Monty Python's Flying Circus

[Slim]

3:13

This is the last one of the third series and the final Monty Python's Flying Circus TV episode to feature John Cleese as a performer, although he was happy to participate in the films, and writing for Holy Grail began at roughly the same time that this was broadcast in January 1973.

Unfortunately, this isn't a particularly good one. The whole thing is linked together by a running joke about a tedious awards ceremony which is a bit overdone. The one classic item (or at least it was on one of the LPs) is the Oscar Wilde sketch, and even that isn't as funny as it seemed when I was 14. Maybe I've just heard it too many times.

I did love Terry Jones' "dirty vicar". He gets to grope Carl Cleveland's right breast. I don't know if he wrote that sketch himself. I laughed out loud.

I quite liked a sketch about a strap-on electronic brain from Currys, and Ioticed that part of it was filmed at a location called The Bye in W3 (as you can see from the sign on the house).



Had a look on Street View, the same sign is still affixed to the side of the house, but at some point an extension has been built:



If you look carefully on Street View and the source material from the Python episode, you can see that the same paving stones are in place, half a century later.

[Slim]

4:1

In October 1974 the Pythons, minus John Cleese, return for one last, short telly series. Whereas the first three series each have thirteen episodes, the fourth has only six.

Cleese hadn't left the group. Work had already commenced on the Holy Grail film, which he did appear in. But although he did write material for the final series, he didn't want to perform in it. So he didn't.

I well remember sitting down to watch this one evening slightly less than fifty years ago, though watching it again today, I barely remembered any of it. The first eighteen minutes or so consist of a sketch about the Montgolfier brothers. It has more of an anarchic sitcom feel than a Python sketch. I did remember the brothers' conversation about personal hygiene, but little else.

A couple of brief unrelated sketches follow then there's a much funnier piece about an inaugural Zeppelin flight.

There isn't a standalone animated piece which seems a shame, though Gilliam does contribute brief animations to other sketches.

The visual quality of the material recorded on video (as opposed to film) is a bit higher in this series; I suppose the tech had moved on a bit by 1974.

This episode was written almost entirely by Palin, according to Wikipedia. It's not bad. It definitely picks up towards the end.

[Slim]

4:2

For me anyway easily the most memorable of the fourth series episodes, though I'd forgotten that it's a full-length story (this is only the second episode to do this). It's about a man who buys an ant from a department store, though it does deviate into pieces that work well as standalone sketches.

Written mainly by Cleese (who of course does not appear) and Chapman, with help from Palin and Neil Innes, though it's Eric Idle who features most prominently. As a writer, Eric contributes very little material to this fourth series, because (according to Palin's diary) he was in France for most of the planning and writing stage.

Once again there isn't a long animation sequence which seems a shame. But Gilliam does have a couple of minor speaking parts.

It's really a very good one. A bit of a gem. The ideas sustain a full-length story much better than the cycling tour episode from the third series. Jones is excellent throughout but Palin is especially brilliant as a German Queen Victoria.

Somehow, the material written by Cleese was written for, but not used in, the Holy Grail film. Difficult to understand because the film was set in AD 932, whereas this whole episode takes place in the 1970s.

Idle gets to do a Brian Clough impression near the end.

[Slim]

4:3

Pretty good one. It does have two sketches which I remember fondly, one of which I would suggest is a classic: the RAF banter sketch. Sausage squad up the blue end, and all that. Written by Palin and Jones. And the woody / tinny words sketch.

The sketches flow into each other or refer to each other in the usual clever surrealist manner. There's one overlong and not particularly funny sketch about TV executives retitling old TV programmes.



I was slightly uncomfortable watching two middle-aged ladies, Jones and Chapman, using a remote control which operates their TV by giving a browned up Terry Gilliam, in what I might describe as a punkah wallah outfit, an electric shock.

Douglas Adams makes a brief appearance as a doctor.

A World War II theme is used quite persistently, but there's no underlying narrative or plot. It's really strange, watching these sketches from 1974, to think that the war they depict took place only thirty years previously.