Alack! This forum has fallen to the bottom of the pile! Thought I'd drag it up again. Delighted to see it.

As to best episodes: the Extraterrestrial Blancmange. HILARIOUS.

The Monty Python cast are WAY to good at crossdressing, though. I swear Terry Jones and Eric Idle are both females in disguise. I always love it whenever there's a sketch involving gossipy English housewives, though. "_"

Also: gumbies. Love the gumbies. 'I like to bash myself in the head with bricks while croonin': Only make believe I love you!! Only make believe that you love meee!'

Lastly:



*nods* Me too. Eric... *drool* Oh, how I adore him.

I love MPFC - part of me wants to get the DVD set, but since I've already invested in the bulk of the VHS version, and my tapes are still in good shape, it's hard to justify spending the money for the DVDs.

I'm not generally a big Gumbies fan, although I do love the Gumby brain specialist sketch.

Have any of you python fans read The Pythons by the Pythons? I just finished it; it was rather interesting and all the pictures were awesome. But the thing that really interested me was that they were planning on doing a sequel to the Holy Grail and they already started writing it and John just said too bad I don't want to do it. Oh it made me so mad. Anyway the book also cemented my adoration for Michael. Swoon.

Ooh, didn't know there was a book. Will have to go buy it.

Do any of you know if the Holy Grail Broadway Musical is ever going to take off? I'm certainly hoping so.

Funny how on TV strangling animals is OK but masturbation isn't.

Burma!

(Sorry, I panicked.)

New discussion topic: movie scenes that bring Python sketches to mind.

In Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?, when the frog hopped out of Turturro's empty clothes, lying on the rocks, how many of you turned to your companion to whisper, "Well, she turned me into a newt!"

'I got better.....'

Good question Inqy.

When Aragorn chops up the Uber-Orc that is trying to kill Boromir in FOTR I just can't help thinking of the Black Knight scene. When it pulls itself further onto Aragorn's sword I wish it had said 'Tis but a scratch'.


Edited because a 'barely' is not a 'but'

...and from the TV series [hint/], I can't get a certain scene out of my head. It featured this hospital where the doctors sat around and did nothing, while they had patients (in body casts, head-to-toe bandages, etc.) out running obstacle courses, doing calisthenics, etc. The man narrating the "story" asked a man with his entire head bandaged up, "And how are you feeling?" His response, in a dreadful, rasping voice reminiscent of someone on their death bed, was "Much...better!"

Now whenever some asks me How I am, I often fight the urge to say the same line in the same way. Of course, it would create more questions than it answers.

And of course who among us can get through ordering breakfast at a diner without asking "Have you got anything without spam in it?" in a falsetto English accent?
[crickets/]
Okay, maybe just me.

I watched '28 Days' with my friends and there was alot of 'I'm not quite dead!', 'I'm getting better!", and "Bring out your dead!" from the group as we watched the creepy zombie movie.

Actually, quoting Python helped me get through it.'28 Days' is pretty nasty.

The Penguin-On-The-Telly bit is one of my all-time favorites - Chapman and Cleese are on the verge of losing it throughout, and it comes through and gives it just a little extra comedic energy.

We were just as naughty in LOTR:ROTOTK as Denethor was setting up the 'funeral pyre' and Pippin was trying to convince him that Faramir wasn't actually dead. Lots of 'Not quite dead!' and 'I'm getting better' falsetto cries at the screen, till a really, big, mean-looking guy in the row ahead of us turned to glare...

As I recall (it's been a while), there's a scene in Braveheart that practically compels audience members to say "What, the curtains?"

Oh, the final battle scene when they ride up to the wall, I was in stiches. I kept waiting for one of the Orcs to say "I fart in your general direction".

The gang has been in the news lately. They are all (including Graham's ashes) in the new Vanity Fair - the Hollywood issue. And Holy Grail has been named by film fans as the best British picture of all time Python's Grail 'best Brit film' Life of Brian is 7th.

"This is my wife Audrey: she smells a bit, but shes got a 'eart o gold."


my FAV sketch...

"Hahahahaha... oh, I wet 'em!"

(falsetto voice) "I want to be a woman. Call me Loretta."

Does anybody else have a hard time refraining from using Monty Python lines in real life, not-particularly-funny situations? I was at a Greek resturant with a live band, and it was all I could do to keep from yelling out, "Shut that bloody bouzouki up!" from the cheese shop sketch. The thing was, the band wasn't half bad, and the bouzouki was inoffensive.

I had a bottle of Monty Python's Holy (Gr)ail yesterday, which I bought purely for the label.

I could barely finish it. The movie is considerably better.

Python fans may enjoy the Watley Review's story on "New Dixie Cups Modeled on Holy Grail', particularly the last paragraph.

Speaking of the Holy Grail, I understand there's going to be a Broadway musical based on the movie, starring Hank Azaria, Tim Curry and David Hyde Pierce. Opening in January.

Spamalot will open in Chicago this December before going to Broadway.

I actually think David Hyde Pierce is a good choice for this show.

I don't know. How can any of these guys ever top the perfection of, say, Michael Palin, in a thick Cockney(?) accent pontificating,

"I mean, if I went 'round, saying I was emperor, just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!"

(I still wish I could go see it though.)

Pythons at Holy Grail premiere There is a "slide show" of other premiere photos to the right. Enjoy!

But did someone bring Graham's ashes? That's what I want to know. I am so excited - I'm going to see it May 14th.

Ooh, lucky you, M.Darcy! The New York Times liked it.

The Wall Street Journal did not.

Anxiously awaiting your appraisal!

Word on the street has been very positive. Newsweek loves the show and has written lots about it. It has the Knights Who Say Ni! How bad can it be :-)

I saw it the first week of premieres in Chicago and didn't like it. I thought it lacked the magic of the movie. I loved the movie and have seen it a billion times but the musical just fell flat. First off, I was surrounded by people who were just bizarre. Someone comes onto the stage with coconuts and they laughed like they were going to burst a blood vessle. Dude, did you NOT know that was going to happen? Plus, it was funny in the movie but let's chill a little, ok? So I certainly agree with the WSJ reporter. It seemed like people were just a little too crazed about it.

I loved the parts that came from the movie but it's a big pet peeve of mine to see modern pop culture jokes in something that doesn't really require it. To me it's the difference between watching Shrek & the Incredibles. Both very funny but 10 years from now, the Incredibles will still be funny but a kid watching Shrek might not get all the little jokes that were modern at the time.

There were plenty of those "Well, this is amusing NOW" sort of jokes in Spamalot. Brittany Spears mentions, "Lake-er girls", Andrew Lloyd Weber jokes. They all fell flat with me. To me they seemed too easy. Eric Idol is funnier than that. Monty Python humor always amused me because it was so smart. A Brittany Spears joke is not smart humor. It's easy humor IMO.

Also, there were two songs I just HATED one was about how you can't be on broadway if you don't have jews in your show and the other was about gays. Both seemed too simple. Plus, it's the tired sort of Will & Grace/Robin Williams sense of humor that I've never found funny but now that it's been going on for years it just really makes me yawn.

Granted, it was the first week and after I saw it I heard that they cut two songs and one character so it likely moves a lot faster. But I was not impressed. And it really disappointed me to be not impressed becuase I really really really wanted to like it. I had been looking forward to it coming to Chicago for a year and was giddy to be in the show but by the end of it I was going crazy in my seat from boredom and disappointment.

crazy_girl, the first song you hated was the only thing the WSJ critic liked about the show! Different strokes... though the Lake-er girls things does sound a bit lame.

Heh, I have to admit recently when I saw Life of Brian in a movie theatre, I would laugh before the funny thing happened because I knew it was coming. The guy next to me did the same thing. The movie starts, you see a sky full of stars, and I was already in hysterics.

Inquisitionist

I'd love to read the full WSJ article but can't find it online. Could you e-mail it to me?

It is different strokes. The guy across from me at work saw it two weeks after me and loved it.

Here's the answer to my question about Graham being at the Spamalot opening

More Monty Python fun from the current issue of EW - Top 20 sketches and a quiz Examalot

Hey, my namesake made #1 on the sketch list. ("Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!") I also mentioned Crunchy Frog in the personal ad that lead to meeting my husband, so it was good to see that one as well. However, my all-time favorite, John Cleese as the Hungarian in Terry Jones's tobacconist's shop, failed to make the cut. (Honestly, don't you yearn for an occasion when you can proclaim, "My nipples explode with delight!" Oh, you already have? My mistake.)

Thanks for the links, M. Darcy. I scored 9 of 10 on Examalot, having forgotten who won Upperclass Twit of the Year.

Whenever I unload my computer's recycle bin, I have the sound byte where John Cleese says, "I will not buy this record...it is scratched." Loved that skit, too.
"Do you vahhhnt...do you vahhhnt to go back to my place...bouncy-bouncy?"

How could they overlook the "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days" skit?

I was surprised that Lumberjack wasn't higher. I also didn't expect SI to be #1 because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

This is not a trivia question; I really want to know.

Does anyone remember--or more likely can look up--the exact time for the Olympic Hide and Seek championships? I'm talkin' down to the second. . .

CliffHogan, do you mean the winning time? I have the entire DVD set at home and could probably find this info over the weekend, but want to be sure I'm looking for the right thing!

CliffHogan, there a book called And Now For Something Completely Trivial, but Kim "Howard" Johnson. I'd check to see if that information is in it, but I am in the process of moving and my books are in boxes, already in New Orleans (where I am moving to). What I do remember is that the most common names in Monty Python sketches were Arthur and Ken, though I don't recall which was the more common. Surely someone out in TWOP-land has this book, or one of the others recommended on the page I've linked.

Well, I just consulted my Monty Python's Flying Circus: The Complete Unexpurgated Scripts of the Original TV Series (with an easy reference index!) and the official (tying) time is 11 years, 2 months, 26 days, 9 hours, 3 minutes, 27 seconds.

I was quite surprised to find that, beyond the obvious top 10, two of my very favourite sketches hit EW's 20: the Interesting People sketch ("Now here's an interesting person. Apart from being a full-time stapling machine, he can also give a cat influenza" . . . cut to Cleese desperately coughing into a basket followed by a feline howl and a sneeze), and the Self-Defense sketch (although I think it was slightly better on And Now For Something Completely Different. )

Don't really agree with Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion. I mean, it was brilliant, though not laugh-out-loud funny (though I'm hard pressed to explain why giving a cat influenza is ), and I'd add to the "Eric the Half a Bee" song the sketch that inspired it, Fish License ("Sir Gerald Nabarro has a pet prawn called Simon, and you wouldn't call Sir Gerald a loony, would you?")

Egad, I could go on forever with the sketches and the quoting and the cornucopia of parentheses . . . .

Thanks to everyone for responding; I won a lunch for being the closest.

Inquisitionist, thought you might like to hear this story:

A few years ago, at a sporting event at UCLA, there was this beautiful girl in the stands, with about a dozen guys around her, all trying to impress her. Looked to me like she was playing the Dating Game with them. One of them got tired of her questions and said, "What is this, the goddamn Spanish Inquisition?"

Of course I said, "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

She turned back to me and said "Monty Python!" Then she came over to sit next to me and we talked and went out to dinner.

Wouldn't it have been nice if we lived happily ever after, thanks to Monty Python? Nope, couldn't stand her personality, never saw her after that one dinner. Story of my life.

Is anyone watching the Viewer's Choice weekend on BBCA? If so, are you as surprised as I am at the choice of episodes? So far what they're showing are all later eps, and not a "classic" sketch in the lot. In fact two of these "viewers' favourite" eps are missing John Cleese.

I also don't quite understand why BBCA won't publish the poll results on the website till the weekend is all over. They are also not counting them down onscreen - although presumably they are starting at the less popular and working their way to more popular. God, I hope so. These are certainly not MY favourites!

I'm a bit annoyed that they removed the identifiers so my TiVo can tell the episodes apart. I know they were trying to keep the results a surprise, but those of us with TiVos are going to end up with multiple copies of the same eps, as obviously they'll be re-running them throughout the weekend. (Yeah yeah, I know, buy the DVDs.)

On a related subject, I have been wondering why BBCA does not show certain episodes -- or even acknowledge their existence. For example, they do not show episodes 1 and 2 in the series, and they were not available to vote for in the poll. Presumably they don't have the rights to show them, but they do show most of the rest of season 1. Anyone have insight into why this is?

ETA: I figured they'd be picking the top 10 or 15 to show, but it dawns on me that perhaps they are showing them all (of the ones they have rights to) and they started with the least popular. In which case, this morning's episodes would make sense.

I refuse to watch anything on BBCA -- damn their commercial intrusions and edits!

Hey, cool! The Spanish Inquisition! I loved that sketch so much. Too bad I can't afford to buy the DVD sets... yet. There were many sketches I hadn't seen. Anyone interested in listing their top 10 Monty Python sketches ?

CliffHogan>> Nice story! Too bad you didnt' hit it off - that would have been a fun story to tell in your wedding, anniversaries etc. But maybe you can try that pick-up line again (definitely better than "do you come here often?"). If she doesn't get it, she's not the one for you.

Does anyone else love the Michael Ellis episode? I just adore that one, it's not always laugh-out-loud funny, but it's bizarre and I like that kind of thing. Maybe it's just because we had just done Ozymandias and other classical poems when I saw that episode for the first time.

I was in the university library looking thru some literature magazinse, when I found an article written by... Michael Ellis. I started to laugh out loud, with no reason at all, and the name itself isn't funny in the least.. Luckily nobody asked me why I was laughing.

The episodes I was waiting for (Dead Parrot, Spanish I and Lumberjack) weren't on until late yesterday. But, I was able to catch them. I was surprised that Spanish Inquisition was included because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Two of my favorite eps are two of the least typical: Michael Ellis (Ode to a Glass of Sherry [falls down] Good afternoon.), and the Cycling Tour. (Reginald Pither. As in "brotherhood," only with no "hood" at the end and "pi" at the beginning instead of "bro.")

Now, I have asked you once or twice nicely about the carpet.......

The list is now up on the BBCAmerica site. Looks like they showed a total of 35 episodes (leaving off only 10). Kind of strange. I've always really loved the Michael Ellis episode, especially for the pet store scenes. Interesting people is also one of my favorites ("I'm more interesting than a wet pussycat!") I've also been wishing I could call in Confuse a Cat recently because one of my cats has spent most of the last week just staring at a wall.

"My brain hurts!"

My favorite sketch ("It's the Mind") comes at the end of my favorite episode, "Deja Vu". It was lol funny. The whole show, building on the theme, was great. I love how the Pythons do alittle leap when catching something surprising. Even the

"...Lemon curry?"

*ahem* (© Ann Elk)....Even the little throwaway gags are great ("They're all #3" "No... they're all #3.").

I'm way too squeamish to like "Salad Days", but the apology crawl is hysterical ("We'd like to apologize to the whole world for that last item...").

I'm glad I got the chance to tape all the seasons 1-3 from PBS a couple of years ago, so I could watch an episode without commercial interuption. PBS is where I first saw MPFC in the '70s and '80s.

And next, we have Percy Bysshe.
-Shelley!
-Yes, please.

Inquisitionist, that's the only one I got wrong too! Thanks M. Darcy!

I'm not sure what my favorite is, but I definitely like Dead Parrot (It's not dead, it's restin'.), The Lumberjack Song (Hollywood Bowl or The Secret Policeman's Ball version, can't remember where I saw it) and The Four Yorshire Men (I had to get up at 10 o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed...), among many others.

By the way, does anyone remember The Secret Policeman's Ball, with Michael Palin at the end hawking merchandise for The Secret Policeman's Other Ball? Somewhere I have this on a tape and I was naive enough to believe there might be an "Other Ball" out there somewhere, or coming soon. I get this one confused with Hollywood Bowl (ALBATROSS!).

I'm not sure where my Python love first began. I remember catching it on PBS in the 80's and wondering, quite amusedly, "What is this?" I also remember that somewhere on cable I caught And Now For Something Completely Different, The Secret Policeman's Ball, and Hollywood Bowl at different times. I have no idea in what order I saw them, but I remember that I discovered the series on PBS last and being slightly disappointed that some of the sketches like Lumberjack and Nudge, Nudge weren't exactly as I remembered them in the live versions (Eric, not Michael, plays the lumberjack in the live version).

Eric Idle was my favorite Python, followed by a closely second (and equally adorable) Michael Palin.

Mother-f***er. I just typed a brilliant response and TWoP ate it.

Anyway, amazon.com shows separate VHS listings for The Secret Policeman's Ball and The Secret Policeman's Other Ball.