Monty Python from the Inside Out

By Howard Johnson

What’s the connection between Monty Python and Game of Thrones? Was Elvis Presley a Python fan? Who was the only Python to take acting lessons?
If you think you know everything there is to know about Monty Python, then wait till you read "Monty Python from the Inside Out." Python historian Kim “Howard” Johnson (author of five books on the group) delves deep into Python history, and emerges with a wide assortment of little-known facts about the legendary British comedy group that will amaze, astonish, and appall readers.
"Monty Python from the Inside Out" answers such questions as: Which Python was a Broadway star decades before Monty Python’s Spamalot? Which one was a physics major in college? Whose comedy career was due to a Royal Command? Who was an international journalist? Which one served in the Army? And who wrote the worst Python sketches?
And "Monty Python from the Inside Out" answers questions you didn’t even think to ask, such as: What was the most painful Python sketch to film? Which books inspired the most Python sketches? What sparked the biggest fight within the group?
And learn the facts behind the Python films as well. Was "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" cursed? Who bought the world’s most expensive movie ticket? And what was the real-life inspiration for Mr. Creosote?
This undersized book at an undersized price is filled with stories about the time the Pythons and the Beatles nearly teamed up, who lobbied to be a member of Monty Python, and the connection between Monty Python and Charlie Chaplin.
Kim “Howard” Johnson is acknowledged by the Pythons themselves as the authority on the history of the group, and as they celebrate their 45th anniversary with a farewell reunion show at London’s O2 Arena, there’s no better time to look back at lunacy, Python-style.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Howard Johnson
• Release date: Jul 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311355775

Book preview

MONTY PYTHON

from the Inside Out

by

Kim Howard Johnson

Monty Python from the Inside Out

Kim Howard Johnson

Monty Python from the Inside Out

Copyright  Kim Johnson 2014

Published by Kim Johnson at Smashwords

www.kimhowardjohnson.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

First Edition: July 2014

Cover art: Fantasia Frog Designs

For Laurie

The first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus aired second, and the second episode aired first

The first recording of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was at Studio 6 of the BBC Television Centre on August 30, 1969. The group had spent the previous months writing and recording the filmed segments for the first series, but this was the first time that Monty Python’s Flying Circus would be presented before a live audience.

Busses of audience members were brought in. Some of the Pythons recalled that they were senior citizens who thought they were going to see an actual circus, and they worried about the reaction of their studio audience. Barry Took, a BBC producer and supporter of the group, delivered the comedy warm-up for the audience. Terry Jones and Graham Chapman took their places for a scene in which two farmers discuss sheep that are nesting in the trees, under the misapprehension that they are birds. John Cleese and Michael Palin stood backstage, ready for the second sketch, and Cleese told Palin that this could be the very first comedy show recorded without a single laugh.

But at 8:10 p.m., Jones and Chapman began their sketch, and both the audience reaction and their performance were very good indeed. The laughter continued as Cleese and Palin discuss the commercial possibilities of bovine aviation in pidgin French, and continued throughout the recording of the man with three buttocks, the Marriage Guidance Counselor, Working-Class Playwright, and all the rest of the sketches. When Cleese and Palin had to re-do the sketch with the two Frenchmen at the end of the evening, they laughed even harder. The first cut of the show ran long by nearly five minutes.

When Monty Python’s Flying Circus premiered a few weeks later however, on October 5, 1969, the BBC selected the second show (recorded on September 7) to be the first one broadcast. Instead of opening with the farmers, sheep and Frenchmen, this show began with It’s Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, re-enactments of historical deaths, and a classroom full of Italians being taught to speak Italian.

The rest of the episodes were often switched around, as were the contents of individual shows, prior to airing. There were various reasons for this, ranging from length of shows and sketches to similarity of material; a show with an airline sketch might be moved if there had been an airline disaster shortly before airing.

The real reason the Pythons chose their theme song

Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam sat in an office at the BBC, listening to musical possibilities. It was getting late, and the group needed to decide on a theme for their new program, but they had been putting it off. Finally, they could put it off no longer, and they had to choose something on the spur of the moment.

Gilliam needed something he could use for the opening animations, and they both wanted something lively, brass band music, perhaps a march.

They sat listening to song after song, but none of them seemed to be quite right. Then they heard a loud Bong! and the familiar strains of The Liberty Bell March by John Philip Sousa. They both decided it was exactly what they needed. Gilliam cut it down to thirty seconds, and animated the opening titles appropriately.

Today, no matter where it’s played, it’s nearly impossible to listen to Liberty Bell without immediately thinking of Monty Python.

The song had one other factor in its favor, however. In addition to the opening Bong!, as well as being lively brass band music, The Liberty Bell was a public domain song, long out of copyright. Today it is certainly one of John Philip Sousa’s most famous, recognizable songs, in no small part due to Monty Python. But his estate never collected a penny from it.

One of their sketches was considered so offensive that the only way they were permitted to present it was if the audience attacked them afterward

Episode 26 (Royal Episode 13) was so offensive that the BBC refused to rerun it for many years.

The trouble began toward the end of the show, when the Pythons were adrift in a lifeboat for 33 days. One of them bravely suggests to the others that since he’s dying, not likely to make it, suffering from a gammy leg, ...so you’d better eat me. The immediate reaction is Uuuuggghhh! With a gammy leg? Offended, he responds You don’t have to eat the leg, Thompson, there’s still plenty of good meat...look at that arm. But it’s too late. The others, slowly at first, begin to suggest alternatives. I’d rather eat Johnson, sir. Oh, so would I, sir." And so