Monty Python's Flying Circus - Set 5 (Epi. 27-32)

Product Description

Contains Episodes 27 to 32 from Season 3#27 Whicker s World ; #28 Mr. and Mrs. Brian Norris Ford Popular ; #29 The Money Programme ; #30 Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror ; #31 The All-England Summarize Proust Competition ; #32 The War Against Pornography Perfectly tailored to suit those not quite done with evolution, Monty Python s Flying Circus provides a veritable university education in cultural literacy. Observe the Life of Tschaikowsky. Spend an afternoon with Jean-Paul Sartre. Hear a groundbreaking Theory on Brontosauruses and learn how to rid the world of all known diseases. Clearly, no programme in the history of television has brought such enlightenment to the common man--always, of course, cleverly shrouded in a cloud of so-called humour, in order to make education palatable to the masses. Watch and learn!With:GRAHAM CHAPMAN as Colonel Sir John Teasy Weasy ButlerJOHN CLEESE as MervynTERRY GILLIAM as BalderstonERIC IDLE as Mr. Smoke-Too-MuchTERRY JONES as the Impersonator of Italian Film Directorsand MICHAEL PALIN as Erik Njorl, Son of FrothgarConceived, written and performed by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. Animations by Terry Gilliam. Produced and directed by Ian MacNaughton.

Format: DVD MOVIE

Amazon.com

This set contains six "persistently silly" episodes from Monty Python's third and final full season (the ones introduced by Terry Jones's naked keyboardist). The quality of the sketches is not as consistent as it was in the first two seasons, but no Monty Python collection is complete without such series benchmarks as Njorl's Saga, an exciting Icelandic tale appropriated by the North Malden Icelandic Society; a courtroom burlesque featuring Eric Idle as a very apologetic mass murderer; the Argument Clinic sketch; Gumby brain surgery; and the Fish-Slapping Dance, which Michael Palin is on record as saying is his personal favorite bit of Python nonsense. A warning to more sensitive viewers: There is "material that some may find offensive, but which is really smashing," as well as blatant violations of something called the "Strange Sketch Act." Chief among these is the one in which Terry Jones appears as a pitiable man whose every utterance reduces listeners to hysterical fits of laughter; the ill-fated expedition to Lake Pahoe (located at 22A Runcorn Avenue); and an in-person documentary about the sex life of the mollusk, from the scallop ("second in depravity only to the common clam") to the whelk ("gay boy of the gastropods"). Episode 30 has the distinction of featuring two of the most hilariously annoying characters Monty Python ever perpetrated on the public: John Cleese as Miss Anne Elk, who has a theory on brontosauruses, and Idle as the extremely loquacious Mr. Smoke-Too-Much. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews:

Five stars, plus one black hole for quality control.......2004-09-20

I must offer kudos to A&E. Before these DVDs, all I had were 12-year-old VHS copies of Flying Circus dubbed off MTV. They were dull and noisy and these DVDs look much better.

Unfortunately, due to the glut of gaffes and omissions in this 45-episode box set, I am forced to keep those VHS tapes as reference copies for several episodes that A&E have unintentionally - and, in at least one case, intentionally - adulterated.

For the uninitiated, here's a laundry list of some of the omissions and gaffes in this set:

Show 31: Line "Masturbating" censored. MTV managed to find an uncensored version - A&E should have done likewise.

Show 33: Dialogue snipped from "Biggles Dictates a Letter". Not censorship, just a jump cut. Major QC goof.

Show 38: EVERYTHING after Eric Idle's "Next week, Black...Botoon..." voiceover is gone. No "Dad's Doctor", no "Dad's Pooves", no "Up the Palace", no "Limestone Dear Limestone". Possible explanation: Tape operator saw the fake fade-out right before these items and pressed "stop".

And in addition to the gaffes noted above, one more omission from Show 30 ("Blood, Devastation, Death, War, and Horror"): In the show, Graham Chapman belts out this brief West Side Story parody: "Tonight, tonight / I'm getting pissed tonight". A&E have cut the line.

The chain of events is easy to imagine:
1) A&E legal department decided they had to clear the line
2) Publisher wanted too much money
3) They cut it

Seems reasonable enough at first glance. So where, gentle reader, did they make their mistake? That's right, in step 1, when they decided they had to clear the line. It's called PARODY, dearhearts, and it's protected under the Fair Use doctrine of U.S. copyright law.

A&E is never going to fix these errors - if they cared about this series as a historical artifact, they never would have made the errors in the first place - so there's not much anyone can do. Except humiliate them with reviews like this. Woo hoo! Feels good! Take that, you corporate behemoth! Oh, wait, they're not reading this. Oh well. Hey, this is why we have tape trading, isn't it folks? Treat yourself.

The Avangardists Of Modern Humour.......2000-09-26

To this day, Monty Python remains THE idol and source of inspiration to humourists all around. »Monty Python's Flying Circus« made the group famous, and it is the best ever to come out, not only from Monty Python, not only from Britain... but humour in general!

Highlights on this tape: »Court Scene - Multiple Murderer«, »Mrs Niggerbaiter Explodes«, »Argument Clinic«, »The News With Richard Baker (Vision Only)«, »Fire Brigade« and »Molluscs - 'Live' TV Documentary«.

Own it!

CENSORED!.......2000-05-09

Don't get me wrong. Anyone who has the first two seasons of this series knows that these discs are of top-notch quality. However, if you saw the HBO salute to Monty Ptyhon, you heard Terry Jones tell the story about the BBC editing the "Summorize Proust Competition" so that the word "masturbating" is removed. During my initial viewing, I was upset to see that the rather horrendous, edited version of the scetch was what I had received. I know it's sort of petty to complain about this, but I was unpleasantly surprised to see that 30 years after the initial release, we are still unable to see a scetch that is rather tame by today's standards. So far, the only letdown from a great series of DVD releases by A&E.

They took the bones out and it's not crunchy anymore!.......2000-05-08

The actual episodes rate 5 stars (and more if they could be given). Not only was MPFC unlike anything that had ever been on TV before, there has been nothing like it on TV since, more's the pity.

The missing stars refers only to details of the packaging. There are some minor technical glitches. Sometimes episodes start to play without sound, although if you exit and restart this can be remedied. Why is there no digital time counter when you play an episode so you can know how long it is till the end?

But my major quibble is that they chose to use the CENSORED version of these episodes. Specifically, in one episode the enchanted prince in one of Terry Gilliam's animations dies of "gangrene" instead of "cancer" and in another, Graham Chapman's character in the Summarize Proust Competition is not allowed to claim "masturbating" as one of his hobbies (although he is allowed "strangling animals!" This is LESS offensive?)

Why in this day and age these minor points of controversy were not allowed to pass unaltered astounds me. It's not that the uncensored versions are not available, because I have personally watched them broadcast on US public TV stations.

But, as I say, these minor flaws are specks in the eye of the Mona Lisa. If you are a Python fan, you have to have these DVDs!

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