Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons) were a British comedy group that
created the influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television
comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five
episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the
television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring
stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well
as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy
has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.

The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived,
written and performed by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle,
Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show but with an
innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Gilliam's animation), it
pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content.

A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their
work, they changed the way performers entertained audiences. The Pythons'
creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding
rules of television comedy. Their influence on British comedy has been apparent
for years, while in North America it has coloured the work of cult performers
from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist
trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a
result.

In a 2005 UK poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, three of the six Pythons
members were voted by fellow comedians and comedy insiders to be among the top
50 greatest comedians ever: Cleese at #2, Idle at #21, and Palin at #30.

In mid-November 2008, the five surviving Python members created a YouTube
channel to reduce the incentive to download their products illegally from the
Internet. On this channel, they host a high quality selection of their favourite
clips, as well as other clips about The Pythons and the channel.

The Pythons had a definite idea about what they wanted to do with the series.
They were 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 enjoyed Cook and Moore's sketch show Not Only, But Also. 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 sketch
quality.  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
groundbreaking 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 less original, and
Jones in particular became determined the Pythons should innovate.

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).

Writing started at 9 am and finished at 5 pm. Typically, Cleese and Chapman
worked as one pair isolated from the others, as did Jones and Palin, while Idle
wrote alone.  After a few days, they would join together with Gilliam, critique
their scripts, and exchange ideas.  Their approach to writing was democratic.
If the majority found an idea humorous, it was 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 chosen, Gilliam had carte
blanche to decide how to bridge them with animations, using a camera, scissors,
and airbrush.

While the show was a collaborative process, different factions within Python
were responsible for 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
intimidates or hurls abuse, or Idle's characters with bizarre verbal quirks,
such as The Man Who Speaks In Anagrams).  Cleese 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". 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 considered before Monty Python's Flying Circus
was settled upon. Some were Owl Stretching Time, Toad Elevating Moment, A
Bucket, a Horse and a Spoon, Vaseline Review and Bun, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble
and Boot. Flying Circus stuck when the BBC explained it had printed that name in
its schedules and was not prepared to amend it. Many variations on the name in
front of this title then came and went (popular legend holds that the BBC
considered Monty Python's Flying Circus to be a ridiculous name, at which point
the group threatened to change their name every week until the BBC relented).
"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. "Baron Von Took's Flying Circus" was considered as an affectionate
tribute to Barry Took, the man who had brought them together. Arthur Megapode's
Flying Circus was suggested, then discarded.

There are differing, somewhat confusing accounts of the origins of the Python
name although the members agree that its only "significance" was that they
thought it sounded funny. In the 1998 documentary Live At Aspen during the US
Comedy Arts Festival, where the troupe was awarded the AFI Star Award by the
American Film Institute, the group implied that "Monty" was selected (Eric
Idle's idea) as a gently-mocking tribute to Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, a
legendary British general of World War II; requiring a "slippery-sounding"
surname, they settled on "Python". On other occasions Idle has claimed that the
name "Monty" was that of a popular and rotund fellow who drank in his local pub;
people would often walk in and ask the barman, "Has Monty been in yet?", forcing
the name to become stuck in his mind. The name Monty Python was envisaged as
being the perfect name for a sleazy entertainment agent.

Flying Circus popularised innovative formal techniques, such as the cold open,
in which an episode began without the traditional opening titles or
announcements.  An example of this is the "It's" man: Palin, outfitted in
Robinson Crusoe garb, making a tortuous journey across various terrains, before
finally approaching the camera to state, "It's", only to be then cut off by
the title sequence and theme music. On several occasions the cold open lasted
until mid show, after which the regular opening titles ran. Occasionally the
Pythons tricked viewers by rolling the closing credits halfway through the show,
usually continuing the joke by fading to the familiar globe logo used for BBC
continuity, over which Cleese would parody the clipped tones of a BBC announcer.
On one occasion the credits ran directly after the opening titles. They also
experimented with ending segments by cutting abruptly to another scene or
animation, walking offstage, addressing the camera (breaking the fourth wall),
or introducing a totally unrelated event or character. A classic example of this
approach was the use of Chapman's "Colonel" character, who as a member of the
"Anti-Silliness Patrol" walked into several sketches and ordered them to be
stopped because things were becoming "far too silly." Another favourite way of
ending sketches was to drop a cartoonish "16-ton weight" prop on one of the
characters when the sketch seemed to be losing momentum, or a knight in full
armour (played by Terry Gilliam) would wander on-set and hit characters over the
head with a rubber chicken, before cutting to the next scene. Yet another way of
changing scenes was when John Cleese, usually outfitted in a dinner suit, would
come in as a radio commentator and make the formal and determined announcement,
"And now for something completely different."

The Python theme music is The Liberty Bell, a march by John Philip Sousa, which
was chosen, among other reasons, because the recording was in the public domain.

The use of Gilliam's surreal, collage stop motion animations was another
innovative intertextual element of the Python style. Many of the images Gilliam
used were lifted from famous works of art, and from Victorian illustrations and
engravings. The giant foot which crushes the show's title at the end of the
opening credits is in fact the foot of Cupid, cut from a reproduction of the
Renaissance masterpiece Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time by Bronzino. This foot,
and Gilliam's style in general, are visual trademarks of the series.

The Pythons built on and extended the British tradition of cross-dressing
comedy. Rather than dressing a man as a woman purely for comic effect, the
(entirely male) Python team would write humorous parts for women, then don
frocks and makeup and play the roles themselves. Thus a scene requiring a
housewife would feature one of the male Pythons wearing a housecoat and apron,
speaking in falsetto. These women were referred to as pepperpots. Generally
speaking, female roles were played by a woman (usually Carol Cleveland) when the
scene specifically required that the character be sexually attractive (although
sometimes they used Idle for this). In some episodes and later in Monty Python's
Life of Brian they took the idea one step further by playing women who
impersonated men (in the stoning scene).

Many sketches are well-known and widely quoted. "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack
Song", "Spam", "Nudge Nudge", "The Spanish Inquisition", "Upper Class Twit of
the Year", "Cheese Shop" and "The Ministry of Silly Walks" are just a few
examples.
