MONTY PYTHON PRODUCTIONS

         I- Monty Python's Flying Circus

                  a) The creation

         By 1969, John Cleese and Graham Chapman had finished At Last the 1948 Show, while Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam were working on the last episodes of Do Not Adjust Your Set.

         Cleese and Chapman thought it was time for them to do another comedy series for television, and though accounts vary, the BBC was reportedly interested in doing a programme with John Cleese while the latter wanted to work with Michael Palin. It is thanks to the efforts of Barry Took, a kind of "roving producer" ,then BBC consultant for the comedy programmes, that the two groups got together. Barry Took acted as a go-between and put the idea up to the BBC giving the Pythons the opportunity to do an as-yet-undefined comedy show.

         As a matter of fact, the BBC didn't know at that time what the show would exactly be like, nor did in fact the Pythons themselves. The BBC was still looking for a show that would replace the successful That Was the Week that Was that had ended in 1963.

         As for the Pythons, all they knew was that they wanted to do something funny but that they did not want to make "traditional" sketches with a beginning, a middle and a punchline. Graham Chapman wrote : "The style, if there is one, developed because we were the people we are."[1]

         It was only the second time that the members of the Flying Circus-to-be were all meeting that the BBC's Head of Comedy, Michael Mills hurried in to announce that they would be commissioned to write and perform a thirteen-part series. Soon they had to come up with a title for their new series and for various reasons, many propositions of titles were rejected, often because the co-authors could simply not come to an agreement.

         The original name used by the BBC executives to refer to the show was "The Circus" even before the members of the group were involved. This title evolved into "The Flying Circus" as a way for the BBC to have  a means of referring to it in their internal memos. The BBC also proposed the title "Baron Von Took's Flying Circus" as a reference to Barry Took, showing how much the BBC consultant was involved in the project.

         The Pythons themselves tried to find a suitable title for the series, each of them giving his personal point of view on the question. They came up with ideas such as "It" and "It's" a title probably responsible in part for the "It's" Man, a recurrent character in the series.

         Among other suggestions were "Bun, Wacket, Buzzard, Stubble, and Boot", "The Toad Elevating Moment", "A Horse, a Spoon, and a Basin" or "Owl Stretching Time", etc. Another proposition was made in reponse to the BBC who had told them they hoped there would be no sex and violence in their show. The Pythons immediately came up with the title "Sex and Violence".

         However, all those titles were never actually used and the moment came when the Pythons had to choose. They tried to imagine the kind of person who would be likely to present the sort of show they wanted to do. A python, a slithery sort of creature seemed to correspond to that image and finally the series was written on the BBC memos as "Monty Python's Flying Circus"[2]

         The first series was recorded from August 1969 to January 1970 and transmitted on BBC-1 at night, for thirteen weeks from October 5th, 1969. The BBC did not even ask to see the scripts before the shows were transmitted, yet the Pythons always felt they were outcasts at the BBC as Graham Chapman summed up :

      "I think if the BBC had been aware of what we wanted to do right from the beginning, we would never have been allowed to do the programme. I don't think the BBC really wanted us around the building very much. In fact, we seemed to get worse and worse offices as we went along. For the last series we were in a shed near the gate."[3]

         Once on the air, the BBC kept shifting the transmission-time or not showing it at all. As a consequence, the Pythons always kept a grudge against the BBC programme planners.

         However, the first series was followed by a second, starting in September 1970. By the end of the second run, there were mounting fears from within the BBC hierarchy. The show would be regarded as "disgusting", "continually going over the edge of what was acceptable", "appalling taste" and "wallowed in sadism". But the Pythons did not resign so easily and in 1972, they won the BAFTA for Best Light Entertainment Programme, a sure sign of finally being accepted.

         A third series started in December 1972 and a fourth one with only six episodes instead of the usual twelve, which did not feature John Cleese  and which was simply entitled Monty Python , aired in October 1974.

                  b) General content of the programme

         Each programme lasted thirty minutes and consisted of a series of sketches occasionally linked by cartoon animations. The sketches were written by Cleese, Chapman, Palin, Jones and Idle while Gilliam did the animations. Graham Chapman and John Cleese had written together since their Cambridge days and they tended naturally to do so for the Flying Circus. Likewise, the Oxford pair of Palin and Jones wrote together while Eric Idle was left to write material on his own.

         Then, they would assemble in meetings to present to the others what they had done. Graham Chapman explained :

      "The basis of a Python creative meeting was to read out what we had just written, separately, to each other. [...] Rather like still being at school, we could mark the sketches like essays."[4]

         Terry Gilliam had probably even more freedom to do as he pleased than the other Pythons. He was absolutely free to insert one or two minutes of animated material. John Cleese remembered :

      "Terry had the animations so clearly worked out in accordance with his own ideas for the week, that we didn't even know what the pictures were. We never saw the animations until we actually got to the studio on the day of recording [...]"[5]

         The animations contributed in a large part to give the series it's unique look. The other Pythons had to admit that Gilliam - who, at the beginning was paid less than the other five - had a crucial role in the stream of consciousness flow that the group always tried to achieve. His work appears in every single Python show, combining his own cartoon figures with famous works of art.

         As for the live performances, Monty Python introduced a completely different format from what had been done before, including regular characters such as the "It's" Man, the Knight with the Rubber Chicken or the Colonel, and of course Gilliam's animated cartoons providing the link between the sketches.

         Most of the actual performing was done by John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle. Terry Gilliam also tended to make more and more appearances throughout the series. The main female performer was Carol Cleveland with occasional support from Connie Booth who was to become John Cleese's first wife. Still, Carol Cleveland's appearances remained somewhat brief and she was never considered as an actual member of the Python team. We will try to explain later why the female performances were so rare in the show.

         The style of the programme is very difficult to define. However, one can assume that one characteristic of Monty Python's Flying Circus is that it is, even today, unsurpassed in sheer craziness, surrealism, absurdness and cleverness in the television medium, just like the Goon Show on radio. This comparison is not fortuitous for, as we know, Monty Python owes much of its style to Spike Milligan and indeed, it can fairly be said that Monty Python's Flying Circus occupies an equivalent place in the history of television comedy to that of the Goon Show in the history of radio comedy. They both pushed back the boundaries of their medium and became cults, even long after their original transmissions.

         The show was in a satirical tone and has sometimes been defined as anarchic. Still, in my opinion, the best definition of it would be simply "nonsensical", like the rest of the Python productions. Nonsense is sometimes wrongly associated with satire. Consequently, we will have to look more closely at nonsense so as to understand precisely what it is and what it implies. Phil Casoar wrote :

      "Quant aux sketches télé des Monty Python... mmh... essayez d'imaginer l'équipe d'Hara-Kiri lâchée en liberté une demi-heure par semaine sur A2. Mais une équipe d'Hara-Kiri qui aurait étudié à Oxford et Cambridge, qui serait imprégnée de la tradition du non-sense britannique, plus un chouïa d'underground des années 60 apporté par Gilliam. Bref, un distingué bordel." [6]

         Monty Python's Flying Circus is also for a large part a parody of television, with the complete programme schedule ; news, weather forecasts, quizzes and even interludes and transmission interruptions...

         Graham Chapman, himself a homosexual, specialized in homosexual and military roles, Terry Jones in disguises, Michael Palin, in innocent-looking types, Eric Idle in supid and/or boring characters while John Cleese usually impersonated characters in authority.

         Monty Python's Flying Circus included "The Funniest Joke in the World" ; the famous "Nudge, Nudge" ; "It's a Man's Life in the Modern Army" ; "The Twit of the Year" ; "The Ministry of Silly Walks" ; "The Dead Parrot Sketch" ; "The Lumberjack Song" ; "The Spanish Inquisition", and numerous other very silly and clever sketches which made Monty Python's success and allowed critics to write :

      "In October 1969 a little show crept unheralded on to BBC as a replacement for a religious programme. It went on to become the greatest comedy series in the history of television : Monty Python's Flying Circus."[7]

         Many Python fans have seen the forty-five half-hour shows but almost none of them have seen the two fifty-minute shows that were shot in the early '70s for German television. The second was even shot entirely in German so the Pythons had to learn their text phonetically. All the material was created especially for German television except for a Bavarian version of the "Lumberjack Song". Chapman recalls :

      "There was great enthusiasm from a producer at Bavarian TV. He had seen some of our work somewhere, and decided that we were amazing, and we ought to do a show for him. The idea of doing fifty minutes totally on film [...] was something we wanted to have done."[8]

         Language problems slowed them down a bit, although John Cleese speaks some German and Michael Palin understands it a little. The first programme was screened opposite an England-Germany football match that night, so few people watched the TV show. Still, the critics liked it and they were asked back to do another show the next year.

                  c) The Pythons and the BBC

         One of the reasons for the success of Monty Python's Flying Circus was that the BBC, having commissioned thirteen programmes left the team alone to get on as they wanted with it. They owed this freedom to Sir Hugh Carlton Greene's influence at the BBC as Director General. The latter left the BBC on April 1, 1969 and the Pythons were probably  the last people to benefit from his policies.

         As we said before, the BBC didn't ask to see the scripts before the shows were recorded and the Pythons had no other restriction than excluding sex and violence from their programmes. This freedom of creativity was something very important for the Python team and it probably partly explains why they always considered that the BBC had been rather good to them.

         In fact, the relations between the Pythons and the BBC have always been difficult as noted Stanley Reynolds :

     "There has been a feeling that the BBC does not truly love the programme. Certainly such an original and energetic show must puzzle the greyer figures at the BBC […]."[9]

         The BBC also seemed never to entirely believe in the success and the commercial possibilities of the group :

      "But in the end Python is on the air, and it is obvious to any viewer that this is not a cheap show to mount. It would however still be an incredible bargain to the BBC at twice the price."[10]

         The only complaints the Pythons formulated were directed to the BBC programme planners. The Flying Circus was unable to get a regular audience because the show was not always shown on the same time of night or was even sometimes simply not shown at all. For instance, on 5th November, it was replaced by an interview of Christopher Isherwood to Derek Hart and on 12th November by the Duke of Edinburgh.

         As a consequence, the Pythons never missed an opportunity to deflate the BBC planners like in their Monty Python's Big Red Book : "This book is dedicated to BBC programme planners, without whom anything is possible."[11], or in the Flying Circus : "I'm mainly in comedy. I'd like to be in programme planning, but unfortunately, I've got a degree."