Monty Python at 40: Not Dead Yet

Five Surviving Members of Anarchic Comedy Group Are Honored at N.Y.C. Reunion and Regaled by New Generation of Fans

(CBS/AP)  After four decades of dead parrots, transvestite lumberjacks, singing knights and Spam, the comedy group Monty Python got what they've in the past lampooned and satirized: a lifetime achievement award, or perhaps an award for just remaining alive.

On Thursday the five surviving members of the group whose series, "Monty Python's Flying Circus," debuted on the BBC in 1969 received a Special Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts "to honor their outstanding contribution to film and television."

The ceremony also marked the premiere threatical screening of a new six-part Independent Film Channel documentary on the group, "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyers' Cut)." The series contains new interviews with the Pythons, their collaborators, and many comedians and actors who were inspired by their work. It premieres on IFC on Sunday, October 18.

"We're much more popular now," Eric idle said. "Forty years ago, nobody heard of us. Nobody gave a s---. And we were, you know unheard of."

That was before the television series became a cult favorite in England, the United States and around the world, followed by records, books and movies, including "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "Life of Brian" and "The Meaning of Life."

Thursday's reunion marked the first time the five were together since the debut of the theatrical musical "Monty Python's Spamalot," which won three Tony Awards.

Even though the group's members have gone off on their own solo projects, the work they did together as Python still has resonance today.

"I think we actually did some comedy that was genuinely original, and we did strange things that caught people's attention," said John Cleese. "In addition to that, we created characters that were some kind of comic archetypes - people seemed to recognize them, whether they were from Japan or Iceland."

Because Python humor was rarely topical it has remained fresh. And their own longevity? "We keep generally well," Michael Palin said proudly, pointing to a diet of fruits and cereals. "Actually the secret is probably humor. Making people laugh is a very nice thing to be able to do. And if you can make people laugh that are two generations younger than you, that's even better."

Following a 2-hour screening of the documentary at New York's Ziegfeld Theatre, Palin, Cleese, Idle, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones were on stage for a freewheeling Q&A.

One audience member directed a question to Graham, who died of cancer in 1989 and who was represented by a life-size cardboard cutout (left). "Graham, as the dead one, how much creative influence did you have?"

After a telling silence, Cleese (who was Chapman's writing partner) answered for him: "Basically, there were two kinds of days: there were the days when I did 80 percent of the work and then there were days when Gray did five percent of the work."

"Anyway, he's dead now so you can say things like that!" retorted Palin.

Cleese read one question on how the members could tell who wrote which sketch just by watching them now, years after the fact: "'What traits give the members away?'"

"Well, laughter is one of them," Palin replied.

"There were three kinds of sketches," Cleese said. "Graham and I wrote sketches where people started out fairly calm and finished up shouting at each other. We also wrote sketches that involved the thesaurus.

"Mike and Terry wrote rather remarkable sketches that consisted always at the beginning of panning shot across countryside. And you can tell it was one of their sketches because it went on much too long."

"Eric used to write highly verbal stuff where people get caught and caught up and caught up in the logic of what they were saying and sort of disappeared up their own funnel," said Cleese.

Four! There were FOUR kinds of sketches.

"One of my favorite sketches was a thesaurus sketch, the Cheese Shoppe, and all you did really writing it was get the book on cheese," Palin said.

"But that's where Gray was so great," said Cleese, "because when we started to write that sketch, we wrote about the first minute of it and I said, 'Gray, this isn’t funny.' And he just said, 'It is funny, go on, go on.' And we wrote about another minute and I said, 'It's not funny, Gray.'"

"He said 'It's funny, go on. It’s funny.' And so if it hadn’t been for that, I would have not had the great privilege of reading it out at a grim Python read-through when Michael became so hysterical with laughter he actually fell off his chair."

Python read-throughs, when prospective material would be offered up to the group, consisted of jockeying for position - when a sketch would be read out - in order to gain an advantage for one's material. Terry Jones sighed that acceptance of his Mr. Creosote sketch from "The Meaning of Life," which consists of extended episodes of projectile vomiting, was initially hampered by being read out right after lunch.

Some of the questions asked were somewhat Pythonesque (adj., "absurdly or surreally comical"). "How many Frenchmen can't be wrong?" was one.

"It's a Grouch Marx line," explained the audience member. "I always loved it."

"I think you're at the wrong reunion!" replied Idle.

No one, it seemed, is too young to appreciate their humor. Ten-year-old Talia Lindner (left) asked if she could impersonate the Spanish Inquisition sketch. "Come on Talia, do it," said Gilliam, inviting her to the stage. Talia took several deep breaths before launching into the skit, acting out both Graham Chapman's and Michael Palin's lines:

"I didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition."

"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear! Fear and surprise! Our TWO main weapons are surprise, fear, and ruthless efficiency. . . Argh! Our THREE main weapons are surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope! Our FOUR . . . . uh, I'll come in again."

As Talia earned the applause of the living Pythons, Michael Palin seemed to express his feelings about Python reunions: "What we just need are four more like her and we can piss off! Beautiful!"

By CBS News.com producer David Morgan


For more info:
"Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyers' Cut)" (IFC)
The Monty Python Channel (YouTube)
Monty Python 40th Reunion (Archived Stream of IFC Webcast)

[differnet]

There is something very wrong with people who don't like Monty Python. I also think there is something wrong with people who don't like the Marx Brothers. Great humor is timeless.

[rondivoo]

nothing funny about these yo-yo's... stupidity is NOT funny

[Lawyers-Guns-n-Money-01]

by rondivoo October 17, 2009 2:25 PM EDT
... stupidity is NOT funny
===================================
You've concisely proven that.

[amulette]

Thank You M.P.!

[rwsmith29456]

Nearly everybody I know can quote 'The Holy Grail' verbatim. MP forever.

[Lawyers-Guns-n-Money-01]

I remember discovering Monty Python while a pre-teen indiscriminately flipping through the channels on the TV one Saturday night. I was immediately enthralled by this strange bit of inanity and remain so.

What really cinched it for me was The Holy Grail. Especially the scene where Arthur and his faithful steed Patsy are discussing with the guardians of the castle how coconuts could appear in England. There is a related scene preceding the 'Burn the Witch' scene where, inside a small hut a man tosses a bird in the air. Of course, tethered to the bird's legs is a coconut.

Comedic gold I tells ya.

[ianlou]

[clop clop]
ARTHUR: old woman!
DENNIS: Man!
ARTHUR: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
DENNIS: I'm thirty seven.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I'm thirty seven -- I'm not old!
ARTHUR: Well, I can't just call you `Man'.
DENNIS: Well, you could say `Dennis'.
ARTHUR: Well, I didn't know you were called `Dennis.'
DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?
ARTHUR: I did say sorry about the `old woman,' but from the behind you looked--
DENNIS: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!
ARTHUR: Well, I AM king...
DENNIS: Oh king, eh, very nice. An' how'd you get that, eh? By exploitin' the workers -- by 'angin' on to outdated
imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society! If there's ever
going to be any progress--
WOMAN: Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh ? how d'you do?
ARTHUR: How do you do, good lady. I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Who's castle is that?
WOMAN: King of the who?
ARTHUR: The Britons.
WOMAN: Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR: Well, we all are. we're all Britons and I am your king.
WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the
working
classes--
WOMAN: Oh there you go, bringing class into it again.
DENNIS: That's what it's all about if only people would--
ARTHUR: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN: No one live there.
ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN: We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer
for the week.
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: But all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.
ARTHUR: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,--
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: --but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more--
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh -- who does he think he is?
ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN: Well, 'ow did you become king then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, [angels sing] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur
from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.
[singing stops] That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: 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.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an empereror just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar
at me they'd put me away!
ARTHUR: Shut up! Will you shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!
ARTHUR: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give away. Did you here that, did you here that, eh? That's what I'm on about -- did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn't you?

[wheresmycountry]

Thanks for posting this! I love that part of "The Holy Grail".

[SuperDwarf]

Bring out your dead!

[Scimajor]

This isn't the article about Monty Python.

Yes it is!

No it isn't!

Yes it is!

[Henri_Rochard]

Monty Python isn't dead.

They're just resting.