It was 88-89, wasn't it?

There were two bits of received wisdom doing the rounds:

a) The only bits that were still good were the Gilliam links.

and

b) It was pretty good apart from the Gilliam links that went on forever.

Both were related to whether you liked Gilliam's movies, which were still regarded with awe post Brazil. A) was a way of saying you only liked the bits of Python that had Cahiers Du Cinema's approval.

I stuck with it, in my self-righteous way, failing to understand quite what all the detractors were getting upset about.

A couple of misfiring series three sketches aside, I thought it was all uniformly fantastic, and better than a lot of the new comedy that was around at the time (not *all* or even *most* of it though, there were some great shows around at the time - "Cool It!" and "Victoria Wood As Seen On TV" for starters).

Same went for the Hancock repeats from roughly the same era. Superficial elements of good comedies may date, but the quality of the humour does not.

>It was 88-89, wasn't it?

Repeats started in 1987 (apart from a TV50 one-off in 1986), with series 2 and 3 on BBC1.

Series 1 was then shown on BBC2 in 1989. Series 4 has yet to be repeated on terrestrial television.

>There were two bits of received wisdom doing the rounds:

This piece of revisionism is news to me. I was around at the time and enjoyed re-watching them (I was also around 30 years ago. God, I feel old!). All of my friends that avidly watched them found them just as enjoyable as the first time around - perhaps moreso, as the by then outdated BBC idents gave a new sheen of nostalgia, and the (admittedly disappointing) first series wasn't shown in our region.

Janet.

I remember seeing it as something totally new, even though it was 15+ years old at the time, and I was the same age. Some of the more weird stuff, e.g. It's The Mind and the Pepperpots Penguin thing (especially 'Radio 4 will explode') left a serious mark, which is still with me. I loved every minute. Still do.

>Series 1 was then shown on BBC2 in 1989. Series 4 has yet to be repeated on terrestrial television.

Barring the final episode of series 4, which was shown as part of the Python anniversary thing on BBC2.

The first time series four was repeated (and available in the UK) was when German station ZDF (or WDR - maybe both) ran repeats of the series (in English with German subtitles) in 1993/1994, available to people with a satellite dish.

I remember everyone at high school saying how bad they thought Python was after the TV50 repeat. They also showed an episode of TW3, and I must confess I remember thinking it was dire.

The Flying Sheep episode probably wasn't the best one to choose as a one off...

... a grower, as they say.

There are stories that series four was given a cursory terrestrial repeat within a couple of years of its initial transmission.

That series four is dreadful and not worth repeating is one of the most perniccious bits of received wisdom that gets trotted out.

Most of the episodes are easily the equal, if not better than, series three. The one with "Where Does A Dream Begin?" in it is one of the best shows they ever did, if I remember rightly.

>That series four is dreadful and not worth repeating is one of the most perniccious bits of received wisdom that gets trotted out.
>
>Most of the episodes are easily the equal, if not better than, series three. The one with "Where Does A Dream Begin?" in it is one of the best shows they ever did, if I remember rightly.

I agree wholeheartedly - that's one of the strongest Python episodes of all, and virtually all of series four is great.

The received opinion on its quality is immensely frustrating, given that many of the people who label it rubbish have probably never seen it. If you approach it with an open mind and accept that it's slightly structurally and stylistically different to the rest of the television episodes (which as far as I'm concerned is refreshing rather than disappointing), then you'll probably find yourself surprised by how good it actually is. I certainly did, after years of listening to people dismiss it off-handedly.

Isn't it Gilliam's favourite of the television series?

The Cleeseless and criminally underrated fourth series was repeated on bbc1, Summer of 76. I 've banged on on this forum before about this being the first bit of Python I witnessed as a callow 9 year old, and how I was amazed to see that there could be a fantastic, strange world of comedy beyond Dick Emery and Frank Spencer (although, to be fair, I'd had similar intimations when watching Rutland Weekend Television the year previously). I suppose the equivalent nowadays would be a 9 year old witnessing The Armando Ianucci Shows (although zenzible parents probably wouldn't allow it, due to the sweary bits'n'violence. Darned shame, that). #anything goes in, anything goes out#, Mr Neutron and Teddy Salad, a distressingly bloodstained Terry Jones as mother shouting "Turn that bloody thing off! It's upsetting the lion!", an increasingly confused Hamlet beleagured by sex-obsessed pseudo-psychiatrists ("You've got the girl on the bed, you've got her legs on the mantlepiece...."), buying an ant (an attendant memory-myself and a pissed-up Czech girl in a small Czech town,in a busy Czech bar, circa terminal 97, both shouting "MICHAEL ELLIS" at the top of our drink-sodden voices, then being told to keep it down for shouting "BEANS!" too often.)...They really were great days, readers. That fourth series still stands as brilliantly inventive and surreal comedy today, whereas something like the first series is all but unwatchable.
Incidentally, to refer to Jakie T's original posting, how on earth were the Pythons supposed to mention Thatcher and get a laff? She didn't even become the Tory Party's glorious leader until 74, did she? Although, to be fair, End Of Part One mentioned her in the first episode of the first series. She was served over the counter in a chip shop, all papery, by Fred Harris.
Hey, Beelzebub, do you want to wax nostalgic about "Well, Anyway..." again?

What Series 4 has missing, that Series 1 has in abundance, is any Spammy Parrots.

Although Series 1 is badly paced and underrehearsed most of the time, making it quite hard to watch in places, it has lots of classic, well known characters and sketches. That's why it gets repeated.

Series 4 is far more freewheeling and, BEANS! aside has very few celebrated skits.

As we've discussed before, it's the little known gems that give Python its enduring charm, not the overrepeated, overfamiliar set pieces. Their lustre fades, while Mr Neutron saying "It's... good... for... the... shops" and Michael Palin killing his mother by singing too loudly just get funnier and funnier.

Python did feature a Thatcher joke - reputed to be the first outside of "Private Eye" - in 'How To Recognise Different Parts Of The Body From Quite A Long Way Away'. And one of the best Thatcher jokes I've ever witnessed it was too.

>Python did feature a Thatcher joke - reputed to be the first outside of "Private Eye" - in 'How To Recognise Different Parts Of The Body From Quite A Long Way Away'. And one of the best Thatcher jokes I've ever witnessed it was too.

It was better on the album, though.

"Number 27: The Spanish Inquisition"

>>Hey, Beelzebub, do you want to wax nostalgic about "Well, Anyway..." again?

Yeah! Even in 1976 BBC2 was the only decent TV station. What really intrigued me about Bird and Fortune was that they wrote their own material, not particularly common in sitcoms at that time.

Re series 4 of Python, I always thought Eric Idle wanted to buy a toupee for an ant, but perhaps my memory's getting over enthusiastic again!

No, but he ends up in the toupee department, surrounded by men in magnificent syrups. It's a memorable scene, so I can understand the confusion.

Another Thatcher reference is "Antler care - LIV THATCHER" from the opening credits of Holy Grail.

Just watched the 1989 Omnibus Life Of Python show again, and interesting to note that Eric Idle says of the fourth series that "...the BBC wanted us to do seven more, but I had to put my foot down...it just wasn't working...the balance had gone..",etc.
Terry Jones says he was "surprised" looking back that they did a series without Cleese because "Python was always the six of us".
Not sure about Gilliam's attitude towards the fourth series either, considering he goes on about how "...we were going over old ground, we had to use shock words and shock effects just to keep it going..."
Although I agree that the received wisdom of "The fourth series of Python was crap and not worth repeating anyway" is clearly bullshit, there are moments that seem light years away from the glory days of Series Two.

By the way, has anyone else noticed that the "Adventure" sketch from the unreleased "Hastily Cobbled Together" album features on "The Unknown Peter Sellers" documentary made in 2000 - it's a bit from one of David Frost's shows, and features Sellers in the John Cleese interviewer role and Kenneth Connor in the Terry Jones accountant role. Mind you, in this version, Connor hadn't ever "..trod on an orange". That bit of material must date way back to pre-Python days when the lads were writing for Frost or should I say Timmy Williams.
Must be the only footage of Sellers & Connor appearing together in the same thing.

Wasn't most of series 4 cobbled together from rejected scripts for the first film? The Holy Grail Bok features extracts from Michael Ellis, Buying an Ant and Ano-Weet.

There's also a new book out features untransmitted Chapman scripts, including one he co-wrote with Douglas Adams in 1974 for US TV, which never got made.

Shit. Is that Yoakum's much touteed magnum opus that almost got SOTCAA closed down?

Them's the scripts, Bucky.

Duck, lads. Here it comes.

> Wasn't most of series 4 cobbled together from rejected scripts for the first film? The Holy Grail Bok features extracts from Michael Ellis, Buying an Ant and Ano-Weet.

Other way round, surely.


>Series 4 is far more freewheeling and, BEANS! aside has very few celebrated skits.

Which is why it was very odd to see Atomic Kitten on Live & Kicking a couple of months ago pretending to be hardened East End bouncers throughout the show by repeatedly uttering the word "BEANS!" in a Gumby fashion straight to camera. Oddly unsettling.

Rough draft of Holy Grail script (the one in the front of the script book) predates Seties 4, as far as I know.

Hence Cleese's scriptwriting credit on the series, although he'd quit long before shooting started.

If you think about it, there'd be no reason to make a film out of sketches already seen on TV (it would just have been Completely Different all over again.)

>Shit. Is that Yoakum's much touteed magnum opus that almost got SOTCAA closed down?
>
>Them's the scripts, Bucky.
>
>Duck, lads. Here it comes.

That's the one. Also on sale at a good remaindered bookshop near you now.

I seem to remember something controversial during a repeat of Monty Python.
Does anyone else remember the subliminal messages played during the Freemason sketch? Or have I been sniffing too many shoes again?
It was during the 80s and the BBC got into trouble about it, but never revealed what the messages were, apart from to state that they had nothing to do with Freemasonry.
Does this ring any bells at all?

The Freemasons sketch actually features subliminal flash frames as part of the joke during the animated segment.

They keep flashing up the word "Yes" when asking a cut out of Graham Chapman whether he wants to stop being a mason.

You're not getting external criticism confused with the content of the sketch, are you? Or did some knee-jerk guardian of the nation's morals convince themslves that these were actual subliminal messages?

(I mean, at worst, the flash frames might persuade you to become more affirmative, but the word "Yes" is hardly subversive mind control, is it?)

> (I mean, at worst, the flash frames might persuade you to become more affirmative, but the word "Yes" is hardly subversive mind control, is it?)

"Maybe if you are saying the word 'no' into somebody's head twelve times in a row, it could have a bad... effect."

>Must be the only footage of Sellers & Connor appearing together in the same thing.

Nope. They were both in A Show Called Fred, episodes of which are held by the BFI.

Getting back to my original posting, then - did anyone else read an article in The Listener on the 20th anniversary, by some prat called David Honigmann, who went on about the show's "incredible snobbery", complained that the lack of punchlines made it like "foreplay without orgasm" (dear me, how grown up) and that all foreigners wrere "treated in a manner we would think unworthy of Jim Davidson", and criticised the trial sketch from Series 3/Show 1 for not being satirical enough, comparing it unfavourably with Constable Savage?

>Getting back to my original posting, then - did anyone else read an article in The Listener on the 20th anniversary, by some prat called David Honigmann,<

I saw it, and it told me more about David Honigmann than it did about Python. The man is clearly a total ponce who needs to do a day's work for a change.

There were some more of these anti-Python rants published in time for the 30th anniversary, too.

Did anyone collect them?

>There were some more of these anti-Python rants published in time for the 30th anniversary, too.
>
>Did anyone collect them?

No, I burnt them on a special bonfire.

This reminds me of the rash of terrible articles written in 1984 about how Orwell's 1984 was a load of rubbish because, look, it hasn't come true, what a thicko he must have been.