Monty Python
Tags: Monty Python, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Holy Grail, John Cleese, Michael Pallin
It's nearly impossible to get all the remaining Monty Python members together again. Graham Chapman passed away in 1989, and no matter how many retrospectives there are, you'd be hard pressed to find John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Terry Jones in the same room at the same time. Gilliam directs movies, Idle adapted Python to Broadway for Spamalot. Palin is roaming the world, Jones is doing voiceovers and Cleese continues to act.
Even in the IFC channel miniseries Monty Python: Almost the Truth - The Lawyers Cut interviewed each of the Pythons separately. Bill Jones (Terry's son) and Benjamin Timlett directed the six hour biography of Monty Python's career. It features inside dirt on classic sketches like The Fish Slapping Dance and Dead Parrot, tension on the set of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, protests against The Life of Brian, Chapman's funeral and more. The five did all attend the the series' premiere in New York.
Eric Idle and Terry Jones got together with Bill and Ben to present a 90 minute cut of the documentary to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on May 25. The miniseries version is eligible for Emmy nomination this year, so perhaps screening an abbreviated version and letting the voters schmooze with two Pythons can secure some nods. They'd better get Python's humor though. Idle asked Jones in front of the audience how many Emmys Flying Circus received. Regretfully, Jones said none. Idle looked for the silver lining, asking how many nominations they received? Sadly, also none.
After taking photos and signing autographs for Academy voters, Jones and Gilliam retired to the green room for a glass of wine. Imagine having two Pythons all to yourself getting liquored up! Idle's animated riffs woke Jones up from his eight hour jet lag (Heathrow to LAX is a killer) as the duo revisited Python one more time for the fans.
SG:
What do you think your chances of an Emmy are after schmoozing the Academy tonight?
EI:
Well, they're not for us, are they? We don't win anything anyway. However well we do, we still get nothing. So I think we're truly fucked really. It will be lovely if they won because it's sort of good. What they've done is amazing and that would be great. So what are the chances? I have no idea. I only bet football, soccer.
TJ:
I think it'll get nominated because of the turnout tonight.
EI:
Well, it better. Jesus, all that money you forked out, all that wine, all those freeloaders.
SG:
After you've won the Tony, do you really need Emmys?
EI:
Well, does one need these things anyway? Actually, the Grammy was the most amazing thing. I didn't expect we'd win a Grammy for the best Broadway Show. John [Du Prez] and I won Grammys. Yes, we've won. But we've been nominated for Grammys, many times but Steve Martin always won.
SG:
Is there any one sketch you think no one talks about enough?
EI:
Camel Spotting is not recognized as the great classic that it is. I don't know remember what it was but Michael always credits that. I don't know. I don't sit around discussing sketches that much.
TJ:
Actually, one of my favorites was one I did, Stanislav Richter playing Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto while escaping from six padlocks.
EI:
Oh, I love that. That's hilarious. That's in my "best ofÖ"
TJ:
It's the one that goes dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. What happens is the orchestra starts off and this sack rolls onto the grand piano. Then sort of a hand comes out and bangs on the thing. Anyway!
SG:
Now that sketch will get its due with our readers.
TJ:
Oh good.
EI:
It's a very funny sketch.
SG:
Calling it The Lawyer's Cut is funny. Is there actually any legal vetting about what you can talk about?
TJ:
No. No, I think it was Mike's title. He came up with it, according to Bill.
EI:
Funny.
SG:
We've heard stories about Saturday Night Live. Are there any Monty Python tales of '70s debauchery?
TJ:
Well, we used to drink a lot.
EI:
There's a book out which I edited last year about us on the road, which is as close as we came to having fun. We went on the road, we toured England and we toured Canada and it was a bit rock n' roll, young men on the road. So it has been sort of told. It's not very interesting. 36-year-old sex.
TJ:
But what I was thinking was when we were doing the TV shows, we'd think nothing of having a couple of pints before doing the shows.
EI:
You would think nothing of having a couple pints. Graham would think nothing of having two bottles of gin. I would always have a bath before a show.
SG:
But alcohol is a depressant. SNL did coke to keep their energy up.
EI:
They didn't do coke on the show usually. I was there through most of the early '70s. What they did do which was terribly frustrating is they smoked weed and then sit down to try and write sketches. Of course, you can't find the typewriter. SNL, they'd go, "Well, let's write a sketch about something in New York." Then they'd roll big joints and then 20 minutes would go by and then they said, "So, what are we going to do?" We were very disciplined. We would work 10 'til 5 on our writing. We were professional writers.
TJ:
I guess we actually missed out on the drugs because it was a bit later than us.
EI:
In Canada when we toured, it was a certainty that we were all out of our heads. Of course it's kind of cleverer than that. People can watch it stoned and I think that was one of the appeals. It helped to watch it stoned.
SG:
What do you think of the culture that's kept Holy Grail alive, mostly college kids it seems?
EI:
Well, I think eight-year-olds and 10-year-olds love it now because it's like pretending to be children. It's men riding horses like kids do. And it's tremendously violent.
TJ:
I never noticed the lack of horses when I watch it. You just accept it.
EI:
Totally accept it as a convention.
SG:
Would you agree that's your seminal work?
TJ:
No, we think Life of Brian is.
EI:
I like Holy Grail. They all say Life of Brian but I personally feel Grail because it's like A Hard Day's Night. We don't know what we're doing. We're kind of cute, we're young enough. It's not being done, what we're doing. We're staggering into something wonderful I think.
TJ:
In England, Life of Brian is the most popular. It always comes up as the funniest film of all time and things like that, in votes for that.
SG:
Even in those films, are there elements that go unnoticed?
EI:
I think nothing in Python goes unnoticed. That's the most extraordinary thing about it. We did something so temporal at the time just for that moment and it's actually still being talked about 40 years later. It's kind of remarkable.
TJ:
We never thought it would be.
EI:
It's impossible.
SG:
But it is between those two films?
TJ:
Yeah, although on the other hand, I think Meaning of Life has got the funniest, best bits in it.
EI:
I think Meaning of Life is still shocking, kind of objectionable and repellant. I'm very proud of that.
SG:
Do you think Mr. Creosote inspired the fat suit comedy we've seen ever since?
EI:
Probably.
TJ:
Yes. Absolutely yes.
EI:
You see a lot of Python jokes being recycled. They say it's homage. At least that's what Dreamworks says.
SG:
Wow, you said it.
EI:
I did say it. Lucky I don't want to work.
SG:
You'd think there'd be more sketch movies as attention spans get shorter. Why do you think no one does it anymore?
TJ:
Well, I guess in the way that you want to come out of the movie having had an emotional experience as well as a laugh, I guess.
EI:
That's the trouble, you see. A sketch can be in any order whatsoever. There's no story, there's nothing, so you can watch it for about 60-67 minutes and then you need the hook of a plot or the hook of something.
TJ:
It was odd. Actually, I'll tell you what, talking about sketches that aren't remembered. I think one of the funniest sketches in Meaning of Life is Eric in the tiger skin, which never gets mentioned. It comes at the wrong moment of the film and people don't respond to it. If it was in a different place, it would get laughs.
EI:
I think people respond to completely different things. Some people see the same thing, like the film, and they laugh at different places. I think that's just taste in comedy.
SG:
Do you think Monty Python pioneered comedy music, even before Weird Al?
EI:
But he just does parody songs. We would tend to do something more obscure, off the wall.
TJ:
I like Eric's "Galaxy Song." It's a great song.
EI:
That's later on. In the show, it would be like they'd suddenly be singing about summarizing Proust and things completely stupid.
TJ:
The archeology sketch.
EI:
I love that song. I love that song. For no reason, an archeologist would slip into a song. That was The Rolling Stones' favorite song. They would sing it all the f***ing time. Before they went on stage, Keith and Woody would sing, "Today, I hear the robin sing. Today, the bird is on the wing."
TJ:
It's John miming to me singing.
EI:
And you have a beautiful baritone, Terry, as we saw.
SG:
Do you think online is where the edgy comedy is going on right now?
TJ:
Yes, certainly.
EI:
Totally, totally. That's a good point because that sketch thing that everybody needs, they make it themselves and they edit it themselves and they put all the clips together and then they send them off to each other so that's where the sketch things are found, absolutely.
SG:
Do you see edgy things you like?
EI:
I never go online. It's very bad. I read books. It's an old fashioned things.
SG:
Terry, do you find that people still discover Labyrinth, which you cowrote, and see new things in that?
TJ:
I guess so. I was always sort of dissatisfied with it. I'd rung Jim Henson up to see if he'd be interested in doing Erik the Viking. His secretary said, "Actually, Jim was trying to get a hold of you because he's doing a film." So I wrote a screenplay for him and it was totally about something different. I mean, it had a lot of the things in it but it was a different idea. For instance, I thought you should never get to the center of the labyrinth before the girl does. I thought you should save that for the end. Then Jim had the script and then he said, "No, no, you had to have fun in the center of the labyrinth." Also he wanted David Bowie or Michael Jackson to be the king and he wanted him to sing. Anyway, so I rewrote it and then it went away for about a year and then it came back and it was totally different and he'd lost all the jokes. So he said could I put it back? Jim wanted it to be about coming of age.
SG:
So if I love the Helping Hands and the Door Knockers, was that not you?
TJ:
Oh no, no, the helping hands was me. Yes, that was my idea. Actually what I did, they'd all started into production. So they had all these characters and puppets and Brian Froud had done a lot of drawings. So I just had a collection of Brian's drawings and the Door Knockers were a couple of drawings that Brian had done so I sort of brought those in, and the wizard with the talking duck on the head. I haven't seen the film since it came out.
Monty Python: Almost the Truth - The Lawyers Cut is available on DVD.
Monty Python: Almost the Truth - The Lawyers Cut is available on DVD.
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