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Tonight's announced guests are Jason Schwartzman and Angela Kinsey. Yes, it's them. The kids that you don't know who they are or why they're appearing. Aren't you turning into an old fart?
Last night IFC began showing a six-part documentary on Monty Python's Flying Circus. On my cable lineup, IFC -- which is the Independant Film Channel network -- is in the digital lineup, so I think it's one of those obscure channels that doesn't beam into every home. I don't know if this documentary will become readily available to the general public on some sort of DVD, but given how willing the Pythons have been to exploit release their material for monetary gain the enjoyment of their fans, I'm sure that by Christmas time you'll be able to purchase your very own copy.
It's been about 35 years since Monty Python burst onto the American television scene, and most Python afficianados might be forgiven for thinking that there's very little new to be learned from a documentary about them.
Au contraire, Pierre. This first episode answered the question that I've always had: Five of the Pythons came from Oxford or Cambridge, but how did a guy from rural Minnesota end up as a Python? It's almost as improbable as, say, a guy from rural Minnesota becoming Bob Dylan. It's not that Minnesotans aren't talented or funny, and I know that everyone comes from somewhere or other, but it's such an unexpected juxtaposition of personas that it raises some eyebrows.
The documentary also reveals that Michael Palin, Terry Jones, and Eric Idle first made their names as writers and performers on Do Not Adjust Your Set, which was originally intended as a show for kids but which morphed into a smart and subversive show that adults watched regularly. I had heard this before, but until this documentary, which shows clips from that show, I had no idea what that meant. And it was David Frost (yes that one, from the Frost/Nixon deal) who first brought them all together.
Tomorrow's episode will be about how their show arrived in America. I've read bits and pieces about this story before, and I think it's an amazing journey, involving a huge amount of dumb luck and happenstance, so I'm looking forward to getting the Python's take on it. I'm sure I don't know the whole story, but I can say that the next time you hear a rightwing nutjob complain about PBS, just remember that without PBS we'd never have heard of Monty Python on this side of the pond. We wouldn't know anything at all about the air/land speed of an African Swallow, something other than spam would be clogging our email inboxes, and we wouldn't have any term to describe Craig Ferguson's dada/surrealistic humor.
Here's Steve Coogan in a scene from the documentary, where he does a Monty Python bit word for word, illustrating just how obsessive Python fans are. EVERY Python fan can recite bits from the show, word for word. (The clip also illustrates how well written the material is. If a single person reciting it line by line can crack you up, then the material is damn funny.)
Now on to our normal clips from The Late Late Show. I thought most of last Friday's show wasn't really all that, so I dug up a clip where Craig channels some Monty Python (at about the four-and-a-half minute mark).
In the next one Craig spins something out of nothing, as he usually does in his cold opens: