It's fun researching Python. For a start there's so much of it. And so much of it deserves to be researched, to be dissected, charted, checked for rust or otherwise just pointed at in awe.
And yet it generally isn't. For all its persuasive, dogged presence over the years it is still reduced by most people to a handful of 'classic' sketches, headed by that one about the dead parrot. It is casually described, reduced to easy-index file-under terms like 'surreal', 'madcap', 'zany' or just plain 'sketch comedy', all of which do it a great disservice for they imply a show borne of a throwaway or haphazard nature.
Despite the Colonel's protestations, the TV shows were rarely (if ever) 'silly' for the sake of silliness. No, they were painstakingly-assembled half-hour stretches of method-fuelled madness. And every show, every sketch, every line, every aside, every sly nuance had a reason for being there.
So this is our tribute to Monty Python. As children and teenagers we viewed from a safe distance, surveying the entertainment, drinking in the very 70s oddness of a show which did things that normal comedy shows didn't. Later we began to look more closely. Why did 'that bit' happen then? How does 'that thing' work? Why are 'those' dangling in front of the 'big blue thing'? Who are these people? The Pythons bust a gut trying to create the best comedy show in the world. They worked everything out down to the minutest, most intricate, detail. We owe it to them to acknowledge everything that went into it - to paint a more complete picture of the whole Python... 'thing'.
This of course includes looking at the material that didn't make it, the ideas they discarded, the sketches which were consigned, for one reason or another, to the BBC bin. In terms of setting Python a place in history the 'lost' material is every bit as important as the stuff that actually got through. To ponder the reasoning behind those cuts, to query the various debates over taste and decency and to understand the curious foreign country that is the late-60s/early-70s climate in which all this faffing about took place is surely the best way to enjoy the Parrot Sketch.
The following look at the underside of Flying Circus will be vaguely chronological and will attempt to gather together as much information as is known - both confirmed and speculative - on each show in turn, in order of original British broadcast.
Hopefully it'll also serve as a nice reference sheet for when a proper DVD release of the series rears its head. With enough information stacked up in the same place, and a bit of luck, we won't just get the same messed-up masters and ineptly-edited selections as per previous attempts, but a release which treats Flying Circus as a serious archive show worthy of respect (rather than worthy of Phill Jupitus).
As always, additional information, observations or feedback are welcomed.
