If you've never had the privilege of seeing Monty Python or even better one of their full length feature films such as The Life of Brian or The Holy Grail you really should get out there and see some of it. The Flying Circus sketch-comedy show was great as well but a lot of this is quite dated and might not be relevant enough to catch the eye of people that these days have an attention span of about 30 seconds or so. Maybe find a "best of" of that show and see what you think.
But for those of us that appreciate the humor of this troupe know that their unique style of humor will live on forever but it all had to start somewhere, right? Well the idea to form this group that has gone down in history as legends of the craft all started today
The year was 1969
You probably know the faces but perhaps not all the names. Well Monty Python consists of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin
According to their own website, the group "was born from a Kashmir tandoori restaurant in Hampstead on 11 May 1969," after Cleese and Chapman had attended a taping of Do not adjust your set, where they were both writers, and had invited the rest of the group who were friends and colleagues. The meeting on the evening of the 11th of May, 1969 was the first time that all six of the members had ever gotten together and it was at this restaurant that the legend was born.
Several of the members of what would eventually become Monty Python were offered jobs doing other shows and if they had decided to do so, we may have never gotten to know this group and the brilliance that is their combined comedy acumen. The main offer being one that was offered to Graham Chapman and John Cleese by the BBC. There is no denying that between these two one of them would be considered the "frontman" of Monty Python so it is safe to assume that without them, the project almost certainly wouldn't have happened. According to Cleese (and this must have hurt Chapman's feelings a bit) he wanted to turn down the offer with BBC because he didn't want to work as a two-man group with Chapman because he had a "difficult personality."
If the name Graham Chapman doesn't ring a bell, just know that he was a driving force behind the entire Monty Python craze and even though most people are probably more familiar with John Cleese since he successfully transitioned to Hollywood, Chapman was the lead character in both The Holy Grail and The Life of Brian. Cleese would later admit in his biography that he wasn't terribly comfortable with acting at that point in his career and did not pursue the lead roles feeling as though Chapman was better suited towards it.
As any people who work together for long periods of time do, Chapman and Cleese had their differences but Cleese was so horribly shaken by Chapman's surprise inoperable cancer diagnoses and eventual death in 1989 that he had to be escorted from Graham's hospital room. Chapman succumbed to the Big C in 1989. The surviving 5 members held a memorial service 2 months after his death and turned it into a sad, but humorous affair, just the way that Graham Chapman would have wanted it to be.
It was tragic that Chapman was struck down so early in life and at that time Monty Python had basically stopped working together. The last large project they 6 had worked on together was on The Meaning of Life in 1983. If you haven't seen this film, it is a dark one, and almost doesn't seem like a Monty Python work, it was extremely risque for the early 80's and later the troupe would admit that it was their objective to "offend absolutely everyone."
When you think about all the fond memories that older folks like myself have for Flying Circus it is probably difficult to imagine that there were only 3 and a half season of the show altogether. Cleese quit the show at the end of season 3 due to his inability to work with Chapman due to Chapman's even growing alcoholism.
Apparently the two, who were the driving force behind that show and wrote almost everything in season 3, just needed some time apart and it is a good thing they were able to rectify their differences because had they not, we might not haver ever gotten The Holy Grail which was filmed just a year after the end of Flying Circus
There's some level of argument over what is the "best" of the Python films but in my opinion The Life of Brian is the best one and it really has an almost Southpark feel to it in the way that they poke fun at religion and society in general all while recreating what is meant to be historical events. I'm sure there were plenty of Christians that were offended by this film, and that was probably the entire point. I wonder if Trey Parker and Matt Stone saw these guys as icons.
For me, this was a particularly special group because I am an American child of the 80's and there was very little in the way of British programming that made it "across the pond." This was back when televisions only had 12 possible channels and almost no one even had cable - I'm not really sure if it existed in the early 80's. I don't think remote controls even existed yet. So I discovered them completely by accident when bored one day and watching PBS - which at that time was the only channel that I am aware of that even bothered with British television programming.
There are a few comedy troupes that have existed over the years that have changed the way we view comedy forever and if you were to ask me, I would say that Monty Python is one of the best, perhaps even THE best that ever emerged throughout history. Since they already did it with the Animal House people, I would imagine that we are only a year or so away of Netflix making a biopic about this group as well - because Netflix will make literally anything.
It was sort of a chance encounter that could very well have not happened. There were a ton of things going on at the time that could have resulted in Monty Python never existing and as such, perhaps the world wouldn't know who any of these people are on a grand scale. I for one am very happy that they did meet for Indian food that night...