sheds and musical subversions," The Guardian, Friday, July 11, 2014. Retrieved February 12, 2018
Title 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.The term flying circus first being applied to Baron von Richthofen's Jagdgeschwader 1. 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 The 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 fighter squadron 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". 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". 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. Several of these titles were later used for individual episodes.
Recurring characters
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.
The most frequently returning characters on the show include:
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 tank tops, 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 two appearances 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". He wore only a tie and a white shirt collar. 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, who 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. 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.
Other recurring characters include:
"The Colonel" (Chapman), a British Army officer who interrupts sketches that are "too silly" or that contain material he finds offensive. The Colonel also appears when non-BBC broadcast repeats need to be cut off for time constraints in syndication. Arthur Pewtey (Palin), a socially inept, extremely dull man who appears most notably in the "Marriage Guidance Counsellor" and "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketches. His sketches all take the form of an office appointment with an authority figure (usually played by Cleese), which are used to parody the officious side of the British establishment by having the professional employed in the most bizarre field of expertise. The spelling of Pewtey's surname is changed, sometimes being spelled "Putey". The Reverend Arthur Belling is the vicar of St Loony-Up-The-Cream-Bun-and-Jam, known for his deranged behaviour. In one sketch (within Series 2, played by Chapman), he makes an appeal to the insane people of the world to drive sane people insane. In another sketch (within Series 3, played by Palin), which is among the pantheon of fan favourites, the vicar politely joins a honeymooning couple at an outdoor café, repeatedly insisting he does not wish to disturb them; he then sits down, opens a suitcase full of props, and calmly proceeds to smash plates on the table, shake a baby doll in their faces, bounce a rubber crab from a ping-pong paddle, and spray shaving cream all over his face, all whilst loudly chanting nonsense syllables. Rev. Belling's odd version of 'not being disturbing' serves to convert the couple to his bizarre sect of Christianity.