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"Monty Python's Flying Circus"

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zoomxp
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"Monty Python's Flying Circus"

[edit] Development of the series

Terry Gilliam's Beware of the Elephants animationThe Pythons had a very definite idea about what they wanted to do with the series. They were all great admirers of the work of Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore on Beyond the Fringe, and had worked on Frost, which was similar in style. They also enjoyed Cook and Moore's sketch show Not Only... But Also. However, one problem the Pythons perceived with these programmes was that though the body of the sketch would be strong, the writers would often struggle to then find a punchline funny enough to end on, and this would detract from the overall quality of the sketch. They decided that they would simply not bother to 'cap' their sketches in the traditional manner, and early episodes of the Flying Circus series make great play of this abandonment of the punchline (one scene has Cleese turn to Idle, as the sketch descends into chaos, and remark that "This is the silliest sketch I've ever been in" - they all resolve not to carry on and simply walk off the set). However, as they began assembling material for the show, the Pythons watched one of their collective heroes, Spike Milligan, recording his new series Q5 (1969). Not only was the programme more irreverent and anarchic than any previous television comedy, Milligan would often "give up" on sketches halfway through and wander off set (often muttering "did I write this?"). It was clear that their new series would now seem somewhat less original, and Jones in particular became determined the Pythons should innovate further.

After much debate, Jones remembered an animation Gilliam had created for Do Not Adjust Your Set called "Beware of the Elephants", which had intrigued him with its stream-of-consciousness style. Jones felt it would be a good concept to apply to the series: allowing sketches to blend into one another. Palin had been equally fascinated by another of Gilliam's efforts, entitled "Christmas Cards", and agreed that it represented "a way of doing things differently." Since Cleese, Chapman and Idle were less concerned with the overall flow of the programme, it was Jones, Palin and Gilliam who became largely responsible for the presentation style of the Flying Circus series, in which disparate sketches are linked to give each episode the appearance of a single stream-of-consciousness (often using a Gilliam animation to move from the closing image of one sketch to the opening scene of another).

Each day of writing started at 9am and finished at 5pm. Typically, Cleese and Chapman worked as one pair of writers isolated from the others, as did Jones and Palin, while Idle wrote alone. After a few days of working in this configuration, they would all join together with Gilliam, critique their scripts and exchange ideas. Their approach to writing was democratic. If the majority found the idea to be humorous, it would be included in the show. The casting of roles for the sketches was a similarly unselfish process, since each member viewed himself primarily as a writer, rather than an actor desperate for screen time. When the themes for sketches were finally chosen, Gilliam had carte blanche to decide how to bridge them with animations, armed with his camera, scissors, and airbrush.

While the show was a collaborative process, different factions within Python were clearly responsible for different elements of the team's humour. In general, the work of the Oxford-educated members was more visual, and more fanciful conceptually (e.g. the arrival of the Spanish Inquisition in a suburban front room), while the Cambridge graduates' sketches tended to be more verbal and more aggressive (for example, Cleese and Chapman's many "confrontation" sketches, where one character ends up intimidating or hurling abuse at another, or Idle's characters with bizarre verbal quirks, such as The Man Who Speaks In Anagrams). Asked about this, Cleese has confirmed that "most of the sketches with heavy abuse were Graham's and mine, anything that started with a slow pan across countryside and impressive music was Mike and Terry's, and anything that got utterly involved with words and disappeared up any personal orifice was Eric's."[7] Gilliam's animations, meanwhile, ranged from the whimsical to the savage (the cartoon format allowing him to create some astonishingly violent scenes without fear of censorship).

Several names for the show were bandied about before the title Monty Python's Flying Circus was settled upon. Some of the more memorable were "Owl Stretching Time", "The Toad Elevating Moment", "Vaseline Review" and "Bun, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot". "Flying Circus" stuck when the BBC explained to the group that it had already printed that name in its schedules and was not prepared to amend it, leaving the Pythons no choice in the matter. Many variations then came and went. Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus was named after a woman Palin had read about in the newspaper, thinking it would be amusing if she were to discover she had her own TV show. Barry Took's Flying Circus (also Baron Von Took's Flying Circus) was an affectionate tribute to the man who had brought them together. Arthur Megapode's Flying Circus was suggested, then discarded. Cleese then added "Python", liking the image of a slippery, sly individual that it conjured up. The specific origin of "Monty" is somewhat confused.

Last edited by zoomxp, 12/31/2007, 6:56 pm

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