Monty Python's Flying Circus

Gateways To Geekery: Monty Python

Monty Python's Flying Circus ran four series, for a total of 45 episodes. None of these are outright horrid, but the quality varies, especially in the latter half, when the writing loses steam and some sketches of questionable humor get stretched longer than necessary. The movies range from passable to excellent.

It leaves me absolutely cold. Cleese and those other guys are completely up their own arses. It is humour made for dolts. I never made it through a complete episode of Flying Circus because it was so bad. I hate sacrilege too - so Life of Brian was an unfunny idea, too easy to sustain a whole film. It was the same with The Goons and Charlie Chaplin, who I could never stand - that kind of dopey, physically silly, male, oh-look-at-us humour. I prefer girls in backless dresses saying witty things in 1940s films, the kinds of movies that have a dry, crisp wit to them, and screwball comedies too. Python and its like rely on easy laughs - the parrot sketch is just ghastly - I prefer the kind of humour that creeps up on you, the kind that builds up so that, out of nowhere, you find yourself in hysterics. Humour should be subtle.

Terry Jones' favourite Monty Python sketches

40 years of Monty Python.

And now for something completely familiar...

The Independent talks to the predictably anarchic Pythons in Manhattan.

Monty Python and the cardboard cut-out

Their waistlines have expanded along with the alimony payments, but 40 years after their television debut, the surviving members of the Monty Python crew were reunited on stage.

Pythons reunite for Bafta award

The five surviving members of Monty Python have been joined on stage in New York by a cardboard cut-out of the late Graham Chapman for a 40th reunion.

Cleverness is no more. This is a dumb Britain

Forty years ago, my dad came into my bedroom and made me get up.

I was nine and sleepy. I was snuggly and warm. I wanted to stay under the covers. But he was insistent. "There is something on television you need to see," he said. And I remember the next bit vividly: "It's going to be important."

So downstairs I went and there, in black and white, were some men talking, while nearby, various sheep fell out of trees. I laughed so much, my teddy bear's arm came off. And so it was that at the age of nine, I became Monty Python's first and youngest fan.

In praise of... Monty Python's Flying Circus

"I'll give you 13 shows, but that's all," said the BBC's head of light entertainment in 1969, and Monty Python's Flying Circus aired to a perplexed, but eventually grateful, British audience on Monday 5 October that same year.

Is Monty Python's Flying Circus dead as a parrot?

The first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus was broadcast 40 years ago today. John Walsh dusts off the tapes to see if the old ones really are the best.

Bafta honour for Monty Python stars

The Monty Python stars are to be honoured with a special award from the British Academy of Film and Television (Bafta) to mark their contribution to comedy over 40 years, it emerged today.