You can’t have a non sequitur unless you know what you’re not following
June 23, 2017 9:05 AM   Subscribe

After PBS found success airing Monty Python's Flying Circus in the 1970s, ABC bought the rights to six episodes to air them as special presentations. But they didn't air the episodes intact, which led to the Pythons suing ABC, as editing the episodes was a breach of their contract with the BBC. The suit was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing ABC from editing the episodes, but a separate settlement resulted in the troupe getting full copyright to all 45 episodes of the series.
posted by Etrigan (43 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm always amazed that there are only 45 episodes of MPFC.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:08 AM on June 23, 2017 [14 favorites]


An interesting legal aspect involves the moral right to integrity of the work was which is not particularly well recognized in the US. Here's the Wikipedia article on the court case.
posted by exogenous at 9:11 AM on June 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


only 45 episodes of MPFC

Not only that, that number includes the six episodes from the final season that John Cleese didn't want to do and which you've probably never seen.
posted by yhbc at 9:14 AM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm pretty sure that even today you still couldn't air Flying Circus on a US broadcast network without editing it.
posted by octothorpe at 9:15 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


it was a little PBS station in Dallas that brought MPFC to America.
posted by shockingbluamp at 9:26 AM on June 23, 2017 [5 favorites]


> the six episodes from the final season that John Cleese didn't want to do

They're in the DVD box sets, so they're not that hard to find. But yeah they're kinda' painful to watch and more appropriate for gratifying any completionist urges than for entertainment.
posted by ardgedee at 9:37 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm pretty sure that even today you still couldn't air Flying Circus on a US broadcast network without editing it.

I watched Flying Circus every Sunday night on the local PBS station in the late 1980s (WTTW represent!)

As a teenager these episodes blew me away* and I vividly recall them being fully uncensored. Here's the warning they would broadcast.

* I totally typed that without realizing the Python reference until reading it back.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:44 AM on June 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


I'm always amazed that there are only 45 episodes of MPFC.


For me this is a "Yes now but no 30+ years ago" because as a kid watching them intermittently on PBS both at home and when I was staying with grandparents or uncles with a different PBS station in the days before the Internet where you could easily learn how many episodes had been made of that thing you watched that you didn't know anyone else who watched, I often felt like "why am I always seeing the same episodes?"

(The exact reverse happened with Doctor Who in a "whoa - black and white episodes?" way.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:45 AM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm pretty sure that even today you still couldn't air Flying Circus on a US broadcast network without editing it.

Per the article, they had been broadcast via PBS (member stations) unedited before ABC bought them.
posted by Etrigan at 9:46 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


They're in the DVD box sets, so they're not that hard to find. But yeah they're kinda' painful to watch and more appropriate for gratifying any completionist urges than for entertainment.

Woah there. You're talking about episodes that include The Montgolfier Brothers, Woody Words, Teddy Salad, and the entire Michael Ellis saga. That's some prime Python.
posted by schoolgirl report at 9:47 AM on June 23, 2017 [8 favorites]


I LOVE the Michael Ellis episode!
posted by jeff-o-matic at 10:00 AM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm always amazed that there are only 45 episodes of MPFC.

And the food fight scene in "Animal House" was only two seconds long. Go figure.
posted by Melismata at 10:03 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


And the german version.
posted by empath at 10:05 AM on June 23, 2017 [5 favorites]


Funnily enough it was also ABC who edited Terry Gilliam's Brazil into a family-friendly TV version. Among other indignities they cut off the final scene, so that the fantasy escape became the actual ending.
posted by Flashman at 10:08 AM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


Etrigan: "I'm pretty sure that even today you still couldn't air Flying Circus on a US broadcast network without editing it.

Per the article, they had been broadcast via PBS (member stations) unedited before ABC bought them.
"

Sorry, I meant commercial broadcast. Yeah I watched them all on PBS originally.
posted by octothorpe at 10:14 AM on June 23, 2017


only 45 episodes of MPFC

That's actually well above average for a British sketch show. Looking at Wikipedia's listings, there's only a handful that get past 30 episodes, given the relative shortness of a season/series of TV in the UK.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:20 AM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


And to think the tapes were almost wiped before the series had even ended.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:32 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm still angry that my ex-gf from university has my box set. She has the Complete MPFC collection in DVD as well as my Complete Buffy set. I knew I left them behind and then I was angry and bitter and waited too long and it got too awkward to ask for them back.

Mostly my fault, but still angry.
posted by Fizz at 10:34 AM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Not only that, that number includes the six episodes from the final season that John Cleese didn't want to do and which you've probably never seen.

Come now! Michael Ellis? Mr. Neutron?

= = =

The dates actually cited in this article are correct, yet the conclusions the author implies seem way off base.

"The small cult of Python fans in the U.S. was the result of English friends bringing their albums over, creating a tiny current of interest."

Out of the dozens of US family, friends, and acquaintances who became Python fans in the 1970s, this is true of exactly none of them -- unless you count the deejays at WOXR as my "English friends".

My first contact with Python (US) was random clips played on my local progressive radio station during the early 1970s. They played a lot of clips off comedy albums, and they had (it's now apparent) all of the MP LPs to that point. For a while, they'd sign off at 2am with the Lumberjack Song. I'm thinking 1972-73 here.

"PBS affiliate KERA in Dallas was the first . . . in 1974 . . . KERA's success with the show led to a number of other public television broadcasters around the country licensing the half-hour episodes from the BBC and airing them without edits."

A little later, full episodes started to be broadcast late Sunday evenings on my local PBS station. I'm thinking around late 1974 / early 1975. I specifically remember being somewhat shocked by the full nudal frontity in "The Dull Life of the Stockbroker" sketch in episode 1-6. I'll bet my local PBS affiliate hadn't screened it first.

This was only a year or so after the Cincinnati ABC affiliate abruptly pulled the network feed of the premier episode of In Concert during Alice Cooper's performance to show a re-run of Rawhide. I had been watching with my grandmother -- she liked Alice.

All the above occured before the summer of 1975.

Summer of 1975, we all saw MP Holy Grail. Then . . .

"And Now for Something Completely Different . . . had failed to sell many tickets in North America . . . "

. . . on it's first release in 1972 (WP).

However, it was re-released in 1974, coincident with the PBS running of the teevy series, and did much better. I happened to see it the fall of 1975.

"When the [Monty Python] special aired [on ABC] at 11:30 p.m. on October 3, 1975 . . . "

. . . we had already seen all or most of the teevy series, played the crap out of the LPs, and has seen both And Now For Something Completely Different and Holy Grail -- and had already launched a career of irritating people with constant quoting, referencing, and of course, correcting each other on the details.
 
posted by Herodios at 10:35 AM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


My family and I spent a few months while I was growing up periodically checking out each DVD from the library, in order, and then picking some nights to watch another three or so episodes. It's a good memory, and I revisit some of the sketches sometimes on youtube, but I feel hesitant to dive much deeper back in than that... I remember the "poofter" thing with the Bruces, or the entire treatment of Loretta in Life of Brian. I don't know how much more of that is lurking back in those 45 episodes and I don't know how much I want to find out.
posted by one for the books at 10:42 AM on June 23, 2017


Flying Circus was in heavy rotation on some channel back in the late 80s, maybe MTV? Maybe PBS? and I watched them along with the movies as did al my friends and for probably 2 decades our times together were peppered with varying levels of Monty Python quotes. The were probably the first truly majorly quotable thing in my lifetime.

What I found a bit astonishing is that when I did a hardcore Sit Down And Truly Rewatch of the series not too long ago was, with my more adult mind, I was finding actual strings of meaning through each episode. What had seemed truly random when I was young and inexperienced actually had a plot and a plan in every single episode.

Honestly, Firesign Theatre is much the same way -- it seems like it's all jumping around until that one time you experience and you realize, no... they thought this all out.
posted by hippybear at 10:58 AM on June 23, 2017 [5 favorites]


I remember the "poofter" thing with the Bruces, or the entire treatment of Loretta in Life of Brian. I don't know how much more of that is lurking back in those 45 episodes and I don't know how much I want to find out.

It must be impossible for you to revisit any old media at all. Like, Turner Classic Movies. Or 80s sitcoms. Or Rolling Stones songs. Or anything at all.
posted by hippybear at 10:59 AM on June 23, 2017 [9 favorites]


"Family Guy" rightly gets a lot of shit, but that scene where they torture Meg by making her watch the other 178 hours of Monty Python that aren't funny or memorable was pretty spot-on.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:01 AM on June 23, 2017 [5 favorites]


I was about 10 when my mother said I could stay up late for Monty Pythons Flying Circus. I remember having to get in my pjs and brush my teeth first. And I remember the show starting and my asking my mother "when does the circus start?" But then I saw some cartoon boobies and I decided to stop asking more questions.
posted by terrapin at 11:18 AM on June 23, 2017 [7 favorites]


Flying Circus was in heavy rotation on some channel back in the late 80s, maybe MTV?

Yes, MTV. It was in a block on Sunday nights with The Young Ones and 120 Minutes. I had many a groggy Monday morning in high school because of that.
posted by schoolgirl report at 11:19 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


Funnily enough it was also ABC who edited Terry Gilliam's Brazil into a family-friendly TV version. Among other indignities they cut off the final scene, so that the fantasy escape became the actual ending.

Thus ensuring endless arguments with people about the ending of that movie. I know some people who believe, firmly, that the fantasy escape ending comes after the real ending and thus is the real ending.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:20 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


And the german version.

I'd never seen or heard of these two 1972 German episodes when I was a youth and very avidly consuming the first CBC broadcast run of Monty in the early 70's.

Years later when I was a beatnik, they just randomly popped up one nite on cable TV. Totally... blew my mind.
posted by ovvl at 11:26 AM on June 23, 2017


I have the 3 disk Criterion Collection release of Brazil that has 1) The Final Cut, 2) A lengthy documentary about the development and creation of Brazil including a LOT about the TV re-edit, and 3) the "Love Conquers All" TV version, which has some interesting material, including speeches by both Pryce and Palin that aren't in the Final Cut version of the movie.

It's a fascinating document about how editing what is basically the same source material can result in VERY different results.

It might make for an interesting art project for a director to shoot, say, 50 hours of footage (primary and coverage) and hand it off to, say, 10 different editors with the screenplay and then see what they each come up with.

If you've never seen The Cutting Edge: The Magic Of Movie Editing [full documentary, 1h40m], it's worth a watch.

To summarize: Marsha Lucas is why Star Wars is such a great movie.
posted by hippybear at 11:26 AM on June 23, 2017 [13 favorites]


It's a fascinating document about how editing what is basically the same source material can result in VERY different results.

editing released films is often ruinous. I have a surviving copy of the original Donnie Darko. The ONLY DD available nowdays is a re edit and is an awful version. I can count about a dozen movies that should have been left alone.
posted by shockingbluamp at 11:38 AM on June 23, 2017


In St. Louis, the public station played MPFC followed by Tom Baker Doctor Who. The sum total of my cultural education in college.
posted by Billiken at 11:42 AM on June 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


I had thought that the point of the "Bruces" sketch was to make fun of extremely Australian dudes, not gay people. That doesn't make it okay as such, but it does come off as less punching down when you think of it that way.

What is also not okay is that I just now remembered that, as a kid who had access to this stuff but very little cultural context for it, I thought that "poofters" was just another British insult, and I wrote "no poofters!!!" on the school bleachers. I now know at least three other students were gay, and I hope that didn't hurt anybody's feelings.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:46 AM on June 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


I remember some friends of mine throwing around Python jokes at a junior high talent show in 1976, so that's about when it hit my home town in central PA. I believe it aired on the local PBS station and the episodes weren't edited. Strangely enough, the only thing I remember anyone's parents getting bent out of shape about was Terry Jones' naked organist.
posted by lagomorphius at 11:50 AM on June 23, 2017


Funnily enough it was also ABC who edited Terry Gilliam's Brazil into a family-friendly TV version. Among other indignities they cut off the final scene, so that the fantasy escape became the actual ending.

Thus ensuring endless arguments with people about the ending of that movie. I know some people who believe, firmly, that the fantasy escape ending comes after the real ending and thus is the real ending.


I like to believe that, even if it isn't true.
posted by lagomorphius at 11:51 AM on June 23, 2017


It must be impossible for you to revisit any old media at all. Like, Turner Classic Movies. Or 80s sitcoms. Or Rolling Stones songs. Or anything at all.

Not to derail too much, but oh yeah. I've been watching early-season reruns of "Happy Days" lately, and my God. Women are nothing.
posted by Melismata at 11:52 AM on June 23, 2017 [6 favorites]


I also noticed (even as a kid who couldn't figure out what "poofter" meant) that women didn't count for much in Python sketches. I could see there were two pretty ladies they brought out for "straight" parts or acting sexy, but if a woman's part was funny at all, it was one of the guys in drag. I didn't know how to have a complex response to that, so I just felt bad, especially when I saw the guy in Meaning of Life being chased to death by titsy ladies. I knew the joke was on me, somehow.
posted by Countess Elena at 11:55 AM on June 23, 2017 [9 favorites]


We're twice as far away from the first airings of Happy Days now than Happy Days was from the time it was depicting.

The past is the past. If you can't stand to look at it, that's fine. But you can't deny what it was.
posted by hippybear at 11:56 AM on June 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


I could see there were two pretty ladies they brought out for "straight" parts or acting sexy, but if a woman's part was funny at all, it was one of the guys in drag.

Page 3 Girls were a major thing back then, and their influence crept in to a lot of other things. c.f. Benny Hill.

[Okay, Benny Hill is a LOT more gross in its attitude toward women.]
posted by hippybear at 11:58 AM on June 23, 2017


Oh my my my metafilter.

Yeah, there's some triggery-stuff in 45 year old episodes of Monty Python. But compared to the majority opinion on gay people, race, etc., at the time Monty Python (for its time!) was in a pretty good place as far as that goes.

Please. If anything, MP was a statement that it was OK to be different, odd, outside the mainstream. Surreal.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 12:07 PM on June 23, 2017 [5 favorites]


I'm still angry that my ex-gf from university has my box set. She has the Complete MPFC collection in DVD as well as my Complete Buffy set.

Only 90s Kids* will remember the double pain of heartache AND losing physical media during a breakup.

* and earlier
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:17 PM on June 23, 2017 [6 favorites]


If we're going to discuss Monty Python and the power of editing, then I feel compelled to share my favorite editing story. This was retold by the group (probably by Jones but I can't recall) in one of their biographical tomes.

When they had a final edit of their sketch film - "And Now For Something Completely Different" - they had a test screening. The first 45 minutes got a ton of laughs. The next 15 or so we're met with silence and then the laughter picked up for the last chunk of time.

"Ah-ha! That middle 15 is the weak material!" they thought. The film was re-edited to spread the weak 15 minuted through the rest of the movie.

They did another test screening and found that again the first 45 minutes got a ton of laughs, the next 15 none and the laughs returned for the last chunk.

They theorized that this was because audiences could enjoy about 45 minutes of disconnected sketch comedy before they needed a break. Furthermore, they theorized that if there was some kind of unifying element - a plot, a theme, etc - audiences would remain engaged throughout.

Thus, their next film had a plot, which worked out well for all involved.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:54 PM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Unfortunately they would come to forget all about that lesson a mere two films later.
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:48 PM on June 23, 2017


I feel hesitant to dive much deeper back in than that... I remember the "poofter" thing with the Bruces, or the entire treatment of Loretta in Life of Brian.

I don't mean to pile on, but you do know that Graham Chapman was gay, and was out to the rest of the Circus?

Yes there is a dated prurient transgression going on in referring to 'poofters', or Loretta, or gratuitious female nudity, etc. which on one level mirrors some of the prevailing attitudes, but remember also that these guys were ripping into their subjects, and British society as well. You laugh, then you feel uncomfortable, then another laugh is forced out. This ain't Benny Hill.

And also remember how much of a guys' club the British upper classes were at the time. That's also a target, as well as the font of the boarding-school naughtiness that saturates their material. This is probably also why the men did most of the female roles too - along with the absurdity.

One is further taken with the dialectical nature of... oh fuck it, they were brilliantly funny, witty, insouciant, brilliant and funny. Triffic. Rilly, just triffic.
posted by Artful Codger at 4:50 PM on June 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


This is probably also why the men did most of the female roles too

There's much more of a tradition of drag in British entertainment, going back to the days of the music hall and continuing up to the present (pantomime dames, Danny La Rue, etc). If Monty Python's using men in female roles came from anything it was that.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 6:44 AM on June 24, 2017


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