One of the First American "Python" Fans Recalls Series' Early Days -- in Canada

I'm lucky. I got to see Monty Python before most Americans - both on TV and live.

Over the years, this long-time newspaper TV critic has been asked: What's your all-time favorite series? Without hesitation: Monty Python's Flying Circus, the brilliant BBC series marking its 40th birthday this week with a series on the Independent Film Channel.

The timeless comedy was brilliantly written and acted, and that's largely why it still stands up and still doesn't look dated.

Why did I get to see Python before most Americans? I moved to Montreal in 1970 just as the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) was beginning to air the iconoclastic British import. (It finally premiered in the U.S.on PBS in 1975 -- after it had ended its BBC run.)

Plus, the Pythons did their only North American tour in Canada in 1972.

I was at Dorval Airport in Montreal when Python Eric Idle stepped off the plane, spotted downtown Montreal's distant skyscrapers, and announced, "Ah, this must be so the capitalists can be closer to God."

Python member Terry Jones told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann this week (I had no idea Olbermann was such a huge Python fan, but am not surprised): "We did the show without agents, without network interference, and without regard for ratings."

That, plus talent, of course, are the keys to the show's success - and precisely why it will probably never be matched in sheer intelligence and creativity.

When I first saw the then-new CBC import in Montreal, the show's offbeat title intrigued and confused me. The freeform show left me shaking my head at first (if I'd been doing recreational drugs then, it might have helped). I'd never seen anything remotely like it.

But I soon got hooked, and as a columnist at the Montreal Gazette, I also had the privilege of spending time with the Pythons during their 1972 tour, when they were greeted like the Beatles in some Canadian cities. I had never met a group of entertainers like this before: To start with, they were highly educated and articulate. For another, they were actually talented. In other words, they were a complete fluke.

It's been noted that television is an art form trapped within an industry. The Pythons, almost uniquely, circumvented the television industry.

I became a lifelong Python fan. Both our children were raised watching the series and memorizing Python sketches.

Oddly, I even had a role in bringing Monty Python shown in Hawaii for the first time.

It was 1976, and I had taken the job as TV columnist for far-off morning daily the Honolulu Advertiser. I made it a mission to persuade Mary Bitterman, who then programmed Honolulu PBS affiliate KHET, to debut the British show in Hawaii. She relented.

Over the years, I've found myself photographed with many TV stars. But only one of those photos is displayed on my office wall - one of yours truly with the Pythons, taken after their hilarious show in Montreal's Place des Arts.

Monty Python: Almost The Truth (The Lawyer's Cut) airs all next week on IFC, and it includes new interviews with the troupe's five surviving stars.

I wouldn't -- couldn't -- miss a minute of it.

For one time only, the stars were perfectly aligned for this series. Because of its unequaled mix of talent, intelligence, and artistic license, Monty Python's Flying Circus is, and remains, as good as TV comedy ever got. I don't think we'll ever see its equal.

Follow Bill Mann on Twitter: www.twitter.com/newsmann

Comments

[meede]

It's not uncommon for Canada to air shows like this before they ever see the market in the US. Another series of shows aired in Canada at least a year or more before the US was the Planet Earth series on Discovery in the US. That series also was by BBC with David Attenborough as narrator The US found it necessary to rerecord it with Sigourney Weaver as narrator as if it added to the series -- it didn't. Maybe they thought it made it appear as a US based series. All it did was slowed the release down for people to view.

[coastalcarla]

Love everything Python - and my friends and I were the only ones in high school (in the 80's) that knew all of the words to the universe song in The Meaning of Life.

Yes, we were mocked. But I still love them. Own all of their DVDs.

[leeclayton]

The Goon Show was popular weekend morning fare on a local acid rock radio station in Toronto in the late 60s-early 70s.

[yourmotherwasahamster]

British humor has always appealed to me, can't fathom why but it just cracks me up. Most American comedy from that era was lark's vomit by comparison. Try as I may to get my Scottish-born and raised husband to appreciate it I am still the lone Pythonette (Pythonerian? Pythenian? Pythonian?) in the family. Guess he didn't care for the brutal mocking dished out to the Scots in many skits.

[Konnie]

ah i remember it well. at the time i was married to a musician.......you understand­..........­.and sunday nite the posse showed up. first we watched monte python, and then the pbs fm station broadcast the King Biscuit Flour Hour concert, and then one of the local rock stations had a program
called "something different" the dj played every new release he could get his hands on. It was the first time we heard pink floyd - chicago - seals and crofts - zz top - wings.....­..........­....in some parts
those sunday nites are lengendary.........

[Economike]

I saw it in upstate new york in 75 or so. My parents thought there was something wrong with me cause I'd be convulsevly rolling around on the floor laughing to my eyes tears and they couldn't see any humor in it at all.

[thenicerguy]

With tears in my eyes I am watching this. I have met them all and worked for two of them and love their brilliance. They made the sun shine in a rather dull decade and left the footprints of a giant vole on the world.

[JScott]

'For one time only, the stars were perfectly aligned for this series. Because of its unequaled mix of talent, intelligence, and artistic license'

Seems to me a lotta shows that had this are one's that still hold up-Your Show Of Shows, I Love Lucy,
Rosanne, MASH, Mary Tyler Moore etc. and MPFS included...oh and speaking of Canada-the early SCTV shows (the 1/2 hr. low budget ones) were hilarious.


But who woulda thunk that 'Albatross, Silly Walks, and most of all SPAM' still permeate pop culture.

Hello Mrs. Cutout.

[3fingerbrown]

I agree with the 'talent and intelligence" part of the American shows you mentioned, but it's the "artistic license" part that trips up the comparison. The Pythons had an "under the radar" creative freedom that U.S. network TV stars could only dream of. Terry Jones says they did their show without network interference and with no regard for the ratings. Unfortunately for us, that has never been the case in big-time American TV.
.

[PlaceboStudman]

Monty Python, at least for me, is something that has penetrated so deeply into my soul that you might sometimes believe that they rewrote my DNA because they are now, and will forever be, a deeply engrained part of my very soul.

Their take no prisoners approach to comedy really does seem like the precursor to what passes as comedy today in the forms of Souh Park, The Simpsons and Family Guy. And while those are good in their own right, they don't come anywhere near matching the quality of in your face rejection of political correctness

[newsmann]

Couldn't agree more. As good as "The Simpsons" is -- and it's quite good --it's not even close.

[progressivegreg]

Recreational drugs did enhance the experience! (hey it WAS the 70's) The show would quite often seem to end in the middle. If you weren't watching the time it would just throw you for a loop, the show would wrap up closing theme and all and then it would still be on! Hilarious! Our local PBS affiliate had a wonderful Saturday night line-up, Jean Shepards America, Monty Python and The International Animation Festival (with some hurt yourself laughing animation produced by The Canadian Film Board) Now if I could only find the Canadian Fire Safety cartoon from that time." No one expects The Spanish Inquisition" "Theres trouble at the Mill" are 2 of my favorite Python lines.