Collapsing Into An Unmemorable End: Monty Python’s Flying Circus Volume 22 On VHS.

The Good: It ends?
The Bad: Not funny, at all, Medium, Short.
The Basics: Ending, poorly, Monty Python's Flying Circus's final two episodes are presented on VHS, which does nothing to improve their lousy content.


Whatwith the advent of DVD and now Blu-Ray, video tapes are outdated and a real reason not to buy when the material is available on better mediums. But sometimes, I encounter a VHS where "medium" is not as much of a detraction because the material on it is just plain bad.

This is where I find the final volume of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The classic British sketch comedy series that began in the late 1960s and made it to the early 1970s goes out with the two episodes found on "Volume 22" and they are tragically unfunny. Here, Monty Python’s Flying Circus goes out, not with a riotous laugh but with a whimper and a pained wince from the viewers.

These final two episodes, "Mr. Neutron" and "Party Political Broadcast" are generally more cohesive than earlier episodes, with "Mr. Neutron" essentially being a thirty minute science fiction spoof. The final episode is more like the early days when there was no theme running through the episode. Instead, it has little sketches that have no connection to one another, save a pantomime salesman who pops up in the background of several sketches, waves and leaves frame.

This video, which represents the final hurrah for the five Pythons who made it this far - Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin - is largely lacking in the satire which made earlier episodes funny. The timing of the gang is off and Chapman, especially, comes across as stiff. Idle and Palin only seem to hit their chemistry for a brief sketch in the final episode and Gilliam and Jones seem particularly lost throughout. The absence of John Cleese is felt as the final sketches run and it is only then that it is likely to occur to most viewers that they have not laughed a single time the entire program.

For a better idea what these two unfunny episodes are about, here are the sketches:

In the aptly titled "Mr. Neutron," the gang does a spoof of melodramatic serialized science fiction works. After a neighborhood completes its complete nuclear disarmament, a new postal box is put up on the corner to replace an old postal box. This sets the stage for the introduction of Mr. Neutron, who is living with Mr. and Mrs. Entrail. Billed as the most powerful being in the galaxy, Mr. Neutron has tea with the Entrails before leaving the house. This puts F.E.A.R. on high alert as Mr. Neutron had been under close watch by the international organization. The U.S. sends an agent to recover Teddy Salad, the ex-CIA operative who knows where in the world Mr. Neutron is at any given moment. The specialist, though, is bewildered to discover that Teddy Salad is hiding in a dog's body now.

Without the information on where Mr. Neutron is hiding, the Prime Minister of the U.K. begins bombing the entire world in an attempt to flush Mr. Neutron out. Mr. Neutron, though, has fallen in love with Mrs. Scum and he wants to be married to her. Teddy Salad is killed before he can divulge the location of Mr. Neutron and the Earth appears to be on the verge of an absolute holocaust. The episode is capped off then with "Conjuring Today" where the big gag seems to be everyone is wearing giant eyeballs as if able to mesmerize with just their stare.

The series finale, "Party Political Broadcast" begins with the "Most Awful Family In Britain" contest. This vile family has everyone shrieking at one another, the mother ironing everything in sight, including the family cat. As one kid yells for more beans, the teenage girl prepares for a date. This sketch is succeeded by Icelandic Honey Week wherein a person from that country, which has no native honey, tries to sell honey door-to-door. This is followed by a hospital sketch and a lewd exchange between an officer and a bishop who lament how they cannot kiss (or do more) on television.

After an appeal for viewers to send money to rich people, there is a bit involving a man who finishes other people's sentences. This is followed by a mockumentary on the walking tree of Dahomy. After an extensive search through the jungle for the walking tree, the documentary crew discovers wild batsmen playing cricket, with very bloody consequences. The series ends on a BBC news bit about the economy which satirizes the fickle nature of the markets.

Because this is VHS, there are no bonus features or additional programming. The two episodes take up an hour of tape and there are no previews, clips or other incentives associated with this tape.

[For a much better value, check out the final season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 4 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

.5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Nearing The End, Poorly, Monty Python’s Flying Circus Volume 21 Is Low On Laughs.

The Good: A few good ideas.
The Bad: Not terribly funny, Medium.
The Basics: Life is too short to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus after those involved in it seem to have lost the passion for it, as they have on Volume 21.


I think, as I approach the end of reviewing each and every episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the ideal in my mind for the reviews is that someone will read the reviews, smile as they remember favorite sketches and hunt down the VHS or DVD I have reviewed. As I approach the end of the series, when it became something far less funny than it was at the beginning, I wonder if my readers will simply scratch their head, say "I don't remember that one" and quietly admit to themselves that the premise does not sound nearly as funny as the classic sketches more people know. With volume 21 of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, people who did that would not be wrong; the show by this point has lost its edge and is not funny at all. In fact, all that saves this video from a one-star rating is the sheer creativity.

Monty Python, at the point these episodes were produced, was a quintet of Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. They wrote and starred in all of the sketches with Gilliam providing animations. This VHS is a pretty lousy deal as it includes two laughless episodes that do call backs to their own jokes and generally have a repetitive feel to them. "Volume 21" features the half-hour episodes "The Light Entertainment War" and "Hamlet" and both have threads which carry through the entire episode, like the appearance of multiple Hamlets in the second episode.

"The Light Entertainment War" begins with an annoying sequence of segues that starts with a mock-television program "Up Your Pavement." The protagonists of that show are almost immediately killed off and the program claims to be about various other people loosely related to one another until the show settles on Royal Air Force members who are not understanding the banter of one of their own when he comes in to warn them about something. The show leaps from that to a sketch where a man is put through a court-martial for trivializing the war. As the case proceeds, the judge becomes more ridiculous and orders everyone in the court to sing.

From there, there is a mock movie trailer followed by a board meeting of television programmers who are bored and struggling to come up with ways to keep the BBC going without producing new programs. They figure they can get away with renaming old programs when they rerun them and then the episode goes to a sitting room. In that room, three people talk about the quality of words as they speak them, the main speaker looking for woody-sounding words and the girl loathing tinny words. A man is given electric shocks then to compel him to change the television channels and the show ends on a musical number, "When Does A Dream Begin?"

"Hamlet" opens with the Prince Of Denmark going to see a psychiatrist, only the psychiatrist just wants to hear about his sexual inadequacies. Hamlet goes through a series of bogus psychiatrists until it is interrupted by the news program "Nationwide," which avoids presenting news about the third world war to talk about wet things instead. This segues to an interview from a man in the street whose prop chair is taken away by the police. The officer, trying to convince the interviewer he is authentic because of his police helmet, begins taking things from passers-by himself. Meanwhile, across the street, a man and woman make love on the sidewalk as the woman gets the guy to agree to take in her aged father. This is illustrated in the next scene as the three of them share a bed and the old man tries to build a model in the dark.

This is followed by the opening credits which ends with a large group of people watching "Hamlet" on television, only to have Ophelia begin psychoanalyzing Hamlet herself. An animated bit takes it to a sketch involving a boxer who has lost his head in his latest match and talk of a comeback by his manager. The fight is then heard by a wing full of doctors who are neglecting their patients to listen to it (the real joke is the amount the announcer keeps saying people paid to see the fight!) and then an old sketch begins with Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Non-Robinson talking about a piston engine one bought and the other wants for no particular reason than it was on sale. A talk show from Polonius's house begins before going into an advertisement on dentistry and an interview with some jockeys who barely appear on camera.

These episodes contain no sketches considered "classic" by those who love sketch comedy and while sometimes that simply means that greatness has been overlooked, that is not the case here. Eric Idle and Michael Palin seem more like parodies of themselves, Graham Chapman seems lost without John Cleese to act off of and Terry Gilliam delivers each of his lines with a simple glee that screams "finally, I'm on screen!" Terry Jones has a few moments that remind viewers of his comic brilliance, but largely, even he mumbles through his performances as if he feels he is missing part of himself.

In other words, this video is only necessary for the completists. Everyone who loves great comedy can give it a pass.

[For a much better value, check out the final season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 4 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

3/10

For other television and movie reviews, please check out my Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Monty Python’s Flying Circus Continues Without John Cleese (With Poor Results)! (Volume 20)

The Good: One good laugh, Conceptually interesting.
The Bad: Largely not funny, Not clever, Medium
The Basic: Long past their prime, the men of "Monty Python" start the fourth season with "Volume 20," which lacks John Cleese...and humor!


Sometimes, when a concept is done, it is done. In the case of sketch comedy, those of us who hold Monty Python’s Flying Circus up as the gold standard of comedy often do so neglecting the final season. In the final six episodes of the series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus saw increased on-screen presence of Terry Gilliam following the departure of John Cleese, who went on to bigger and better things. Sick of fighting with the censors and eager for a new challenge, Cleese left the troupe and his departure forced the remaining five men of Monty Python to adapt.

Unfortunately, as Volume 20 on VHS illustrates, the remaining men of the troupe lost something significant with Cleese's departure. The two episodes on this tape, "The Golden Age Of Ballooning" and "Michael Ellis" yield few laughs and actually sound funnier than they were actually executed. Indeed, "Michael Ellis" yielded a single laugh for me on my third viewing and I recall it being even less funny on prior perusals. The first episode of the fourth season is almost entirely a dud and the men of the troupe seem to be struggling to find their sense of comic timing amid circumstances that sound far more zany than they are presented as.

This tape features Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam struggling to be funny. Instead, most of the two episodes have the men simple wearing lavish costumes and speaking in accents and hoping that the audience will not notice that what they are saying is not particularly humorous.

In "The Golden Age Of Ballooning," the show attempted another of their theme shows where everything ties into a single premise. Here is the "BBC" production "The Golden Age Of Ballooning," which starts with a man working on a toilet, talking about the Mongolfier brothers who are in France working on the first hot air balloon. On the eve of their history-making balloon flight, the Mongolfier brothers are visited by a man who they do not let in and they confess to one another that they have not been washing for quite some time. After that, there is a bit about the merchandising of "The Golden Age Of Ballooning" before the second part of the series begin. In "The Mongolfier Brothers In Love," the engineering brother is complained to by his suspended girlfriend who laments how everything he does has to be tied to ballooning. They are visited that night by Louis XIV, who is after the plans for the hot air balloon. As he is washing, the engineer realizes it cannot be Louis XIV (he's actually a Scotsman) and Louis XVI, as he decides he is, flees with the plans.

The third part of the series begins with Louis XVI arriving in England where he tries to sell the plans to the crazy Charles III. When that caper goes awry - from the Mongolfier brother arriving to stop the transaction - the other Mongolfier brother tries to kiss the woman who remained in France. The servant who works for the Mongolfier brothers (and has been trying to find the decanter on the sideboard) makes his exit and he is given many awards. This is followed by a bit on Zeppelin, who begins throwing German government members out of the airship when they call it a balloon. The members of the German state land in the sitting (or drawing) room of two German peasants and they begin to sort them out by status.

Like "The Golden Age Of Ballooning," "Michael Ellis" is a concept episode of "Monty Python," which follows a man who is constantly mistaken for Michael Ellis going through his day. He visits a department store where he is pranked by the clerks, who think he is Michael Ellis. After demanding to see a manager, he is sold an ant as his pet. He leaves the store, generally dissatisfied and arrives home where his mother berates him for buying an ant after neglecting the tiger and sperm whale he bought previously as pets. He then sits down to watch a program on ants and realizes that he has been sold something that is not an ant.

Returning to the department store, he begins to search for the store's general manager. In one corner of the store is a poetry reading where famous poets (Shelly, Wordsworth, Tennyson) read their poems with significant changes made to accommodate lore of ants. He is sent to the general manager's office in the toupee department where the workers there try to sell him a toupee. Dissatisfied, he and a television interviewer try to figure out how to end the episode (a problem because the episode actually began with both the opening animation followed immediately by the closing credits).

As this is VHS, there are no bonus features and the hour of entertainment - I am liberally using the word "entertainment" - is a tough sell to anyone who likes comedy, especially on this outdated medium. Fans of Monty Python’s Flying Circus are more likely to cringe than laugh and that is disappointing considering how fresh the show once was.

[For a much better value, check out the final season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 4 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

3/10

For other television reviews, be sure to visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Little Redemption For A Once-Great Comedy: Monty Python's Flying Circus Falls In Season Four!

The Good: One or two good jokes, Conceptually ambitious, DVD bonus features
The Bad: Largely unfunny, No great performances, Only six episodes
The Basics: This two-disc set charts the ultimate demise of Monty Python’s Flying Circus as Cleese-less, the sketch comedy show becomes terribly humorless.


John Cleese may well be one of the smartest comic artists of all time (he and Steve Martin are ridiculously intelligent, actually) and there might be no greater proof of than than the fact that he got out while the getting was good from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. More casual fans of the series might not realize, but in the fourth season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, John Cleese was notably absent, though he received writing credit for some of the sketches those weeks. I write "those weeks" because "that year" or even "that season" hardly seems appropriate as the fourth season of Monty Python's Flying Circus was only six episodes long.

On DVD as the seventh set of DVD pairs, comprised of Volumes 13 and 14, Season Four of Monty Python’s Flying Circus stands tall as a testament to comedy that has jumped the shark. With only six episodes and five Python's left, the show takes a turn for the worst as it whimpers its way out. In these six episodes, performed by Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam (who gets more on-air time than in prior seasons), Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, the sketch comedy series attempts more ambitious shows with longer arcs, but falls flatter.

A big reason for this is that the entire season is plagued by repetition. Episodes like "Mr. Neutron" repeat the premise over and over again. The savvy viewer recognizes that the constant reminders one is given from voice-overs as to Mr. Neutron's powers is a parody of hammy science fiction and how it repeats the premise. Unfortunately, in this case, the Pythons imitate too closely and they become the thing they are mocking. The premise is that Mr. Neutron is the smartest, most powerful being in the universe, yet he walks around as an idiot. Okay, we get it. . . we get it in the first few frames of the sketch; how is the episode enhanced by that premise being repeated ad nauseam? The answer, of course, is that it isn't.

Similarly, the remaining members of the troupe become obsessed with the long segue. At least two of the episodes have jokes about relationships where the monologue begins on one character, leaps to another only mildly related before leaping further and further and further away until the show is about someone else entirely. It is a funny joke . . . the first few leaps. It soon becomes tiresome. Moreover, this is only a mildly different joke than the one used in an episode from an earlier season where extraterrestrial blancmanges come to Earth and turn people into Scotsmen, only to be thwarted by two people who were panned off in the first moment of the sketch.

What the season does well enough to keep it from getting only a single star is that the episodes tend to create a single zany premise and stick with them almost well enough to sustain interest (if not laughter) for a full half hour. So, for example, "The Golden Age Of Ballooning" is a parody of a BBC documentary on ballooning that is over-merchandised. There are jokes within it, like how the Mongolfier brothers have not washed of late, but largely, the episode is a series of jokes peripheral to a pythonized view of the history of ballooning. Similarly, "Michael Ellis" largely follows around an ant-owner who is mistaken for Michael Ellis and the jokes either involve him or are about ants in one form or another. "Mr. Neutron" is, as one might suspect, about a science fiction villain named Mr. Neutron and is mostly a parody of hammy, serialized science fiction melodramas. "Hamlet" has recurring jokes about Hamlet and psychoanalysis.

The problem with this season is that the show is no longer funny. Before, the series was surprising and unpredictable with delicious satire and quirky greatness. In this season, the episodes are less funny and the jokes fall flatter. The timing of greats like Terry Jones seems to be off in episodes like "The Golden Age Of Ballooning" and Graham Chapman did not earn a single laugh from me this entire season. Even the pairing of Eric Idle and Michael Palin is a bit off. The only time they have a glimpse of their previous greatness in terms of comic timing is when they are doing a sketch in the final episode where they seem to be working up to kissing. They mock the television standards and practices as they flirt toward doing what they are not allowed to do on television and that allows them to play off one another well.

Outside that, the season is lacking in the spark which made it great. One of the final sketches, involving a walking tree falls memorably flat and is disturbing for the way it is predictable. It is a shame to see how poor the series became without all six minds working on it.

On DVD, the two-disc set features the usual trivia about the episodes as well as definitions of "pythonisms" (phrases unique to the series). There are clips from prior episodes and filmographies of the Pythons as well as animation galleries using the pieces Terry Gilliam cut out for his animated bits. There is a pretty basic trivia game for fans of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but it is very easy for anyone who watches the DVDs. These are not the most earthshattering DVD extras and they aren't enough to redeem the poor programming of the season at this point.

In fact, the only way one ought to end up with this is by purchasing the complete series set (reviewed here!) and assuming that the savings one gets there is roughly equivalent to buying the other seasons of the show and getting this one free. It is still, most likely, the one that will get the greatest amount of dust on your video library shelf.

For a better idea of what this season comprises, please check out my reviews of the episodes in it at:
"The Golden Age Of Ballooning" and "Michael Ellis"
"The Light Entertainment War" and "Hamlet"
"Mr. Neutron" and "Party Political Broadcast"

3/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Monty Python’s Flying Circus Takes A Turn For The Tragically Unfunny With "Vols. 11/12"

| | | The Good: One or two moments of humor, DVD bonus features are standard for the series
The Bad: Largely not funny.
The Basics: As Monty Python’s Flying Circus wound down, it took a turn for the less funny and on DVD, the two-volume set that closes the third season flops.


Sometimes, when something jumps the shark, it jumps so far over that where it lands is almost impossible to find from the vantage of those looking at it from where it was. That confused metaphor works perfectly on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which had a rough third season and the second DVD set from the third season, containing Volumes 11 and 12, is a great example. As the season progressed, the episodes simply lost their spark.

To wit, by the end of these episodes - one of which was actually filmed over thirteen months before it aired - John Cleese left the troupe and the remaining five men had to struggle to keep the show together for a fourth season. They failed. But here are the seven episodes found in this set.

"Salad Days" opens with the naked organist sitting down and his clothes coming off and the credits, which is followed by what is supposed to be an action-adventure show about Biggles. Biggles, however, in this episode, dictates a letter. After calling his secretary a harlot and killing his long-time friend for being gay, there is an animated bit involving things getting knocked over before the show presents a ridiculous sketch wherein some men climb a sidewalk. This segues into a sketch where men walk off a lifeboat into a woman's kitchen. The woman, who is stuffing a turkey with ridiculous items (like a cat and beer bottle) leaves her house to get dessert for the various sailors only to buy her pastries aboard a lifeboat. This is followed by the television show "Storage Jars" where world events are reported in relation to their effect on storage jars.

An animated feature links to a man who recaps the show so far, before a man walks into a cheese shop to try to buy some cheese. Unfortunately for Rogue Cheddar, the cheese shop has no cheese available, which he learns only by going through an entire inventory of cheeses. After shooting the owner of the cheese shop, this is revealed to be a Cheese Western and a film commentator talks about a director's merging of romance and violence in his new film "Salad Days," wherein a group of funloving people all tear one another apart in a bloody series of accidents. The closing credits come up then with an apology for how tasteless the sketch was, news being reported for storage jars and John Cleese admitting the show ran short, so everyone can just watch the tide for a few minutes.

"The Cycling Tour" is one of the few concept episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and while it is easy to admire the ambition of it, it is hard to appreciate the execution. Mr. Pither, on a cycling tour of Cornwall, continues to fall off his bicycle when his trousers get caught in the spokes. Soon after replacing his pants, he replaces his bicycle pump and as he continues to fall off his bike elsewhere, he damages food he has packed and tries to talk with disinterested people about the plight of his food.

This is until he meets up with a driver named Gulliver, who has a keen interest in food, like a tomato that ejects from a car or body at the first sign of danger, an event that happens moments before Pither and Gulliver end up in an accident. Gulliver now believes himself to be the singer Clodah Rogers, then Trotsky, then Ertha Kitt. As Gulliver changes personalities, Pither is captured by the Soviet executioners for bringing back a fake Trotsky and he awaits execution while the army gets shooting people down pat.

In "The Nude Organist," opens with an incompetent plane hijacker, who attempts to hold a plane cockpit hostage for money, but ends up telling the pilots where the bomb is and giving them a pound. After the sketch is ruined, the would-be bomber pops up and attempts to bribe others in other sketches for money on the condition that he will not ruin their sketch. After the opening credits comes a sketch involving housing projects being built by fictional characters, from Dickens and Paradise Lost. It then turns into a sketch wherein a hypnotist and his assistant create housing that endures so long as the residents there believe in it.

The episode progresses with a radio program for mortuary assistants. Then there is a sketch on the Olympic Hide and Seek finals, which take a total of twenty-two years to determine the outcome of. Then a couple has their neighbors, the Cheap-Laughs, over for dinner and their flat is destroyed by their neighbor's slapstick antics. Then comes a lecture on how to do bullfighting right and a report on a space probe to the planet Algon and the costs of shopping there. The episode closes with the would-be hijacker reading the closing credits.

In "Henry Thripshaw's Disease," a Tudor job-finding agency admits to a customer that they have not been able to find work in Tudor jobs for centuries and the client admits he is actually looking for porn. The purveyor of the business opens a wall, through which the customer goes to find a porn shop. When a raid is done by a costumed investigator, the shop clears out and the investigator leaves to find himself back in Tudor England!

Following the opening credits, then, the episode continues with a couple who have a chance encounter with a loony and then adopt his ways. Following an animation, the show has a short "Is There?" which is a talk show posing the question "is there life after death?" by having dead people on. With that question more or less resolved, a man enters into a doctor's office with a word-jumbling condition and the doctor, E. Henry Thripshaw, attempts to exploit it for movie and merchandising rights. The episode concludes with a bit involving a vicar who is ordering and drinking exceptional amounts of sherry, which is broken up by a pack of musicians who play a Spanish melody.

"Dennis Moore" opens with a boxing match between a heavyweight and a professor and a first-round knock-out makes the heavyweight the new professor of Fine Arts. After the opening credits, there is a highwayman named Dennis Moore steals lupins from the rich and brings them to the poor. After a sketch on doctors removing money from their patients, there is "The Great Debate," which is "Should there be a TV4 or not?" and all of the answers given are simple yes and no answers. Dennis Moore is revisited then when he delivers his lupins to the poor, who are sick to death of lupins, so he goes out to steal something more valuable.

Then there is the Ideal Loon Exhibition with a special contest for judges. This is followed by a sketch with a salesman selling liquor and Dennis Moore returns. Having stolen all of the truly fine things from the nobles, he has essentially made the poor rich, though he keeps stealing from the nobles, who now have nothing left. This is followed by the gameshow "Prejudice" wherein players try to come up with derrogatory names for different ethnic groups. The episode concludes with Dennis Moore returning and trying to redistribute the wealth between a carriage full of people.

"A Book At Bedtime" is - oddly enough - an older episode that begins as a storytelling hour where a man tries to read a book, but is strangely illiterate. As he is replaced by a succession of readers who also have difficulty, the story unfolds. The story of "Ivanhoe" segues into a skit on kamikaze highlanders, suicidal Scotsmen who in their training kill off almost their entire regiment. When one final Scotsman is saved for a secret mission, the program is interrupted for an explanation of the phrase "No time to lose." As the Scotsman goes on his mission, the brain size of a penguin is explored . . . by scientists at a country club. The program gets into an animated bit where penguins are taking over British jobs at an alarming rate.

The Kamikaze Highlander arrives at a secret Soviet meeting where he launches, but fails to detonate among two people talking with mixed up subtitles. As the Unexploded Scotsman Brigade works to disarm the Scotsman, the show continues with the gameshow "Spot The Looney." The episode concludes with two documentaries attempting to film using the same film crew and microphones (and the brawls that break out between them) and the storytime hour concluding.

The final episode on the last disc is "Grandstand," which is notable as John Cleese's final regular performance on Monty Python's Flying Circus. The episode is an award's ceremony featuring a presenter who is entirely schmaltzy and self-congratulatory of the entire film industry. He gives out awards and panders to the audience, including a pantomime Princess Margaret. The ashes of a notable are brought out to give an award and Oscar Wilde begins a party where his wit is dwindling. In the attempt to curry favor with a royal, Wilde begins making terrible analogies about the royal and passing off who said the horrible things to other guests at the party. The awards return with the refrigerator of a writer presenting an award and a viewing of the sketch that came in sixth, the new film by Pasolini. The Italian director mixes a cricket match with sexual and religious imagery and the cricket team complains afterwards.

The episode continues with woman getting a new brain from Curry's door-to-door salespeople. Then a blood donor who wants to donate urine gets his chance by stealing a doctor's blood and trading the doctor for the right to donate urine. This leads to the International Wife-Swapping competition, which plays over the closing credits. That returns the viewer to the award's ceremony and a final sketch involving a dirty vicar who moves in on the ladies when he gets a new parish.

These discs come with the standard filmographies of the "Pythons," a clipshow of various John Cleese in which he starred and definitions of Pythonisms. There is also a trivia game and Monty Python karaoke. But even fans of the franchise will have a tough time getting excited about these episodes.

[For a much better value, check out the penultimate season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 3 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

4/10

For other television reviews, be sure to check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

"Volume 10" Of Monty Python’s Flying Circus Has A Few Good Hooks!

The Good: One good episode
The Bad: One bad episode
The Basics: The next set of Monty Python’s Flying Circus reviews puts forth a real mixed bag with "Volume 10," half of the Set 5 two-pack!


"Volume 10" of Monty Python's Flying Circus includes the episodes "Blood, Devastation, Death, War, And Horror," "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition," and "The War Against Pornography" and continues a fairly mediocre season of sketch comedy by the once-brilliant "Monty Python" troupe. However, where some of the other Volumes have been homogeneously bad, this disc succeeds with "The War Against Pornography," underwhelms with the first episode and is a little better than neutral for the second. The result is a disc worth watching and because of the strength of such things as the Gumby brain surgeons, "Politicians: An Apology" and the mollusc (the apparent British spelling) documentary sketch, it is actually worth picking up.

Still, the men of Monty Python - Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin - seem to be fading some in the creativity department. While Cleese pulls off the sheer idiocy of yelling "Nurse!" as a Gumby when one is right before him, his is one of the few decent performances on this disc (though his deadpan through the mollusc documentary is pretty hilarious as well). Michael Palin and Eric Idle give up trying to keep straight faces during some of the sketches and there is an overall more sloppy feel to these episodes.

For those with an interest in exactly what is on "Volume 10" in this set, this disc includes:

"Blood, Devastation, Death, War, And Horror" opens with a talk show by the same name. On it, an interviewer interviews a man who speaks only in anagrams. When he uses a spoonerism, the interviewer calls him on it and he promptly leaves, which opens to the credits. Then there is a gameshow where a woman unscrambles a word and is bopped on the head by a giant hammer. A banker then approves a loan with extraordinary conditions attached to it. After approving the loan, the merchant banker allows a man collecting donations for orphans in and is astounded by the idea of simply asking people in the street for money and getting it! He then brings in the bank's two pantomime horses and has them fight to the death for their jobs.

What follows, then, are life and death struggles between seals, an ant and a wolf and businessmen. This culminates in a sketch involving ravenous man-eating houses that have to be hunted down and condemned. A sketch then begins at the Mary, er Army, Recruitment Center where the recruiter gets all the best punchlines and the extra begins walking off. To try to appease him, the recruiter switches the settings to a bus and circus, but keeps stealing the best lines. In between two of the segments, a man is laughed at for nothing more than saying ordinary lines and the show moves into a sketch with a talk show host who gestures to indicate his punctuation. Announcers interrupt him to provide themselves with work and the news is read also using body language for punctuation. The show ends on a self-referential note with a late-night film involving a spy pantomime horse.

After the remarkably simple opening - the Naked Organist, John Cleese saying "And now," and the disheveled man saying "it's . . ." - with the credits, "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition" begins with a sketch by that title. When three contestants fail completely to summarize a Proust work, the award for the contest is given to the woman who showed up with the biggest breasts. The closing credits run then, followed by a sketch on hairdressers who set up salons on Mount Everest. That is followed by a ridiculous sketch wherein classic movie hero and heroine moan to one another about making a fool of themselves, surrounded by loony bits. Then follows a fireman's brigade that refuses to answer its telephone and as a result, a woman and her husband lose a hamster. Their son returns from Dublin decked out like an African warrior and eventually the fire brigade pays them a social call.

This is followed by a documentary on enjoying parties by Veronica Small, which quickly gets sidetracked with avoiding Communist takeover of one's parties. This is followed by an animation on Communist Revolutions which is little more than a bad pun and then a voice-over seminar that degenerates into a musical number. The musical number reboots to the Mount Everest voice-overs, which is one of the many places that a certain travel agent does not book adventures to. When a client comes in and begins to ramble about India, the secretary walks the cameraman to another sketch. On the talk show "Thrust," Anne Elk postulates about the shape of a brontosaurus after much delay and the host walks out to the travel agency to close the episode with the fire brigade choir.

"The War Against Pornography" opens with a special on how British housewives are fighting the culture wars against indecency and smut. This is presented literally with the British housewives beating alleged pornographers and covering up art they find distasteful. This leads into the opening credits, which opens into a Gumby whose brain hurts and has to have his brain removed. An overlong animation follows with the whole purpose seeming to be to bridge to an empty television screen which a man bashes apart. The doorbell rings and the Mrs. lets in a live documentary on molluscs, which the pair becomes bored with until the host starts talking about the sex life of molluscs. This is followed by a news report wherein the Ministers are given silly cabinet titles.

The episode progresses with a segue of news broadcasts that continually change from children's storytime to sports to other programming that is a non-sequitor. The match of the day degenerates into players kissing or falling into lovemaking positions before the program becomes an apology on the activities of politicians. This then turns into an expedition to Lake Paho, a lake in England confined to a single downstairs flat. The episode closes with an interview of a silly man who is declared the silliest person an interviewer has ever interviewed and the sketch - and program - are scrapped.

On DVD, these episodes are enhanced with filmographies of each of the six Pythons, a featurette on Terry Gilliam's animations and a trivia quest one plays with their DVD remote. As well, the travel agent sketch from "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition" is presented live and there is a clipshow featuring various wacky inventions or daredevils from the series.

Overall, this is a funny enough set to enthusiastically recommend.

[For a much better value, check out the penultimate season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 3 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

7.5/10

For other television show reviews, be sure to check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing of all I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Third Season Of Monty Python’s Flying Circus Begins With A Rocky Volume 9.

The Good: Generally funny, Decent DVD bonus features
The Bad: Generally more average than prior seasons
The Basics: Monty Python’s Flying Circus hits a bump with the opening to season six on "Volume 9" of the DVDs.


Monty Python’s Flying Circus is often regarded as one of the greatest sketch comedy shows of all time. The series made household names out of John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam. The show was considered timeless largely because the comedy focused on universal human foibles as opposed to dated political sketches, which distinguished it from many other sketch comedy shows both of the late 1960s and since.

But when a series is considered legendary in one form or another, it is often hard for fans of it to look at the series objectively and admit that not every episode is gold. In fact, sketch comedy - where characters are not developed, nor are plots or themes or anything else, for that matter, over the course of episodes or seasons - is largely hit or miss and Monty Python’s Flying Circus had a huge number of hits right up front with its audacious concepts and wacky animations.

"Volume 9" on DVD ends the streak. Opening the third season of the sketch comedy program, this DVD for the first time has a greater balance of duds than classics. Indeed, it is arguable that this set lacks any real hits and considering it "average" is being generous to it. With the three episodes, "Whicker's World," "Mr. & Mrs. Brian Norris' Ford Popular," and "The Money Programme," "Volume 9" is less funny than any of the prior DVD collections and gets the third season of the show off to a rocky start. Still, for those interested, here are the sketches found on this DVD.

"Whicker's World" opens with a sketch involving a court case involving a multiple murderer. When the party who has been accused and convicted of over fifteen counts of murder, he says he is sorry and the judge lets him off with basically a wrist-slap. A film, Njorl's Saga then begins but is continually interrupted by advertisements for a little town in England. The Eric Njorl, the subject of Njorl's Saga is put on trial then. There is a sketch involving a stock market report after that.

After that, Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion get into an argument on Jean-Paul Sartre. These two screechy housewives are talking about existentialism and row their boat to France to see Sartre. After a conversation with Sartre's wife, they abandon the sketch. Following this, the episode closes with an island of interviewers, "Whicker's World" where cliche television interviewers congregate and interview one another.

"Mr. & Mrs. Brian Norris' Ford Popular" opens with that title sketch which has the couple as part of a mock-documentary wherein Mr. and Mrs. Brian Norris trace the emigration of people within Britain from Surbiton to Hounslow. The joke here being that the emigration is between two places rather close within England. The show continues with a sketch on schoolboy life assurance, then a parody of '70's talk shows where the hosts postulate how to rid the world of all known diseases simply by becoming a famous doctor and telling others to get rid of them. Then there is an exploding wife (literally) and a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman who is disguised as a vicar.

After that there is a pretty hilarious parody of "Farm Report" wherein the works of Tschiakovski are discussed. Then, a pianist/escape artist performs his routine and the show has to come up with additional funds to continue. As a result, a children's show that begins spins out of control when extras on the set inadvertently speak or do stunts, which causes the BBC to charge them more money. There is the classic fish-slapping dance which is exactly what it sounds like and the episode concludes with an appearance by Ringo Starr (the real one!) and Lulu who show up for the opening credits to role as "The Man Show!"

The final episode on this disc, "The Money Programme" opens with the titled musical number, wherein a seemingly legitimate business program degenerates into a song about loving various forms of currency. The show takes a downward spiral when a movie featuring Elizabeth I's court all on bicycles is interrupted by the film police. This ridiculous sketch is separated from another film fraud sketch by the church police. The show attempts an ambitious but overlong sketch involving a restaurant in the jungle where the diners are being picked off by gorillas.

The show then continues with another mock-documentary that puts the cast in the Lost World. The final sketch involves a client who visits a service that offers abuse, lessons on how to take a blow to the head and abuse. This sketch, like many of the others, is interrupted by the fraud prosecution squad and ends the episode and disc well.

On DVD, these three episodes are accompanied by a filmography of each of the six men of "Monty Python" as well as one focusing on the animations of Terry Gilliam. There are clip shows from other episodes as a bonus feature and each episode has a useless trivia function as well.

All in all, the sketches are more up and down than other Monty Python’s Flying Circus discs and while others might have a few duds, usually they have classic sketches mixed in. "Volume 9" does not. As a result, it is virtually impossible to recommend, even for lovers of sketch comedy.

[For a much better value, check out the penultimate season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 3 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Monty Python’s Flying Circus Season 3 Is More Average Than Extraordinary.

The Good: Funny, Interesting-enough DVD bonus features
The Bad: Fewer truly classic sketches, Dull toward the end.
The Basics: Funny, but not truly outrageous or enduring, the third season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus arrives on DVD with little to get truly excited about.


When Monty Python’s Flying Circus began its third season, it seemed to have a more extensive budget and the sketches seemed to have greater scope and sense of unity to the episodes. Still, the episodes seemed less funny and by the end of the third season, John Cleese was so disenchanted with the troupe that he left. The thing is, by the time the final episode of the third season, "Grandstand," comes along, the objective viewer can see where Cleese is coming from.

"Season Three" of Monty Python’s Flying Circus has few truly timeless and memorable - "classic" - sketches that are more widely known in society. For sure, true Monty Python geeks will be able to sing the "Dennis Moore" theme, but outside that, there are few truly memorable sketches in this boxed set, which is comprised of four discs and all thirteen episodes of the season. The comedy troupe of Monty Python was made up of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin and this was the final season the entire sextet was together, before they went to work on the movies.

The third season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a collection of thirteen episodes with over a hundred sketches. The comedy vignettes include a man whose sole ambition is to have a disease named after him so there might be a foundation and merchandising for it, various religious figures like pervert vicars and drunk priests. There is a sketch on the role of cheese in Western films and the vigilante Dennis Moore, who only steals lupins for the poor. The Gumbys return to perform surgery and a ridiculous sketch wherein a pantomime horse is a spy.

There are mockeries of documentaries, like "Njorl's Saga," and running gags on how the BBC is low on cash so extras cannot speak. There are animations by Terry Gilliam that bridge the various sketches and ridiculous pseudo-science sketches that make fun of archaeologists. There are jibes at politicians and religion and sports. There are also amusing moments where the whole cast mimics reporters, capturing perfectly the schmaltz of in-your-face reporters with "Whicker's World."

The problem with Season Three is there are far more smiles than laughs. Watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus, one tends to get the strengths of each member of the troupe. Cleese does more physical comedy and deadpans while wearing elaborate costumes or speaking in funny accents, Chapman treads toward absurdist humor with exaggerated body movements, Idle and Palin play off one another like an old married couple, Terry Gilliam rules with animations and Terry Jones seems to do a little bit of everything with as much mastery as any of the others working the same field. The thing is, by this third season, the members of the troupe seem happy to play to their strengths and not get out of their comfortable niches. Instead, they even seem bored in their roles.

So, for example, it is hard to imagine John Cleese in the role of Dennis Moore playing the role the same way if it had been the first or even second season. He plays the role without any sense of absurdity, no asides where his facial expression breaks the fourth wall. Instead, it is a very standard premise wherein Cleese as Moore robs the rich of their lupins, which were a symbol of wealth, until the poor scream at him for something useful. When the sketch breaks into the redistribution of wealth, even Cleese seems bored with it and that lack of spark in the performance is disappointing and will likely leave the lifelong Monty Python viewer bored with this season.

The lack of spark seems to permeate the entire season; as difficult to describe as it might be, the energy of the season is not the same. Terry Gilliam's animations, for example, start using more dated references, people from the late 1960s and early 1970s who might not be as recognizable now. This robs the show of one of the things that it had going for it from the outset; a sense of universal humor that was not dated. Between the humor of some of the animations and some of the sketches that focus on things like how ridiculous the counterculture movement could be, there is a more dated feel to some of the material in this season.

Still, in this third season, Monty Python’s Flying Circus manages to attack several institutions that have not changed even since the sketches were aired. Attacks on the clergy and the overall state of British politics remain humorous and enduring even today. Similarly, assaults on the pretensions of the moviemakers and institutions of popular culture are relevant and funny even now. In other words, when the show strives for timeless, they achieve it, but this season the major divergence in the program is that it does not try as hard to be timeless.

On DVD, the discs have pretty standard "Monty Python" bonus features (by this time in the series). The discs include biographies - mostly filmographies - of each of the members of the troupe (these are now a decade out of date). There are featurettes on Terry Gilliam's animations and a few live versions of sketches from earlier seasons. As well, there are mini-clipshows featuring themes that were explored at various points in the series. There is also a karaoke featurette and a trivia game on one of the discs.

Fans of Monty Python’s Flying Circus are likely to ignore my advice anyway, but those looking for great comedy might want to get this only if the Complete Series boxed set (reviewed here!) is on sale somewhere. Unlike the final season of the show, the lack of timelessness and the lack of spark is not enough to totally sink this, but still, it is a pretty weak recommend for this one.

For a better idea of what this boxed set includes, please check out my reviews of the individual episodes at:
"Whicker's World," "Mr. And Mrs. Brian Norris' Ford Popular," "The Money Programme"
"Blood, Devastation, Death, War, And Horror," "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition," "The War Against Pornography"
"Salad Days," "The Cycling Tour," "The Nude Organist," "E. Henry Thripshaw's Disease," "Dennis Moore," "A Book At Bedtime," and "Grandstand"

5.5/10

For other television and movie reviews, please visit my Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

As The Second Season Winds Up, Monty Python’s Flying Circus Recovers Some With "Volume 8!"

The Good: Funny, Enduring, Decent-enough DVD bonus features
The Bad: A couple misses.
The Basics: On Volume 8 of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the troupe creates iconic sketches like "Spam" and "How Not To Be Seen" and a lot of filler.


As Monty Python’s Flying Circus progressed, it became successively less funny in repeatable, enduring ways. This, of course, is somewhat natural and not at all unique to the one sketch comedy series. In the case of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, some of the final truly classic sketches showed up at the end of the second season, which is where the DVD collection, "Volume 8" comes in.

In this DVD collection, a single disc, the second season concludes with the episodes "Scott Of The Antarctic," "How Not To Be Seen," "Spam," and "Royal Episode Thirteen." While "How Not To Be Seen" and "Spam" have some of the truly great and iconic Monty Python sketches that continued their trend toward the brilliantly absurd, the other two episodes work, but replay less well over time. The result is a DVD that, while still worthwhile and better than "Volume 7's" content, is still not quite up to the riotous standards of the rest of the series before now.

For those who have not seen the episodes or the series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a sketch comedy program where there are no characters, merely performers (in this case six men) who make humorous skits. The team of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin creates sketches that look at the world and history and society from a skewed point and poke fun at reality in a fairly timeless and enduring way. In these four episodes, they tackle moviemaking, dining in Britain, and relationships, among other things. For a better idea of the content of the episodes, the four episodes include:

"Scott Of The Antarctic" continued a trend on the series of pushing the opening credits to odd times in the program, in this case more of the middle. The program begins with a painfully awkward film featuring a man and a woman in a garbage dump, its purpose being to make a parody of pretentious art house films. It hits a bit close to its mark, though, and the show becomes funnier when the same program about movies begins to focus on the new Twentieth Century Vole film "Scott Of The Antarctic," which features the title character standing on boxes and costar Vanilla Hoare acting from within a trench and forgetting every one of her lines.

Following the opening credits is an animated bit featuring a man with dancing teeth and then goes into a live action bit wherein John Cleese plays a man attempting to buy a license for fish. The premise being that in Britain one needs a license for pets (dogs and cats) so to own a fish one ought to need a license. This is followed by two sporting events, a rugby match where one side is the city council and another which is a soccer game involving the Long John Silver Impersonators vs. a team of gynecologists.

"How Not To Be Seen" opens with a business where a coffee's advertising campaign has lead to several deaths, a lost account and the business being driven close to bankruptcy, which nothing is done about because the lousy businessman is the owner's son. A skipping record leads John Cleese to introduce the show with his line of "And now for something completely different," which gets stuck like a skipping record a few times. Then there is a play which is a murder mystery which hinges largely on every character's knowledge of train schedules.

This leads into a discussion on film with a director with incredible buck teeth who then creates films that have characters with massive front teeth. From there, the show features various crackpot religions, all of which are catering to niche markets like the riche, lunatics, Gumbys, and animated characters. The episode continues with the title sketch, a Government film on how to avoid being seen. Those who can be seen in the film are shot or blown up, inspiring people to remain hidden. This concept is played out with a man hiding in a filing cabinet before being killed inside (given that he can still be heard, so They know where he is) and a musical guest that appears in boxes. The episode concludes with a recap of the sketches in about thirty one-second clips.

The episode "Spam" finds a darkened night in bygone days with a little rowboat carrying pirates, which leads to John Cleese, his trademark line and the opening credits. Then a sketch involving a Hungarian to English phrasebook begins wherein the phrasebook mismatches phrases. As a result, a tobacconist is offended when a Hungarian attempts to solicit him for sex when all he wants are matches. This is followed by the trial of the man who wrote the phrasebook. There is an animated short which leads into the classic Communist quiz wherein famous Communists like Lenin, Marx, Mao and Che are asked questions on sport.

This leads into a sketch wherein famous portraits walk out of their paintings and go on strike over working conditions. This is followed by a World War I sketch that is tried twice because extras from other sketches are stuck on the same set. In the eventual sketch, a General attempts to get out of a suicide mission by trying to get one of his subordinates (including a man with no arms) to kill himself. There is a sketch for drama actors who are hospitalized for their hammy acting, then one of the Gumbys appears to arrange flowers, which basically is an idiot mashing flowers into a vase. The episode concludes with the classic sketch "Spam," wherein a diner serves only dishes that include Spam.

For "Royal Episode Thirteen," John Cleese announces that the Queen will be watching the show at some point and the cast is quite excited about it. The appearance of class for the show wears off almost instantly, though, with a coal miner sketch where the miners are all intellectuals and arguing about various theories and algorithms. Then comes an interview with a man who says things in a roundabout way (only he doesn't) and three people who say, the ends of words, beginnings of words and only the middles of words. There is a sketch that follows on how to feed a goldfish (which is quite horrible to any animal lover).

Next comes the insurance sketch, wherein a man is asked to provide an extensive sample (several gallons) of a bodily fluid that takes quite a bit of work to get in such quantity for the purpose of proving he is serious about getting insurance. Then comes a hospital run by doctors who believe the patients ought to do the work, then a girl's boarding school at night sketch. After a lifeboat cannibalism sketch - which is followed by angry letters about the sketch - the show ends with a cannibalistic undertaker and the audience rebelling against it.

On DVD, these episodes are accompanied by karayoke of "The Lumberjack Song," a live performance of the poofy judge sketch and a clipshow. There is also a small collection of definitions of "pythonisms," filmographies and biographies of all six men of Monty Python and a featurette on Terry Gilliam's animations. These are not extraordinary bonus features, but they are standard for this series and the return of "live" performances to the DVD featurettes is a nice touch.

All in all, those who love sketch comedy will find much to love in Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Volume 8 is still better than most any other sketch comedy DVD on the market today, making it worth adding to anyone's DVD collection.

[For a much better value, check out the sophomore season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 2 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

6.5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

| | |

Falling From Greatness, Monty Python’s Flying Circus Volume 7 Has Its First Dud!

The Good: Funny, DVD bonus features are adequate.
The Bad: "Archaeology Today" is a real dud and last episode on disc doesn't bounce back well.
The Basics: In a near miss, one of the episodes on "Volume 7" of Monty Python’s Flying Circus drags the rest of the disc down such that it cannot be recommended.


It is a tough thing to admit sometimes that the institutions, artists or shows we love do not always produce gold. Every episode is not always a winner, every show does not yield consistent laughs, every song is not going to be equal to the hit song that brought the artist to our attention. I mention this because I truly do love Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but as I go through the entire series again to rate each episode, I have found that there are one or two episodes that do not hold their water with the rest of the series.

One of those episodes is "Archaeology Today," one of the three episodes found on Monty Python’s Flying Circus Volume 7. This DVD has three of the episodes from the latter half of the second season, including "The Attila The Hun Show," "Archaeology Today," and "How To Recognize Different Parts Of The Body." The first episode is hilarious as is characteristic of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Unfortunately, after a good start, "Archaeology Today" tries a series of stories that are loosely derived from one another and the last half of the episode plummets like a cinderblock through water. Similarly, "How To Recognize Different Parts Of The Body" just does not have as many laughs as other episodes and the DVD bonus features are not enough to bring this set back into "recommend" territory.

"The Attila The Hun Show" opens with a sketch by the same name. A parody of ridiculous family sitcoms, "The Attila The Hun Show" has Attila the Hun as a wisecracking conqueror coming home to his wife and children. This transitions into a sketch featuring Terry Jones as the Secretary of State performing a strip tease, which in turn leads to a sketch featuring politician groupies. A ratcatcher then attempts to help out some customers by looking for rats in the wainscoting of their flat, but discovers the walls are infested with sheep, not rats. When the ratcatcher is shot at by one of the sheep, the program becomes an animated bit about Basil, the killer sheep.

The news is presented after that as the News for Parrots, which is one of the few obvious duds of the program. That is followed up by a work of Classic literature adapted for parrots and that sketch is ridiculous enough to be funny. After that is a sketch on the sociology of village idiots and that is actually quite funny. A commentary on cricket is made next as sports announcers follow a test match wherein batters are replaced with furniture and the sport is no more interesting. After races featuring various pieces of furniture, the episode closes with a gameshow where the contestant wins a blow to the head.

"Archaeology Today" opens without John Cleese delivering the trademark line "And now for something completely different" as the show begins with a description of various viewing options new to the BBC (mostly sport and variety). The opening credits animation continues into a sketch wherein the foot decays into a city which is then recovered by archaeologists. This leads to the program "Archaeology Today," where the interviewer of archaeologists finds himself agog over the height of some of the guests on his program. This becomes a chicken fight between several of them at a site in Egypt.

A vicar then makes a plea on behalf of insanity. There is an animated bit about gangsters, including a hen which lays gangsters. A party scene follows wherein a man and his wife are introduced uncomfortably to a couple whose surname is "Git" and then there is a bit on mosquito hunters. The last portion of the program is interwoven bits with judges gawking about their trials, Mrs. Thing and Mrs. Entity having a conversation and Beethoven dealing with a mynah bird.

After a bevy of beautiful women in lingerie comes John Cleese in the same to deliver his trademark opening to the show, this episode entitled "How To Recognize Different Parts Of The Body." The show begins with a sketch by the same name wherein various parts of the body are pointed to and identified. A sketch of an Australian college where everyone is called Bruce follows. After deriding "pooftahs," the "naughty bits" of various people are pointed out. From there, comes an interview with a man who contradicts people, a sketch that is quickly aborted and then a mob-rub airline where the price keeps going down drastically.

The episode continues with another historical recreation by the Townswomen's Guild, this time of the first heart transplant. After that brawl comes the classic sketch with the penguin atop the television. The episode concludes with a murder investigation that quickly turns into a musical number and a competition between various police officers singing.

On DVD, this set contains the usual extras, including biographies of the six member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and definition of key terms from the series. As well, there is a live version of the Communist quiz show, which is pretty funny and a clipshow of "pepperpots" (when the men play the old batty gossipy women on the show!).

[For a much better value, check out the sophomore season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 2 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

5/10

For other television episode, season and series reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Funny, But Hardly Perfect, Volume Six Of Monty Python’s Flying Circus Is Still Worth Owning!

The Good: Funny, Well-delivered comedy, Intriguing animations.
The Bad: Some concepts are beginning to get tired. Not exceptional DVD bonus features.
The Basics: Funny, but showing a little more refinement and less audacity, Volume Six of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is still worthwhile.


Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a tough series to sit down and watch hour after hour after hour if for no other reason than even with only seeing episodes once or twice, when several episodes are watched in a row, the humor may often be anticipated. I suspect this is what happened with my by the time I got to Volume six of the series on DVD. I have been watching the sketch comedy series so much that I get the rhythms of the performers and I see the niches they fit into. By the time this disc, which has the second three episodes of the second season, comes around, the performers themselves seem to know their strengths as well and they play to them.

As a result, Graham Chapman seems to command more faux-serious roles, just as Michael Palin takes on several smarmy characters. Eric Idle and Palin tend to be paired frequently as their delivery styles play off one another remarkably well. Terry Jones is used for a number of physical gags and he seems to delight in exposing his body, which is not the typical body type shown on television (yea for diversity!). John Cleese, similarly, is given several roles where he either deadpans or does absurd physical comedy. Terry Gilliam makes in on-screen a few times, but is relegated more to the animations still.

This is not to say that these three episodes - "The Buzz Aldrin Show," "Live From The Grill-O-Mat," and "It's A Living" - are bad, they aren't. But they replay less well than some of the earlier episodes. In addition, A&E, which released them on DVD, seems to be getting more lax with the DVD bonus features.

"The Buzz Aldrin Show" opens with an animation of a grubby man turning into a game show host butterfly, only to have John Cleese and his desk fly into frame to declare it time for something completely different. The sketches start after the title sequence with the Gumby's introducing the Architect sketch (the five Gumbys act as a thread throughout the episode, introducing many of the sketches). In the first sketch, an architect pitches a block of flats that he has organized as a giant abattoir, ostensibly designed to kill the residents. Railing against the snobbery of free masons, the businessmen involved in the deal allow in the next applicant who has designed a columnar firetrap, but gets the contract because he is a freemason. What follows is a series of quick shots on how to recognize free masons and an attempt to cure one of their elite status.

What follows is a mobster insurance agent who is cheating his clients out of their money, including a priest. This leads to the arrival of "The Bishop!" which presents a crime-fighting Bishop who always arrives on the scene moments too late to save the lives of priests. A film crew approaches a couple who lives on the sidewalks about doing a documentary and they are sent away. Home-installed poets have their meter readings taken. After a quick choice of viewing announcement, a sketch begins with chemists (pharmacists) dispensing remedies only to lead to a lesson in censored words. The sketch rebegins and the episode closes with a crazy cop not arresting a shoplifter and the Gumbys transforming into women!

"Live From The Grill-O-Mat" is a concept show wherein John Cleese introduces sketches from a diner called the Grill-O-Mat with a series of bad restaurant-related jokes. The sketches begin with the classic gameshow sketch "Blackmail" wherein the host blackmails viewers with videos, photographs and incriminating information about themselves and only stops revealing information when the victim pays up. There is a meeting of a rather silly organization, which is responsible for putting things on top of other things until the leader of the group realizes he is on film and works to escape it. This puts the characters in an animated bit which leads into a talk show on current affairs, which ends abruptly.

Next comes a sketch with a man who has a series of unfortunate coincidences occur to him through no fault of his own; a mirror falls, a maid falls into the knife he is holding, a scared man backs out a window rather than face him and the house he is visiting collapses entirely when he closes the door. The next bit is a lame school play of "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" containing only four brothers and two brides. This is followed by a man who goes into a shop only to be alternately verbally assaulted and treated kindly by the salesman. The show ends with boxer Ken Clean-Air System, an idiot who trains to beat up a school girl in the boxing ring.

"It's A Living" begins with a sketch by the same name wherein a show host does nothing but talk about the fees he and the others on the show are awarded by the BBC for participating in the show. The opening credits come after an animation and John Cleese notes how he did not use his new catchphrase to introduce the show because he will not be in this week's episode (though he is). This leads into a school award's ceremony where the headmaster is continually replaced by a different thief before a military intervention. This turns out to be a film of Ken Dibley's, a director whose works seem to correspond with the names of much better and better-developed works at the same time (his version of "Rear Window," for example is thirty seconds long).

What follows next is a series of important people being thrown into a stream, followed by a dinner party which is interrupted when their book-of-the-month club dung arrives. Absurd prizes are given away as part of England's attempts to encourage consumers to spend money, including the couple giving the party being given away at a police raffle! Then follows an interview by an incredibly conceited Timmy Williams, whose old friend attempts to have a serious, heartfelt conversation with him while Williams is accosted by multiple media outlets. Then there is an aborted interview with Raymond Luxury Yacht (pronounced Throatwobbler Mangrove) and a sketch wherein a registrar for marriage licenses continually mistakes the meaning of visitors who come in and ask them to marry him. The episode closes with a parody of election night coverage as the Sensible and Silly Parties square off throughout England.

On DVD, this set is a bit anemic. There are two clip shows of sketches loosely held together as game shows and general absurdities, in addition to the usual behind-the-scenes on Gilliam's animations and a biography of the six Pythons. There are no commentary tracks and on this disc, there are no live performances of any of the sketches. In other words, there is pathetically little outside the main programming.

Still, this is Monty Python’s Flying Circus while it was fun, funny and deeply creative and this disc offers a lot of laughs for anyone who likes great sketch comedy.

[For a much better value, check out the sophomore season, Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 2 on DVD, reviewed here, as it has the complete season, with nothing left to search for!]

8/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |