The surviving members of cult British comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus reunited in 1999 for a BBC TV special celebrating their 30th anniversary. John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Jones have turned down previous requests to reunite after the death of the fifth Python Graham Chapman in 1989. Terry Gilliam was not seen on camera so fans often don't include him as one of the Pythons - he made the cartoons for the show and has gone on to produce a number of movies including "Brazil", often casting Monty Python members in various roles.
Meet a composer with the longest name imaginable, and the head of a chocolate company is asked about the inclusion of such ingredients as "crunchy frog" in his candies. 13 episodes of the classic British comedy phenomenon of the 1970s are on A&E semi-regularly, late at night when impressionable children are asleep
Episode #1. "Whither Canada." Tonight's program begins with a strange flock of sheep that thinks they are birds, while on a TV interview, a man claims to have three buttocks. It's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Famous Deaths, Italian lesson, Whizzo butter, It's the Arts, Arthur "Two-Sheds" Jackson, Picasso/cycling race, The funniest joke in the world.
#2, "Sex and Violence." Flying sheep, French lecture on sheep-aircraft, A man with three buttocks, A man with two noses, Musical mice, Marriage guidance counsellor, The wacky queen, Working-class playwright, A Scotsman on a horse, The wrestling epilogue, The mouse problem.
#3, "How to Recognize Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away," also: Court scene (witness in coffin/Cardinal Richelieu), The larch, Bicycle repair man, Children's stories, Restaurant sketch, Seduced milkmen, Stolen newsreader, Children's interview, Nudge nudge. And visit a restaurant where a complaint about a dirty fork leads to suicide
#4, Visit an art gallery where the quality of paintings depends on how they taste and a gym where the instructor teaches his class to defend themselves from anyone armed with fresh fruit
#5, Tonight, a duck, a cat, and a lizard comment on smuggling, while a TV newscaster describes a robbery that leads to his own on-air arrest
#6, sorry - A&E simply will not allow an episode like this to be seen on television and you know full well why
#7, "You're no fun anymore" is a recurring statement throughout the episode. Also, creatures from another planet turn people into Scotsmen
#8, Tonight's theme is "Full Frontal Nudity", and the boys do their legendary "Dead Parrot" sketch. Also, a report on "Hell's Grannies", a gang of old ladies who terrorize a city
#9, Tonight, a rousing Spanish song about llamas is followed by a man with a tape recorder up his nose. And a barber, who reveals a burning desire to be a lumberjack, breaks into "The Lumberjack Song".
#10, a bank robber mistakenly holds up a lingerie shop, and an accountant wants to become a lion trainer.
#11, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra goes to the bathroom, a seductive woman on a bed discusses 18th-century social legislation, and the Batley Townswomen's Guild reenacts the Pearl Harbor attack.
#12, A British Minister falls through a hole in the earth, but continues his speech, and the 127th Annual Upper-Class Twit of the Year competition is held.
#13, Ivan the Terrible does an impersonation of a sales clerk, and a psychiatrist suffers from an identity crisis: Intermissions, Restaurant (abuse/cannibalism), Advertisements, Albatross, Come back to my place, Me Doctor, Historical Impersonations, Quiz programme - "Wishes," "Probe-around" on crime, Stonehenge, Mr. Attila the Hun, Psychiatry - silly sketch, Operating theatre (squatters).
Occasionally, an episode on A&E is followed by "And Now For Something Completely Different" (1971) A collection of sketches from the cult British TV comedy show "Monty Python's Flying Circus". Includes "Nudge, Nudge", "Dead Parrot", "Lumberjack Song", "Upper-Class Twit of the Year", and "The World's Deadliest Joke". Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam star. [TV PG]
Every Sketch in Every Episode of Monty Python
Monty Python is now the subject of an A&E Biography
Click here if you have trouble understanding what the bloody 'ell all those British expressions mean in Monty Python or the new League Of Gentlemen programmes.
Play the A&E Biography weekly online trivia quiz: Biography.com/quiz
Buy all the following Monty Python videos. Buy them now. Hurry. Buy, buy, buy (this is known on the internet as spam...spam...spam...spam...eggs...bacon...and spam)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Brazil (1985)
Monty Python's the Meaning of Life (1983)
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)
Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Monty Python's Flying Circus - V. 1 (1970)
The Return of Spinal Tap (1992)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
The Rutles, All You Need is Cash (1978)
Rowan Atkinson Presents
Yes, Prime Minister
Mr. Bean
Heroes & Villains, 3 Stories of Eccentric British (1999)
Queen of the East (1999)
Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, How the Band Got Together (1991)
Maid Marian, The Miracle of St. Charlene (1990)
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It is and time for the penguin on top of your tv to explode.
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- Groucho Marx
Fun fact:
Margaret Thatcher's pet cat (a stray that turned up at the door one day) was named Humphrey, a character in Yes Prime Minister, a British sitcom still shown in India, as a documentary.
Click here to hear the Monty Python themesong played on a Mississippi riverboat caliope
