Amazon.com video review:
This set contains the 12 "persistently silly" episodes from Monty
Python's
third and final full season (the ones introduced by Terry Jones's naked
keyboardist). The quality of the sketches is not as consistent as in the first
two seasons, but no Monty Python collection is complete without such series
benchmarks as Njorl's Saga, an exciting Icelandic tale appropriated by
the North Malden Icelandic Society; the Argument Clinic sketch; Gumby brain
surgery; and the Fish-Slapping Dance, which Michael Palin is on record as
saying is
his personal favorite bit of Python nonsense.
A warning to more sensitive
viewers: There is "material that some may find offensive, but which is
really
smashing," as well as blatant violations of something called the Strange
Sketch Act.
Some may also wish to fast-forward through clunkers such as Prices on the
Planet Algon or the
rather obvious game-show sketch Prejudice to reach beloved sketches such
as The Cheese Shop, a fermented curd variation on the famed
Parrot Sketch, in which John Cleese is unable to get any "cheesy
comestibles"
from woefully understocked proprietor Michael Palin; the extended epic
Cycling
Tour, perhaps Palin's finest half-hour; the increasingly surreal Tudor
Jobs
Agency, in which an intrepid smut confiscator (Palin again) finds himself
seemingly transported back to Elizabethan times, where he turns "the tide
of
Spanish porn"; Cleese's lupin-stealing highwayman Dennis Moore; the Oscar
Wilde
Sketch, in which Wilde (Graham Chapman), Whistler (Cleese), and Shaw
(Palin)
match wits in an escalatingly profane game of verbal oneupsmanship ("Your
Highness is like a stream of bat's piss....") and the self-explanatory
Dirty
Vicar Sketch. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
Six more opportunities to "Spot the Looney." This boxed set contains the
final
six episodes from the third and last full season of Monty Python's
Flying
Circus. More discriminating Monty Python fans are directed to episodes
from
seasons 1 and 2, also available on VHS and DVD. But completists can
fast-forward or click through clunkers such as Prices on the Planet Algon
or the
rather obvious game-show sketch Prejudice to such beloved sketches from
the
Python pantheon as The Cheese Shop, a fermented curd variation on the
famed
Parrot Sketch, in which John Cleese is unable to get any "cheesy
comestibles"
from woefully understocked proprietor Michael Palin; the extended epic
Cycling
Tour, perhaps Palin's finest half-hour; the increasingly surreal Tudor
Jobs
Agency, in which an intrepid smut confiscator (Palin again) finds himself
seemingly transported back to Elizabethan times, where he turns "the tide
of
Spanish porn"; Cleese's lupin-stealing highwayman Dennis Moore; the Oscar
Wilde
Sketch, in which Wilde (Graham Chapman), Whistler (Cleese), and Shaw
(Palin)
match wits in an escalatingly profane game of verbal oneupsmanship ("Your
Highness is like a stream of bat's piss....") and the self-explanatory
Dirty
Vicar Sketch. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com Essentials:
In 1969, five overeducated British comics and an American
illustrator invaded the homes of unsuspecting BBC viewers with a brand of
comedy that was, at the very least, odd. "Absurd," "bizarre," and
"incomprehensible"
are other descriptions that jump to mind. Nonetheless, this wacky sextet
inaugurated an absurd tradition that continued through three and a half
seasons of half-hour TV episodes, a series of live performances, a handful
of movies, and a legacy of dead parrots and upper-class twits. Monty
Python's Flying Circus, Set 1 features the first episodes foisted on
a
still-reeling public, introducing running gags ("And now for something
completely different") and recurring characters (an armor-clad Terry
Gilliam
wielding a rubber chicken, Graham Chapman's pompous Colonel intruding on
sketches he deems simply too silly, and of course Michael Palin's "It's a
Man" wandered through the entire season). Among the sketch highlights in the
first three shows are Nudge
Nudge, the Funniest Joke in the World, How to Defend Yourself from a Man
Attacking You with Fresh Fruit, Confuse a Cat, and The Dull Life of a City
Stockbroker, all interspersed with various and sundry cut-out animation
sequences by Terry Gilliam. These early episodes may lack the consistency
and stream-of-consciousness flow of their later, more assured work, but
they're packed with some of the most memorable moments of the group's brief
but brilliant history. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com Essentials:
Michael Palin, haggard and exhausted under a scraggly beard and
wild hair, crawls out of the ocean (or the forest or a side of a mountain)
and croaks the now-infamous "It's...." Suddenly, the "Liberty Bell" march
pounds
over the cut-out animation of Terry Gilliam. It's another episode of
Monty Python's Flying Circus. No comedy has inspired such a
fanatical
following before or since, and the 45 episodes turned out by the group in
their all-too-brief three and a half seasons have become classics. This set
presents the final seven
episodes of their inaugural season, a time of trial and error for the group
as they perfected the elusive free-association structure that would define
the wacky comedy. Connecting such all-time classics as the Lumberjack Song,
the Dead Parrot sketch, and the epic Science Fiction sketch (featuring the
tennis mad Blancmanges from outer space) are the ubiquitous letters to the
BBC, Terry Gilliam's whimsical and ridiculous animated inserts, and John
Cleese announcing, "And now for something completely different" with all the
authority of a BBC announcer who suddenly finds his news desk hijacked by
mobsters. The Pythons hit their first-season stride in the middle episodes,
in which brilliant sketches and strange and wonderful linking gags come
together with an absurd logic, but if the final episodes of the series flag
compared to their comic peak, their brand of comic madness infects every
episode with moments of pure lunatic magic. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com Essentials:
In 1969, five overeducated British comics and an American illustrator
invaded the homes of unsuspecting BBC viewers with a brand of comedy that
was, at the very least, odd. "Absurd," "bizarre," and "incomprehensible"
are other descriptions that jump to mind. Nonetheless, this wacky sextet
inaugurated an absurd tradition that continued through three-and-a-half
seasons of half-hour TV episodes, a series of live performances, a handful
of movies, and a legacy of dead parrots and upper-class twits. Monty
Python's Flying Circus, Season 1 features the first series of episodes
foisted on a still-reeling public, introducing running gags ("And now for
something completely different") and recurring characters (an armor-clad
Terry Gilliam wielding a rubber chicken, Graham Chapman's pompous Colonel
intruding on sketches he deems simply too silly, and of course Michael
Palin's "It's a Man" wandered through the entire season). Among the sketch
highlights are Nudge Nudge, the Funniest Joke in the World, How to Defend
Yourself from a Man Attacking You with Fresh Fruit, Confuse a Cat, and The
Dull Life of a City Stockbroker, all interspersed with various and sundry
cut-out-animation sequences by Terry Gilliam. Also here are the Lumberjack
Song, the Dead Parrot sketch, and the epic Science Fiction sketch
(featuring the tennis-mad Blancmanges from outer space), and John Cleese
announcing, "And now for something completely different" with all the
authority of a BBC announcer who suddenly finds his news desk hijacked by
mobsters. Some of these early episodes may lack the consistency and
stream-of-consciousness flow of their later, more assured work, but they're
packed with some of the most memorable moments of the group's brief but
brilliant history. The Pythons hit their first-season stride in the middle
episodes, in which clever sketches and strange and wonderful linking
gags come together in a wierd logic, but if the final episodes of the
series flag compared to their comic peak, their brand of comic madness
infects every episode with moments of pure lunatic magic. --Sean
Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
Episode 9 of Monty Python's Flying Circus, "The Ant: An
Introduction," features what may be the single most famous skit in Python's
short but eventful history. Nervous barber Michael Palin dreams of a life
among the tall pines of British Columbia and warbles, "I'm a lumberjack and
I'm OK" with a chorus of Mounties, who become rather puzzled by the
sudden turn in the lyrics ("I put on women's clothing and hang around in
bars!"). This classic episode also features a man with a tape recorder up
his nose, a mountaineer with double vision mounting an expedition up both
peaks of Kilimanjaro, and a brief but memorable appearance of a full-fledged
Gumby, who sings while banging himself on the head with bricks. The aptly
named follow-up "Untitled" is disappointing by comparison. In the show's
highlights, Terry Jones attempts to enter the record books by leaping across
the English Channel and eating a cathedral while a chartered accountant
tries to get a job as a lion tamer (but only the short, squat kind with a
big nose that eats ants). In the most inspired bit, a trio of interviewers
attempts to open up hiring procedures for libraries by hiring only animals.
While it offers its share of bizarre moments and hilarious humor, this is
one instance in which the ideas are simply funnier than the execution.
--Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
The last volume of the first season of Monty Python's Flying
Circus packs the final three gag-filled episodes on one tape.
Episode 11, "The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Goes to the Bathroom," features an
Agatha Christie detective parody in which reenactments of the murder lead to a
heaping pile of dead detectives, the recurring Dying Pallbearers skit, a
man
who hypnotizes bricks, and Mrs. Rita Fairbanks and the Townswomen's Guild's
reenactment of The Battle of Pearl Harbor. Episode 12, "The Naked Ant," is
highlighted by one of their funniest sketches ever: The Upper Class Twit of
the Year competition, Python's thumb in the nose at boorish yuppies.
Other skits include a politician who falls through the earth's crust while
making a party political speech, the rise of the Bocialist party leader
Mr. Hilter (who, he insists, was never in Germany), and businessmen
leaping out
of office-building windows. The final episode of the season,
"Intermission,"
features the first reference to the ever-popular Python cry "Albatross."
Other bits include Cardinal Richelieu's dead-on impersonation of Petula
Clark, a little boy confessing he'd like Raquel Welch dropped on top of him
("She's got a big bottom," adds his buddy), and a Special Crimes Squad that
fights crime with voodoo, magic wands, and Ouija boards. Though these final
episodes aren't as consistent or smooth as the midseason classics, they
are
full of inspired moments and infected with a brand of nonsensical comic
absurdity that we've come to know and love. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
In 1969, five overeducated British comics and an American
illustrator ambushed the BBC with the strangest show in British history.
How
they got on the air is anyone's guess (rumors of blackmail were quickly
hushed, though the Python's penchant for sheep gags... but enough of
speculation), but their irreverent writing and ludicrous gags transformed
the sketch comedy show into a stream-of-consciousness loony bin of
absurdity, connected by the outrageous animations of Terry Gilliam. In
these
first episodes, you can see the sextet working out their technique, mixing
music-hall slapstick with their zany brand of ridiculousness. Episode 1,
"Whither Canada," features the Funniest Joke in the World (a.k.a. the Killer
Joke, which is really nothing other than German gibberish, but don't tell anyone),
as well as Famous Deaths Through History hosted by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(John Cleese in a silly wig), interviews with Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson
and
celebrated film director Sir Edward "Don't call me Eddie Baby" Ross, and a
strange fascination with pigs. Episode 2, the teasingly titled "Sex and
Violence," features John Cleese and Michael Palin as a pair of French
inventors trading mustaches while explaining the finer points of sheep
aviation, a man with three buttocks, an investigative report into the mouse
crisis, and a wrestling match (two of three falls) to determine the
existence of God. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
As Monty Python's Flying Circus got into the groove of
absurdity on a weekly schedule, they began creating some of their most
memorable characters. Gumby is one such figure, a screaming idiot in
knickers and a handkerchief on his head. It seems so fitting that he would
make his first appearance in "Man's Identity Crisis at the Latter Half of
the Twentieth Century" (a.k.a. episode 5), albeit in a primitive form (if
that's not an oxymoron). But no, that's not enough for the Pythons, who
pack
this episode with the extremely silly Confuse a Cat, the not-quite-as-silly
Erotic Film highlights, and the slightly-more-silly John Cleese
interviewing
not-quite-so-silly Graham Chapman for a management training course with
questions a public-school education never prepared him for. Episode 6,
"It's
the Arts," features the ever-popular Dull Life of a City Stockbroker,
Graham
Chapman as an insane (and very loud) American film producer, and a lovely
assortment of treats from the Whizzo Chocolate Company (their specialty is
Crunchy Frog, but I hear the Anthrax Ripple is also quite good). These
episodes are light on favorite skits but exhibit a confidence
in
the free-association logic that became the hallmark of the show.
--Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
The first season of Monty Python's Flying Circus was a time
of experimentation: how to transition from one skit to another, how to
weave
a gag through a show, and most importantly how to sustain the comic
momentum
of a sketch. In Episode 7, "You're No Fun Anymore," this last problem was
solved by creating their longest sustained sketch to date. The seemingly
modest Science Fiction sketch (as it's introduced by a smarmy Michael Palin
in a tacky sport jacket) chronicles the dastardly plot of a race of
sport-loving Blancmanges from the Andromeda Galaxy to turn all Brits into
kilt-wearing, bagpipe-blowing Scotsmen! Also featured in the program are
the
Camel Spotting sketch, The Audit sketch, and lots of characters uttering
the
now-familiar line "You're no fun anymore." In what can only
be a blatant but desperate ratings gambit, the Pythons named episode 8
"Full Frontal Nudity." OK, there isn't much nudity, but there
is the classic Dead Parrot sketch ("Nah, it's only sleeping"), a marauding
pack of vicious, motorcycle-riding Hell's Grannies, a society of gossipy
hermits, and an extortionist offering protection to the British Army ("You
wouldn't want any of those tanks to get broken, now, would you?"). The Monty Python troupe really
hit their stride in these episodes, which feature some of their most
inspired, hilarious, and just plain weird moments. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
What do you do for an encore after confounding the general public with
something completely different? Simple: give them something more completely
different, from a semaphore version of Wuthering Heights to the last
meeting of the Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things (you were
expecting the Spanish Inquisition?). This two-volume set contains for the
first time on DVD in chronological order the first six episodes from
Monty
Python's second season. No sophomore slump here. Episodes 14-19, which
originally aired in 1970, contain the signature Python sketches The
Ministry
of Silly Walks and The Spanish Inquisition. Also in
the Python pantheon are the documentary about The Piranha Brothers and
their
reign of violence and sarcasm, The Architect Sketch, and the scandalous
game
show Blackmail. While the sketches, filmed bits, and Terry Gilliam
animations
are enduringly silly, Monty Python's Flying Circus remains a loony
marvel in the way it shattered television convention. In Episode 15,
a clueless Graham Chapman character is recruited to be the straight man in
a
sketch, but is not given the punch line. In the same show, the dreaded, but
tardy, Spanish Inquisition races to make its entrance before the closing
credits run their course. All three volumes are indispensable for Python
completists. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
A&E's release of the full Monty (Python, that
is) continues on disc 5 with the first three episodes from the classic BBC
series' second
season. Episode 14 is typically silly stuff, but with the entrance of John
Cleese as a ranking official in the Ministry of Silly Walks, it becomes one
for
the Python pantheon. This signature sketch is topped by Ethel the Frog's
profile of the Piranha brothers, Doug and Dinsdale, whose reign of violence
(such as nailing people's heads to the table) and sarcasm terrorized
England.
Bravo for Terry Jones as Inspector Harry "Snapper" Organs from Q Division,
whose "bewildering series of disguises" includes an appearance as Sancho
Panza
from Man of La Mancha for which he earns a "right panning" from
the
Bath Chronicle. Episode 15 introduces another bit of classic Pythonia, The
Spanish Inquisition, for whom soft cushions and a comfy chair are the
ill-advised agents of torture. In addition to such loony diversions as a
semaphore version of Wuthering Heights, this episode brilliantly
subverts
television convention for a sketch in which a clueless chap (Graham
Chapman) is
recruited to play the part of straight man, but is not given the punch
line.
Episode 16 takes off
with a sketch in which aspiring pilot Terry Jones gets some very silly
flying
lessons from a wire-suspended Graham Chapman ("Up on the table, arms out,
fingers together, knees bent... now flap your arms...."). A highlight of
this
episode is a profile of poet Ewan McTeagle (Jones again), the freeloading
author of the epic verse "Can I Have 50 Pounds to Mend the Shed." Other
amusing bits include Eric Idle as a psychiatrist milkman on his rounds, and
Michael Palin as the increasingly unsettled host of It's the Mind, who is
sure he has relived this episode devoted to déjà vu. --Donald
Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
Disc 6 of the Monty Python's Flying Circus series comprises three
episodes from the second season. Beginning with one of Monty Python's best,
episode 17, "The Buzz Aldrin Show," is a
must-own for fans of the Gumbys. Those thick-headed, handkerchief-bedecked
and
suspender-clad characters introduce a trio of classic sketches, including
The
Architect Sketch, in which slaughterhouse-designer John Cleese unveils his
design for a residential block of flats ("The tenants are carried along on
the
corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort past murals depicting
Mediterranean scenes toward the rotating knives...."). Jones, yet again,
shines
in a brilliant bit of Bondian nonsense, The Bishop. Episode 18 is also a
knockout,
with John Cleese as Ken Clear-Air System, a boxer with a "brain
problem." (His opponent, Petulia Wilcox, who is "keen on knitting
and likes Cliff Richard records," is portrayed by Connie Booth,
the former Mrs. Cleese and coauthor of Fawlty Towers.)
Other highlights include the last meeting of the Society for
Putting Things on Top of Other Things. Eric Idle has a brief but
memorable bit as a butcher who is alternately rude and polite to
confused customer Michael Palin. Episode 19 is vintage Python, with
characters that have entered the fan lexicon, including Graham
Chapman's Raymond Luxury Yacht (it's pronounced "Throatwarbler
Mangrove") and Terry Jones's Mr. Dibley, an unfortunate filmmaker
who is the victim of "petty critical nibbling" over his films
Midnight Cowboy, Rear Window, 2001: A Space
Odyssey, and Finigan's Rainbow (starring the Man from
the Off-Licence), which even Dibley admits is "10 seconds of solid
boredom." Eric Idle appears as one of his signature characters,
smarmy, self-absorbed talk show host Timmy Williams, whom desperate
friend
Terry Jones makes the mistake of seeking out for counsel. --Donald
Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
More "humorous vignettes and spoofs" from the second groundbreaking
season
of
Monty Python's Flying Circus. This set contains episodes 20 through
26,
available for the first time on DVD in chronological order. Included are
signature sketches that were adapted for the Pythons' first film, And
Now
for Something Completely Different, such as How Not to Be Seen,
Conrad
Poohs and His Dancing Teeth, the camped-up military drill, and the alleged
English-Hungarian phrasebook (the Hungarian phrase meaning "Can you direct
me
to the station?" is translated by the English phrase "Please fondle my
bum").
Also on the menu are such tasty classics as Spam; the Lifeboat and
Undertaker cannibalism sketches and spam; spam, spam, the Man Who Says
Things
in a Very Roundabout Way and spam; Spam, spam, the Hospital for Over-Acting
and
spam; spam, The Exploding Version of the Blue Danube and spam;
The Death of Mary Queen of Scots and spam. "And, of
course, there's sport." Not content with forgoing traditional punch lines,
Monty Python further subverted television convention with these episodes.
In
Episode 23, for example, the credits don't appear until midway through.
They further demonstrate
why Entertainment Weekly ranked Monty Python No. 77 (only 77th?)
among the
top 100 entertainers of the last half of the 20th century. --Donald
Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
And now the news for Monty Python fans: this volume contains
episodes 20,
21, and 22
from the second groundbreaking season of Monty Python's Flying
Circus.
By this time, audiences expected something completely different from Monty
Python, and the anarchic troupe delivers. Highlights include The Attila
the
Hun Show with John Cleese as the barbarian who literally wants his
children to
"get a head"; Basil and his gang of killer sheep; the news for parrots,
gibbons,
and wombats; an examination of the role of the village idiot in society; a
wildlife excursion with two mosquito hunters ("You hate him, then you
respect
him, then you kill him"); and "the story of one man's search for vengeance
in
the raw and violent world of international archaeology." And, of course,
there's sport. Hitting their creative stride, the Pythons further delighted
in
subverting television convention. One sketch is abandoned before it even
starts. At one point, they offer a nice version of a nastily funny sketch
featuring
Terry Jones as Sniveling Little Rat-Face Git and John Cleese as his wife,
Dreary, Fat, and Boring. Episode 22 contains Killer Cars and the
military precision camping-it-up drill, which were adapted for Monty
Python's first
film, And Now for Something Completely Different. Others, such as
Norman
Singent Polevaulter, the man who contradicts everything ("No, I don't"),
The
Death of Mary Queen of Scots, and the penguin on the TV set turned up on
Another Monty Python Record. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
Still loony after all these years. This volume contains episodes 23
through
26 from
the second groundbreaking season of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
For
discriminating collectors and recent initiates, episode 23 may
not show the legendary troupe to its best advantage. But even average Monty
Python is funnier and more inventive than, say, a new episode of
Saturday
Night Live. It does include some cherished bits of Pythonia, including
the animated
Conrad Poohs and His Dancing Teeth and the Fish License sketch. But the
foreign film parody and the epic Scott of the Antarctic are for
aficionados
only.
The final episodes of the second season, however, were fit for the
Queen. These three episodes "give new meaning to the
word 'vomit.'" No, wait: That's the ill-advised ad campaign devised by Eric
Idle's S. Frog for Conquistador Coffee, a very silly sketch that begins
this
volume with a jolt of comedic caffeine. Among the "humorous vignettes and
spoofs" that appear here include classic and
cherished bits from the Python pantheon, including an ad for American
Defense;
the training film How Not to Be Seen; the alleged Hungarian-English
phrasebook; Crackpot Religions, Ltd; World Forum, in which questions
about
Cup finals stump Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao, and Che; the Hospital for
Over-Acting; the exploding Blue Danube; and the immortal ode to Spam.
The season-ending royal episode, which concludes this DVD, is a particular
favorite. John Cleese soberly informs viewers that Her Royal Majesty will
tune
in during the course of the show (she is presently watching The
Virginian).
One wonders how she would stomach the Lifeboat and Undertaker
cannibalism
sketches that inspire the outraged studio audience to rush the stage in
mock
revolt. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com Essentials:
While more cautious fans may want to pick and choose among the previously released individual volumes of Monty Python for their collection, true Pythonites will want to own this definitive, 14-volume DVD-only boxed set that contains all 45 episodes (in chronological order) of Monty Python's Flying Circus. This "persistently silly" collection encompasses three-and-a-half seasons of dead parrots, cross-dressing lumberjacks, loonies, upper class twits, and spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, and spam. Click past the occasional clunker and go directly to such signature sketches as the Ministry of Silly Walks, the Spanish Inquisition, the Fish-Slapping Dance, the Dead Parrot Sketch, the Lumberjack Song, the Cheese Shop, the Argument Clinic, and Nudge, Nudge. Taken as a whole, one marvels at how Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam thoroughly subverted television convention with "something completely different," like sketches with no punch lines ("You're average TV viewer isn't going to understand this").
A warning to the uninitiated: there is much "material that some may find offensive, but which is really smashing." Violations of something called the "Strange Sketch Act" are the least of the troupe's offenses, as witness the Oscar Wilde Sketch, the Dirty Vicar Sketch, and the Most Awful Family in Britain Sketch, all of which achieve "the really gross awfulness" all Python fans are looking for. Say no more. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
In 1969, five overeducated British comics and an American illustrator
ambushed the BBC with the strangest show in British history. How they got
on the air is anyone's guess (rumors of blackmail were quickly hushed,
though the Python's penchant for sheep gags... but enough of speculation),
but their irreverent writing and ludicrous gags transformed the sketch
comedy show into a stream-of-consciousness loony bin of absurdity,
connected by the outrageous animations of Terry Gilliam. In these first
episodes, you can see the sextet working out their technique, mixing
music-hall slapstick with their zany brand of ridiculousness. Episode 1,
"Whither Canada," features the Funniest Joke in the World (a.k.a. the
Killer Joke, which is really nothing other than German gibberish, but don't
tell anyone), as well as Famous Deaths Through History hosted by Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart (John Cleese in a silly wig), interviews with Arthur "Two
Sheds" Jackson and celebrated film director Sir Edward "Don't call me Eddie
Baby" Ross, and a strange fascination with pigs. Episode 2, the teasingly
titled "Sex and Violence," features John Cleese and Michael Palin as a pair
of French inventors trading mustaches while explaining the finer points of
sheep aviation, a man with three buttocks, an investigative report into the
mouse crisis, and a wrestling match (two of three falls) to determine the
existence of God. Episode 3, "How to Recognize Different Types of Trees
from Quite a Long Way Away" never did get past the Larch, but does feature
the ever-popular Nudge Nudge, the not-quite-so-popular Restaurant Sketch,
the rather baffling Dim of Scotland Yard (with a tuneful John Cleese
dancing and singing about being a railroad engineer under a barrister's
wig), and the altogether absurd Bicycle Repairman, making the world safe
for bicyclists. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
Once upon a time, six unruly schoolboys found that the BBC was giving
money
to people with rather ridiculous ideas for shows. Thus was born Monty
Python's Flying Circus, easily the most ridiculous show in the history
of television. In episode 4, "Owl-Stretching Time," no owls are actually
stretched or harmed in any way, but Terry Jones tries to undress on the
beach ("It's a Man's Life Taking Off Your Clothes in Public"), Arthur
Lemming of the BDA foils a dastardly plot ("It's a Man's Life in the
British Dental Association"), and John Cleese barks instructions to a class
learning to defend themselves against assailants armed with fresh fruit.
The transitions and flow are still a little choppy and their writing not
quite up to the levels of future seasons, but the essential mix of anarchy,
inanity, and outrageousness is all there in classic sketches, running gags,
and Python's ever-popular penchant for deflating figures of authority. As
Monty Python got into the groove of absurdity on a weekly schedule, they
began creating some of their most memorable characters. Gumby is one such
figure, a screaming idiot in knickers and a handkerchief on his head. It
seems so fitting that he would make his first appearance in "Man's Identity
Crisis at the Latter Half of the Twentieth Century" (a.k.a. episode 5),
albeit in a primitive form (if that's not an oxymoron). But no, that's not
enough for the Pythons, who pack this episode with the extremely silly
Confuse a Cat, the not-quite-as-silly Erotic Film highlights, and the
slightly-more-silly John Cleese interviewing not-quite-so-silly Graham
Chapman for a management training course with questions a public-school
education never prepared him for. Episode 6, "It's the Arts," features the
ever-popular Dull Life of a City Stockbroker, Graham Chapman as an insane
(and very loud) American film producer, and a lovely assortment of treats
from the Whizzo Chocolate Company (their specialty is Crunchy Frog, but I
hear the Anthrax Ripple is also quite good). These episodes are light on
favorite skits but exhibit a confidence in the free-association logic that
became the hallmark of the show. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
The first season of Monty Python's Flying Circus was a time of
experimentation: how to transition from one skit to another, how to weave a
gag through a show, and most importantly how to sustain the comic momentum
of a sketch. In Episode 7, "You're No Fun Anymore," this last problem was
solved by creating their longest sustained sketch to date. The seemingly
modest Science Fiction sketch (as it's introduced by a smarmy Michael Palin
in a tacky sport jacket) chronicles the dastardly plot of a race of
sport-loving Blancmanges from the Andromeda Galaxy to turn all Brits into
kilt-wearing, bagpipe-blowing Scotsmen! Also featured in the program are
the Camel Spotting sketch, The Audit sketch, and lots of characters
uttering the now-familiar line "You're no fun anymore." In what can only be
a blatant but desperate ratings gambit, the Pythons named episode 8 "Full
Frontal Nudity." OK, there isn't much nudity, but there is the classic Dead
Parrot sketch ("Nah, it's only sleeping"), a marauding pack of vicious,
motorcycle-riding Hell's Grannies, a society of gossipy hermits, and an
extortionist offering protection to the British Army ("You wouldn't want any of
those tanks to get broken, now, would you?"). Episode 9, "The Ant: An
Introduction," features what may be the single most famous skit in Python's
short but eventful history. Nervous barber Michael Palin dreams of a life
among the tall pines of British Columbia and warbles, "I'm a lumberjack and
I'm OK" with a chorus of Mounties, who become rather puzzled by the sudden
turn in the lyrics ("I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars!").
This classic episode also features a man with a tape recorder up his nose,
a mountaineer with double vision mounting an expedition up both peaks of
Kilimanjaro, and a brief but memorable appearance of a full-fledged Gumby,
who sings while banging himself on the head with bricks. The Monty Python
troupe really hit their stride in these episodes, which feature some of
their most inspired, hilarious, and just plain weird moments. --Sean
Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
The last volume of the first season of Monty Python's Flying
Circus
packs the final four gag-filled episodes on one DVD. The aptly named
"Untitled" is a disappointing episode in comparison to the others in this
volume. In the show's highlights, Terry Jones attempts to enter the record
books by leaping across the English Channel and eating a cathedral while a
chartered accountant tries to get a job as a lion tamer (but only the
short, squat kind with a big nose that eats ants). In the most inspired
bit, a trio of interviewers attempts to open up hiring procedures for
libraries by hiring only animals. While it offers its share of bizarre
moments and hilarious humor, this is one instance in which the ideas are
simply funnier than the execution. Episode 11, "The Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra Goes to the Bathroom," features an Agatha Christie detective
parody in which reenactments of the murder lead to a heaping pile of dead
detectives, the recurring Dying Pallbearers skit, a man who hypnotizes
bricks, and Mrs. Rita Fairbanks and the Townswomen's Guild's reenactment of
The Battle of Pearl Harbor. Episode 12, "The Naked Ant," is highlighted by
one of their funniest sketches ever: The Upper Class Twit of the Year
competition, Python's thumb in the nose at boorish yuppies. Other
skits include a politician who falls through the earth's crust while making
a party political speech, the rise of the Bocialist party leader Mr. Hilter
(who, he insists, was never in Germany), and businessmen leaping out
of office-building windows. The final episode of the season,
"Intermission," features the first reference to the ever-popular Python cry
"Albatross." Other bits include Cardinal Richelieu's dead-on impersonation
of Petula Clark, a little boy confessing he'd like Raquel Welch dropped on
top of him ("She's got a big bottom," adds his buddy), and a Special Crimes
Squad that fights crime with voodoo, magic wands, and Ouija boards. Though
these final episodes aren't as consistent or smooth as the midseason
classics, they are full of inspired moments and infected with a brand of
nonsensical comic absurdity that we've come to know and love. --Sean
Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
Don't expect the Spanish Inquisition in these six episodes from the fourth--and final--half-season of Monty Python's Flying Circus. By this time (1974), John Cleese had departed. His absence is keenly felt, but Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam--with invaluable assist from Carol Cleveland, Douglas Adams (author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), and songwriter Neil Innes--pick up the slack with some of the most surreal material Python ever produced. Like the third season's Cycling Tour, several of these episodes, including The Golden Age of Ballooning, Michael Ellis (set mostly in a very silly department store), and Mr. Neutron, are extended, near-program-length sketches. But there are memorable bits throughout: some indecipherable RAF Banter ("Bally Jerry hanged his kite right in the how's-your-father"); a Hamlet tired of people wanting him to recite "To Be or Not to Be"; a parade of bogus psychiatrists; a doctor whose nurse keeps stabbing, shooting, or garroting his patients; and The Most Awful Family in Britain competition, which achieves "the really gross awfulness that we're looking for." These episodes do not loom large in the Python legend, except perhaps as the basis for a lawsuit the troupe filed in 1975 against ABC, which aired them during late night in severely tampered-with versions. While, literally speaking, no Monty Python collection is complete without this box set, initiates are bound to watch these episodes with a disappointed, "Well, what's all this then?" --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
What do you do for an encore after confounding the general public with
something completely different? Simple: give them more of something completely
different, from a semaphore version of Wuthering Heights to the last
meeting of the Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things (you were
expecting the Spanish Inquisition?). This three-volume set contains for the
first time on video in chronological order the first six episodes from
Monty
Python's second season. No sophomore slump here. Episodes 14 to 19, which
originally aired in 1970, contain the signature Python sketches The
Ministry of Silly Walks and The Spanish Inquisition. Also in
the Python pantheon are the documentary about the Piranha brothers and
their reign of violence and sarcasm, the Architect Sketch, and the scandalous
game show Blackmail. While the sketches, filmed bits, and Terry Gilliam
animations are enduringly silly, Monty Python's Flying Circus remains a loony marvel in the way it shattered television convention. In Episode 15,
a clueless Graham Chapman character is recruited to be the straight man in
a sketch, but is not given the punch line. In the same show, the dreaded, but
tardy, Spanish Inquisition races to make its entrance before the closing
credits run their course. All three volumes are indispensable for Python
completists. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
Containing more "humorous vignettes and spoofs" from the second groundbreaking season of Monty Python's Flying Circus, this boxed set contains episodes 20 through 26,
available for the first time on video in chronological order. Included are signature sketches that were adapted for the Pythons' first film, And Now for Something Completely Different, such as How Not to Be Seen,
Conrad Poohs and His Dancing Teeth, the camped-up military drill, and the alleged English-Hungarian phrasebook ("The Hungarian phrase meaning 'Can you direct me to the station?' is translated by the English phrase 'Please fondle my bum'"). Also on the menu are such tasty classics as Spam; the Lifeboat and Undertaker cannibalism sketches and spam; spam, spam, The Man Who Says Things in a Very Roundabout Way and spam; Spam, spam, The Hospital for Over-Acting and spam; spam, The Exploding Version of the Blue Danube, and spam; The Death of Mary Queen of Scots and spam. "And, of course, there's sport." Not content with foregoing traditional punch lines, Monty Python further subverted television convention with these episodes. In episode 23, for example, the credits don't appear until midway through. They further demonstrate
why Entertainment Weekly ranked Monty Python No. 77 (only 77th?) among the top 100 entertainers of the last half of the 20th century. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
And now the news for Monty Python fans: this volume contains episodes 20
and 21 from the second groundbreaking season of Monty Python's Flying
Circus. By this time, audiences expected something completely different from Monty Python, and the anarchic troupe delivers. Highlights include "The Attila
the Hun Show" with John Cleese as the barbarian who literally wants his
children to "get a head"; Basil and his gang of killer sheep; the news for parrots, gibbons, and wombats; an examination of the role of the village idiot in society; a wildlife excursion with two mosquito hunters ("You hate him, then you respect him, then you kill him"); and "the story of one man's search for vengeance in
the raw and violent world of international archaeology." And, of course,
there's sport. Hitting their creative stride, the Pythons further delighted
in subverting television convention. One sketch is abandoned before it even
starts. At one point, they offer a nice version of a nastily funny sketch
featuring
Terry Jones as Sniveling Little Rat-Face Git and John Cleese as his wife,
Dreary, Fat, and Boring. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
Still loony after all these years. This volume contains episodes 22 and 23 from the second groundbreaking season of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
For discriminating collectors and recent initiates, these two uneven episodes
may not show the legendary troupe to its best advantage, but even average Monty
Python is funnier and more inventive than, say, a new episode of
Saturday Night Live.
Episode 22 is best. Several of the bits, including Killer Cars and the
military precision camping-it-up drill, were adapted for Monty Python's
first film, And Now for Something Completely Different. Others, such as
Norman Singent Polevaulter, the man who contradicts everything ("No, I don't"),
The Death of Mary Queen of Scots, and the penguin on the TV set turned up on
Another Monty Python Record. Other highlights are the return of
Graham Chapman's Raymond Luxury Yacht ("It's
pronounced Throatwarbler Mangrove"), as well as a return engagement of the
Batley Townswomen's Guild, who top their first-season reenactment of the
battle of Pearl Harbor with a reenactment of the first heart
transplant.
Episode 23 does include some cherished bits of Pythonia, including the
animated Conrad Poohs and His Dancing Teeth and the Fish License sketches. But the
foreign film parody and the epic Scott of the Antarctic are for
aficionados only. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
Monty Python ended its second groundbreaking season with episodes fit for the Queen. The three episodes contained on this volume "give new meaning to the word 'vomit.'" No, wait: That's the ill-advised ad campaign devised by Eric
Idle's S. Frog for Conquistador Coffee, a very silly sketch that begins
this volume with a jolt of comedic caffeine.
Among the "humorous vignettes and spoofs" that appear here include classic
and cherished bits from the Python pantheon, including an ad for American
Defense; the training film How Not to Be Seen; the alleged Hungarian-English phrasebook; Crackpot Religions, Ltd.; World Forum, in which questions
about Cup finals stump Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao, and Che; the Hospital for
Over-Acting; the exploding Blue Danube and the immortal ode to Spam.
The season-ending royal episode, which concludes this video, is a
particular favorite. John Cleese soberly informs viewers that Her Royal Majesty will tune in during the course of the show (she is presently watching The
Virginian). One wonders how she would stomach the Lifeboat and Undertaker cannibalism
sketches that inspire the outraged studio audience to rush the stage in
mock revolt. --Donald Liebenson
Amazon.com video review:
This set contains six "persistently silly" episodes from Monty Python's
third and final full season (the ones introduced by Terry Jones's naked
keyboardist). The quality of the sketches is not as consistent as it was in the
first two seasons, but no Monty Python collection is complete without such
series
benchmarks as Njorl's Saga, an exciting Icelandic tale appropriated by
the
North Malden Icelandic Society; a courtroom burlesque featuring Eric Idle
as a
very apologetic mass murderer; the Argument Clinic sketch; Gumby brain
surgery;
and the Fish-Slapping Dance, which Michael Palin is on record as saying is
his
personal favorite bit of Python nonsense. A warning to more sensitive
viewers:
There is "material that some may find offensive, but which is really
smashing,"
as well as blatant violations of something called the "Strange Sketch Act."
Chief among these is the one in which Terry Jones appears as a pitiable man
whose every utterance reduces listeners to hysterical fits of laughter; the
ill-fated expedition to Lake Pahoe (located at 22A Runcorn Avenue); and an
in-person documentary about the sex life of the mollusk, from the scallop
("second in depravity only to the common clam") to the whelk ("gay boy of
the
gastropods"). Episode 30 has the distinction of featuring two of the most
hilariously annoying characters Monty Python ever perpetrated on the
public:
John Cleese as Miss Anne Elk, who has a theory on brontosauruses, and Idle
as
the extremely loquacious Mr. Smoke-Too-Much. --Donald Liebenson
