Alternate versions for
"Monty Python's Flying Circus" (1969) More at IMDbPro »

• There are two versions of episode 24: a monochrome kinescope and 16mm film copy, thought to have been produced for the US AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio & Televison Service), were located in 2003. Named 'Chinese Ad Men' and marked "Not to be broadcast under any circumstances", they include previously lost material: five seconds from the Conquistador Coffee sketch referencing leprosy and cancer, and 33 seconds involving Jesus and Satan from the Crackpot Religions animation, bridging into Public Service Film No 42/6. The prints have the 30 second Shrill Petrol card segment removed. Sections of the Gilliam animation could be glimpsed during the end credits of the surviving colour VT print, and the omission had long puzzled fans.
  
  
• The VHS and DVD releases by A&E contain the full-length versions of the shows. Several episodes run over 30 minutes, and were subsequently edited by PBS to fit into a 30 minute time slot.
  
  
• The A&E home video VHS & DVD versions, while restoring some footage, have eliminated some as well, including:
  • The word "masturbation" in the "All-England Summarize Proust Competition" sketch.
  • Graham Chapman's abbreviated rendition of "Tonight Tonight" from "West Side Story" in the "Funny Bus Conductor" sketch.
  • The ending "Dad's Pooves" film from episode 38.
  • Dialogue from "Biggles Dictates A Letter" sketch.
  • A&E explains that: "All of the Monty Python[videos] available at the A&E online store were produced directly from masters that we received." And that some "rights issues" were involved in some of the cuts.
  
  
  
• The A&E video release of the series added some things that were normally edited out for viewing on TV. On one of the most obivous additions is in the "Day in the Life of a Salseman" skit, where the salseman buys a newpaper from a nude women.
  
  
• The DVD version has a slightly different musical introduction to the Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson interview. Both are based on the same theme from the fourth movement of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, but while the TV version features an excerpt from the recapitulation, the DVD version has an excerpt from the exposition.
  
  
• The final episode in series two caused the BBC some major headaches, due to the still-shocking theme of cannibalism that surfaces in the final sketches (and some memorably gruesome Terry Gilliam animations). The 'Undertaker' sketch, which closes the show, was only allowed to be included in the show if the studio audience were heard to heckle the "disgusting" material loudly, and - following the punchline - invade the set in protest. Even so, this sketch has rarely been seen on English television since its original broadcast, and is often replaced with something innocuous from another show. The BBC videotape of episodes 11-13 of the second series, issued in the 1980s, includes the 'Undertaker' sketch, but the picture quality is noticably poor, as if it's been edited in from another, possibly American or Canadian, source.
  
  

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