Will the real Monty Python Instant Record Collection please stand up..?

There is no Complete Monty Python Record Collection out there (yet) but there are several Monty Python Instant Record Collections available...

CGI color image recreated from black and white magazine ad

Or titles to that effect, anyway. Whether it's called The Monty Python Instant Record Collection or The Instant Monty Python CD Collection, none of them are a complete collection of all the Monty Python albums. Though one comes close.

To be fair, none of them claim to be a complete collection. The first Monty Python Instant Record Collection came out in 1977, in the days before "complete works" box sets were an industry standard. It was just a joke title for a greatest hits package. In fact it was subtitled The Pick of the Best of Some Recently Repeated Python Hits Again, Vol. II.

Now that's a joke. Even by 1977 Python had been repeated -- certainly on television -- so many times that fans already knew all the sketches. Using words like The Pick Of, The Best Of, Recently Repeated, Again, and Volume Two was just Python's way of saying, hey, there's nothing new in this package but here it is, we know you're still gonna buy it. (And there was no volume one. They called it volume two as part of the joke, just to drive the point home that this was the same material you've gotten from Python again and again and again.)

Anyway, around the time CDs began to replace LPs (late 1980s - early 1990s) there grew a new market for old records: complete box sets. Teenagers of the 70s who spent all of their youth and all of their lawn-mowing and babysitting dollars building up their Beatles collections and Pink Floyd collections and Monty Python collections were now grown-ups with careers and families and meetings and conferences to go to. They still wanted their old records but they wanted them in the new CD format. They didn't want to go to the record store every week and buy their collections again, one at a time. They (we) said, "Just give me everything I already own on vinyl in one-lump-CD-sum!"

Hence the box set.

This time -- the 1990s -- Python had a true reason to present a package called The Instant Monty Python CD Collection. This time it was not a joke. It really was an instant CD collection. With one purchase you suddenly had 8 Monty Python albums (spread over 6 discs). Certainly an instant collection, but at the same time, certainly not complete, as it was missing the first Monty Python's Flying Circus album, and the US-only release Live at City Center (which was fine, because the box set included the UK-only Live at Drury Lane which is very similar to City Center.)

Obviously issues of licensing and ownership and labeling come into play when a company or a group is compiling a greatest hits collection or a box set, and The Instant Monty Python CD Collection contained all the Python material that was owned by Virgin Records at the time (still is I believe). So I fully understand the reasoning MPFC and L@CC were left out of the box set. (They weren't owned by Virgin. BBC owned the first one, and Arista owned the live one.)

But there, let us begin in 1977 and plough our way through the series of releases with Monty and Python and Instant and Record and/or CD and Collection in their titles, shan't we?

First of all, here is a lineup of the LPs and CDs in question. I shall comment upon them one at a time. Go on. Humor me. I've got nothing else going on today and it's raining cats and dogs out there...

Between 1977 and 1994, three different collections have shared the title Instant Record Collection
(both LP and CD versions shown above. no LP version of the box set was ever released)
Click picture to enlarge.

Although there was no LP version of The Instant Monty Python CD Collection, there was
indeed a box set of vinyl LPs released in Australasia called All Of The Worst of Monty Python.
(I've seen this on eBay with anywhere from 5 to 7 LPs. Based on the cover, it contained at least 6.)

1977 - The Monty Python Instant Record Collection

Charisma Records CAS-1134
Single LP Deluxe Gatefold Cover

The original Monty Python Instant Record Collection (take note that the name Monty Python comes before the word Instant on the original LP, as opposed to the later box set where Instant comes before Monty Python. Different titles, different collections.)

The first issue of The Monty Python Instant Record Collection, 1977.
Package design by Terry Gilliam. Note the "sliced records"
on the cover all bear The Famous Charisma Label.

Detail shows the "sliced records" to be of the original Charisma mad hatter design.

This version of The Monty Python Instant Record Collection was the first collection of greatest hits ever released by the group. The title implied that, in one record, you would have all the best bits from all the Charisma-labeled Monty Python records: Another Monty Python Record, Monty Python's Previous Record, Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief, Monty Python Live at Drury Lane, and The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

There are no tracks from the original BBC television soundtrack album Monty Python's Flying Circus and no tracks from Arista's US-only release Monty Python Live at City Center.

Since this record came out in 1977, there are no cuts, obviously, from Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album, which was released in 1980, and no cuts from either of the movie soundtracks for the yet-to-be-released Monty Python's Life of Brian (1978) and Monty Python's Meaning of Life (1983).

It is doubtful that any greatest hits collection put out prior to Virgin Records' 1987 purchase of the Charisma Monty Python catalog would include tracks from these movies anyway, since the Brian soundtrack was released on Warner Bros. and Meaning of Life was issued on MCA.

But by the time Virgin Records released the 1994 Instant box set, the Life of Brian and Meaning of Life soundtracks were under their ownership and thus included in the box. As of this posting, to the best of my knowledge, the original Flying Circus BBC soundtrack and Arista's Live at City Center are the only two releases not under Virgin's ownership.

Another reason for the title of this 1977 collection has to do with the packaging.

"The cover of the Instant Record Collection was greatly approved of. Thank you Terry Gilliam (though I don't think anyone got around to saying that.)"

~ from the December 2, 1977 entry of Michael Palin's Diaries 

Oddly, Terry Gilliam is not mentioned anywhere on the packaging as Designer, though according to Palin's diaries -- and the pure look and feel of the package -- all fingers point to T.G.

"Design Production" is credited to AD Design on the album's inner sleeve, and even the "Hands Photograph" gets credited to John Sims. Perhaps Gilliam was acting as art director at this point and merely assigned the project to outside sources.

But the packaging is truly from the mind of Gilliam.

Open the package and you'll see it's more than just your standard gatefold cover. It keeps folding and unfolding until -- voila! -- you've got a cardboard sculpture: a 12 inch x 12 inch x 12 inch cube that, when placed on your shelf, looks exactly like a full size LP record collection, 65 titles in all -- truly an Instant Record Collection. Well, not truly, I guess. More like falsely an Instant Record Collection.

When completely opened, The Monty Python Instant Record Collection
looks like a realistic set of 65 LPs. 

"Terry G. is very enthusiastic about the cover design for the new 'Best Of' album... He wants material for the cover -- blurb of any kind -- and lots of false titles for LPs..."

~ from the September 21st 1977 entry of Michael Palin's Diaries

Whether Michael alone was asked by Terry G. to contribute the above mentioned "blurb" and "lots of false titles," or if it was a project for which all the Pythons were asked to contribute, is unclear. Either way, the blurbs they came up with appear on the inner sleeve -- or bag -- of The Monty Python Instant Record Collection:

The inner bag for MPIRC was a simple black and white, one-sided affair with title, credits, naked dancing girl, photo of the group circa 1977 with Cleese barely visible in the shadows, the famous Charisma logo, and two comedic blurbs, probably penned by Palin: Where Are They Now? and Where To Go If You Have Got A Lot of Money.

The text on the inner bag seems very Palinesque, but the Pythons actually had a friendly agreement that none of them were to receive individual writing credits; "Monty Python" was always to be a group experience wherein all shared the wealth.

Here, then, are all 65 faux titles included on

The Monty Python Instant Record Collection

The back cover design for the Instant Record Collection is meant to look
like... well... an instant record collection, with 65 faux spines

The Monty Python Instant Record Collection

Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay Again!

The Beatles Chauffers Live!

Running Songs and Surrendering Ballads:

The Massed Bands of the Queen's Own Cowards (or Some of Them)

ETERNALLY YOURS:

The Massed Windscale Marching Scientists

Ron Simon and Geoff Garfunkel

Live from the Tennis Club Purley

Together Again - Frank and Ifield

MY BRAIN HURTS - The Moron Tabernacle Choir

The Milkman Whistles Stockhausen - 'A' Milkman

When We're Apart - The Legs

FRIDAY NIGHT IS BATH NIGHT - J.P.Gumby

When the Chickens Are Asleep - Ramon and Ted

NIXON'S SOLID GOLD DENIALS

Norma Shearer Whistles Duane Eddie

TEACH YOURSELF POWER

The Best Bits of Rolf Harris

Monty Python's Best Sketches Beginning With 'R'

Hitting Ourselves with the Little Curved Bit on the End of the Shaving Brush

- Eric and the Loonies

My Brain Hurts and Other National Front Marching Songs

THE BEST OF THE OSMOND'S TEETH - vol XI

An Evening with Martin Bormann

(and the Trio los Paraguayos)

A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA - The Everly Sisters

Ron Simon and Geoff Garfunkel

Live from the Tennis Club Purley

Give Me the Moonlight and the Goats - Ramon and Ted

A MAN WHO ONCE SOLD PAUL McCARTNEY A NEWSPAPER - LIVE!

RAW POWER PUNK KILL BLAST THROTTLE DESTROY

- Clodagh Rotten

The Dave Clark Five's War Speeches

The Best of Raggae Maudling (Rastatory Label)

The Wonderful Sound of Hip Injuries

Beethoven's Punk Symphony, in B Flat - "The Stinking Bastard" (Bandages Supplied)

The Horrid Brothers Kill Anyone in Sight

PARTY TIME Princess "Piano" Margaret

Young, Gifted, Black, and Furry - Ramon and Ted

MY WAY or ELSE - Frank Sinatra

It's All Over My Friend 

- Earl K Vomit and the Meatabolic Processes

John, Paul, George, and Ringo - The Davenport Brothers

Scottish Airs - the Hamish McFart Singers

I Left My Pacemaker In San Francisco - Dr DeBakey

More Songs From the Goole and District Catholic River Wideners Club

Bernard Delfont Live at the Bank Next to the London Palladium

Bright Lights, Soft Music, Live Goats - Ramon and Ted

FOOTLOOSE and FANCY FREE - Britt Eckland

a NIGHT on the TOWN - Britt Eckland

SMILER - Britt Eckland

GASOLINE Alley - Britt Eckland

NEVER a DULL MOMENT - Britt Eckland

an OLD RAINCOAT WON'T EVER LET YOU DOWN - Britt Eckland

EVERY PICTURE TELLS a STORY - Britt Eckland

ATLANTIC CROSSING - Britt Eckland

EVERY PICTURE TELLS a STORY - Britt Eckland

RASTAMAN - SIR KIETH JOSEPH (Deleted)

I've Got a Beer Glass Sticking in My Head and Other Rugby Songs

ACCOUNTANTS WORK SONGS

Ruling Songs and Ballads

H.M. The Queen and the Jordanaires

I'm in the Mood for Love and Goats and Chickens - Ramon and Ted

Pet Smells The Beach Boys

MONTY PYTHON TRIES IT ON AGAIN

BOEING BOEING (Cast Album)

BONG BANGY BING!

BANG GOES BOING!

BACK IS BING!

BING IS BACK!

Tom Jones Hits Frank Sinatra While Vic Damone and 

Mel Torme Grab Englebert Humperdinck, at Las Vegas

YOU and THE NIGHT and THE MUSIC and THE CHICKEN: Ramon and Ted

GET BACH - The Best of the Welsh Beatles

and

The Pick of the Best of Some Recently Repeated Python Hits Again Vol II

Yeah, but what's really on the real record?

Meanwhile, embedded in the grooves of The Monty Python Instant Record Collection record, original UK version, are 23 cuts, previously released on all the earlier Charisma Monty Python releases, and one never-before-released track: Side Two, Track Four is an audio version of The Summarize Proust Competition sketch from season three of the television series.

On TV this is what the Proust Sketch looked like. (FYI.)

Oddly this sketch appears on the album without fanfare or even mention of any kind. You'd think the album cover would've bore a large red label, "Warning: Contains a never-before heard version of the Summarize Proust sketch!"

Not only is it a bonus having this sketch appear as a surprise in the middle of this greatest hits package, but it also allowed many Python fans to hear the unexpurgated version for the first time!

Photo of Marcel Proust
circa 1900. Wikipedia.

The Summarize Proust Competition has become legendary due to a censorship edit upon its original airing on Monty Python's Flying Circus in 1973. In the sketch -- a game show parody in which contestants have 15 seconds to summarize Marcel Proust's series of seven novels entitled A la Recherche Du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time) (circa 1913-1927) (yes, I googled that!) (but only for the proper spelling!) -- host Arthur Me (Terry Jones) interviews one of the contestants, Harry Baggit (Graham Chapman) and asks him what his hobbies are, outside of summarizing Proust. The infamous response from Mr Baggit -- as originally filmed -- was "Strangling animals, golf, and masturbating."

The BBC, meanwhilst, broadcast the joke but edited the masturbation reference: "Strangling animals, golf..." Pause. Outrageous laughter from the studio audience!

From Monty Python: Almost the Truth: The Lawyer's Cut:

"I thought it was also interesting, if you want to be semantic about these things, that strangling animals was seen to be okay, "Oh yeah, that's alright!" But masturbating, "nooo!"

~ Michael Palin re: The BBC's decision to censor the Summarize Proust sketch. 

I have seen three different edits of this sketch on TV over the years: one with no edit at all, with "and masturbating" intact; another with the offending hobby silenced out, but no splice in film; and a third variation where the audio has been spliced and rearranged, despite it being out of sync with the film, in which Graham states his hobbies as "Golf... and... Strangling animals..." Someone took some time to edit the audio track so "strangling animals" gets the big laugh rather than "golf." An improvement, IMHO. And I believe my A&E VHS video collection of the complete MPFC includes the "silenced" version, but I haven't watched it in years. (I still haven't got the entire series on DVD.)

Anyway, The Monty Python Instant Record Collection, original UK version, is the only place you can get that sketch complete and intact. Albeit audio only.

The Summarize Proust sketch was probably originally recorded for Monty Python's Previous Record, due to the fact that the booklet for the original CD release of that album includes a music credit for Proust Song by Fred Tomlinson, which doesn't seem to appear on the record anywhere. And indeed The Fred Tomlinson Singers -- posing as he Bolton Choral Society under the supervision of Superintendent McGough -- perform "Proust in his first book, wrote about, wrote about..." in the Summarize sketch. So... there's that.

The Fred Tomlinson Singers as the Bolton Choral Society, the least successful
entrants in the Summarize Proust Competition (they didn't even get to volume one.)

"He must've let himself down a bit on the hobbies. 

Golf's not very popular around here."

~ Eric Idle as the announcer of the Summarize Proust sketch. 

The Rest of the Contents of The Monty Python Instant Record Collection (Original UK Version)

Side A

1. Introductions (Pleasures of the Dance mix-up from AMPR)
2. Alistair Cooke Being Attacked by a Duck (from AMPR) A unique edit of this short bit, it contains a new intro by Michael Palin: "And now for all you lovers of art and culture, here is a rare recording of Alistair Cooke being attacked by a duck..."
3. Nudge, Nudge (Live version from L@DL)
4. Minister for Overseas Development (Mrs Niggerbaiter sketch from MT&H)
5. Constitutional Peasants (Movie soundtrack dialogue from MP&tHG)
6. Fish Licence / Eric the Half a Bee (from MPPR)
7. Australian Table Wines (from MPPR)
8. Silly Noises (from MPPR)
9. Novel Writing (from MT&H)
10. Elephantoplasty (from MT&H)
11. How To Do It (from MPPR)
12. Gumby Cherry Orchard (from AMPR)
13. Oscar Wilde (from MT&H)

Side B

1. Introduction (Exectutive Intro from TAotSTotTotFMP&tHG)
2. Argument Clinic (from MPPR)
3. French Taunter (Movie dialogue from MP&tHG)
4. Summarise Proust Competition (Previously unissued)
5. Cheese Emporium (from MT&H)
6. Funerals at Prestatyn (from MPPR)
7. Camelot (Movie dialogue and song from MP&tHG)
8. Word Association Football (from MT&H) Tracks 8 and 9 are linked together with a unique musical interlude of Waltzing Matilda not found on Matching Tie & Handkerchief. Perhaps this was added by Andre Jacquemin to differentiate this grouping of sketches from the MT&H versions of the same. I don't know. Citation needed.
9. Bruces Sketch and Philosophers Song (from MT&H) Waltzing Matilda, known as the unofficial national Anthem of Australia, is obviously used here to introduce the Aussie-ness of the Bruces sketch. In the original television version, the Bruces are singing an a capella version of the song at the beginning of the sketch.
10. Pet Shoppe (Live version from L@DL)
11. Monty Python Theme (Fadeout with Michael Palin voiceover from L@DL)

I'm not done with this post yet...

Whereas most records have two...

And now for something completely different: a record with three sides.

CGI reproduction of a 1973 UK print ad for The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief

Yes, much has been written about The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief album. Actually, no it hasn't. None of the Monty Python albums have been written about very much at all, in fact, but when they do get mentioned, they always bring up the fact that Matching Tie & Handkerchief has three sides. They pretty much mention the three sides, and then move on to talk about the movies. To be fair, the documentary Monty Python: Almost The Truth: The Lawyer's Cut does a pretty good job covering the albums and especially this one, MT&H. More on that documentary later.

The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief album, in reality, has only two sides, like most records. Nay, like ALL records: a front and a back. (Or, if you're holding it horizontally, a top and a bottom.) Traditionally these two sides are known as Side One and Side Two. Remember, we're talking about old fashioned 12" vinyl record albums here. We're also talking about Monty Python, so "traditional" has nothing to do with it, really.

To add to the confusion, both labels on the record say Side 2.

The Famous Charisma Label for MT&H. The same label appears on both sides, and both say Side 2.

So what indeed is going on? What is going on? Indeed!

Released in the UK in 1973, The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief was the group's fourth long playing album (I always include the original BBC soundtrack as their first album whenever I list the Python LPs.) (Some people don't count that one.) (Like the Pythons themselves, for instance.) (In fact, Arista Records in America actually calls Matching Tie & Handkerchief the first Monty Python album, because it was the first one to appear in America on the Arista label.) (Only second in confusion to The Beatles discography on Capitol Records!) (Enough with these bleedin' parentheses already!) (I told you so.)

The cover for the original UK edition of MT&H on The Famous Charisma Label. Designed to
look like a fancy gift box, the lower 2/3 is a die-cut window with the tie & hankie seen through it.

Cover design for the US edition of MT&H on the Arista record label.
Why the US and UK covers differ is something I'm looking into. Stay tuned, minutia fans!

As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, Monty Python did not become popular in the US until around 1974/1975 when their television series began airing on Public Broadcasting channels throughout North America (USA and Canada) coinciding with the stateside release of their "epic" movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They had already recorded the first four or five albums by that time, including the Holy Grail soundtrack (and the Live At Drury Lane LP which was not released in the US at the time) when US radio stations started playing cuts from their albums. By 1975 Python was a multi-media sensation in the states.

Borrowed from Wikipedia. Click on logo to learn more about Arista.

Arista Records (which ceased to exist in 2011) became the US distributor of Monty Python albums during that time. Unfortunately for them, the rights to the first three albums belonged to other companies: BBC Records and PYE held the rights to the first album, Monty Python's Flying Circus, (which may have been out of print at that time, until it was soon reissued when Python hit it big in America) and Buddah was distributing Another Monty Python Record and Monty Python's Previous Record, which at one point were even packaged together as a two-record set put out by Buddah's co-owned Kama-Sutra label. (Later reissued as The Best of/Worst of Monty Python, as part of the label's horribly designed Best Of series. (More on that later in this blog.) (Don't look for it now, though. I haven't written it yet.) (At the rate I'm going, check back circa 2017.)


This left Arista with Matching Tie & Handkerchief and the Holy Grail soundtrack as the only Python titles on their label (the following year they would add the US exclusive Live At City Center to their catalogue.) They kept the same album cover artwork for the Holy Grail album, The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, yet they created their own version of the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album. Nobody knows why.

Above: The UK MT&H package...

Fortunately for we (sleekit, cowerin' timorous) purchasers of the album -- beit the UK version or the US version -- they both came packaged with the same Terry Gilliam illustrations inside. The UK package has a rectangular cut-out in the outer sleeve and Gilliam's artwork of a necktie-and-handkerchief-wearing-hanged-corpse slides in and out of the sleeve, exposing only the tie and handkerchief when placed within the die-cut. This insert is printed in 4-color process on a glossy cardboard stock, with nothing on the back. Also included is an insert containing liner notes, a sparse list of credits (including costumes by Hazel Pethig)(?), and a transcription of the Graham Chapman/Neil Innes track The Background to History, containing the lyrics to all of Neil's wonderful glam rock songs about The Open Field Farming System in Medieval England. (Some of the finest glam rock music based on The Open Field Farming System in Medieval England that you will ever hear, in my humble opinion.) (Apart from some copies of Shane.)  

Along the bottom half of the insert is a smaller, black and white Gilliam drawing of a neatly-coifed, ever-smiling Grace Brothers-type sales clerk pleasantly hawking the polka-dotted handkerchief and necktie while it is still attached to the now-cut-down hanged-corpse. Pure Terry G. Again, there is nothing printed on the backside of this insert. The record itself is housed in a plain white paper inner sleeve.

... and the US MT&H package.

The US version is a bit more economical, actually. Instead of all those loose inserts floating around inside the sleeve, Gilliam's corpse-man has been printed in 4-color process on glossy cardboard stock which acts as the inner sleeve, replacing the plain white paper sleeve of the UK version. The liner notes, sparse credits and Chapman/Innes transcript that are on the green insert of the UK album are printed on the flipside of Gilliam's inner sleeve on the US version. Though the typeface is different on the text, the wording, the layout and Gilliam's smaller, black and white drawing are the same, but on a white background rather than green. Also, the US inner sleeve contains an extra inch or two of credits unique to the Arista version: US art direction: Nancy Greenberg; Cover art: Michael Doret; Inner Sleeve Art: Terry Gilliam. Also mentioned in this blurb is a special thanks to "Keith Prowse Music Ltd and DeWolfe Ltd for the use of their library recordings."

The US inner sleeve contains extra credits for the newly designed US artwork,
just above the sole of the shoe on Terry Gilliam's necktie wearing corpse man.

The outer sleeve of the Arista record contains an oval die-cut which works the same as the rectangular cut in the UK edition, that is: only the tie and handkerchief are exposed through the hole. All in all, a much more compact package than the UK edition.

Both versions proudly proclaim on the label that the record itself is FREE, that it is the Tie and the Handkerchief that are in fact the items being purchased. Apart from the US version having the Arista label and the UK version having the Charisma label, the only other difference I can spot on the record itself, is the fact that the Charisma label states "Side Two" on both sides, whereas the Arista label differentiates Side 1 from Side 2.

Which brings us back to why it's called a three-sided album...

Because one of the sides has ONE groove cut into it, like normal, and the other side has TWO grooves cut into it, not like normal. In other words, if you want to hear the whole album, you've got to lay the needle down (at least) three times, thus they call it a three-sided record. What they really hope will happen -- those Pythons -- is that it takes you a dozen tries to set the needle down to find the right groove, the one you haven't heard already. That doesn't always happen. It's kind of a "crap shoot" when you set the needle down; it may land in the same groove you just listened to. You've got to keep trying until you hear the beginning of a different sketch.

It's been reported (citation needed) that some owners of this album had listened to it for twenty years and had never heard the material in "groove two" of the dual-grooved side!

Here's the layout of the tracks on this album:

Single-Grooved Side (a.k.a Side One)

1. The Church Police
2. Elephantoplasty
3. Novel Writing Live from Wessex
4. Word Association Football
5. Bruces/Philosophers Song
6. The Adventures of Ralph Mellish - Hot Dogs and Knickers
7. Cheese Shoppe
8. Wasp Club - Tiger Talk - Short Razzberry
9. Great Actors

Dual-Grooved Side - First Groove (a.k.a. Side Two)

1. The Background to History
2. First World War Noises in Four
3. Boxing Tonight - The Fight of The Century

Dual-Grooved Side - Other Groove (a.k.a Side Three)

1. Minister for Overseas Development - Mrs Niggerbaiter Explodes
2. Oscar Wilde and Friends
3. Buying a Cat - Taking-In the Terrier
4. The Phone In

As you see, the intertwined grooves are quite short, each with only three or four tracks on it. Upon listening to this dual-grooved side, you know something is awry because the record seems to be over in about ten minutes! One might feel one didn't get one's money's worth if one didn't know there was one more groove to be heard. Wouldn't one?

Not the first; just the best...

If you were to do a search of "Multi-Grooved Records" on the internet, MT&H would probably be listed in almost every one of the thirty-two million finds. But you'd be surprised at how many other multi-grooved records you'll find. From 78 rpm "puzzle" records to MAD Magazine flexi-disks.

Early Victor multi-grooved "Puzzle Record" circa 1930s.
The label states: "This side contains 3 tunes. Can you find them?"

To be fair, Python never claimed to be the first, but Terry Jones -- in the 6-part documentary Monty Python: Almost The Truth: The Lawyer's Cut -- claims it was his idea to do "something different" for the MT&H album:

"Actually we discovered it had already been done in the 30s. There was a 78 (rpm) record that you could buy that was a horse race. And (each cut) would have the same commentary going, and you'd bet on the horse race... and a different horse would win at the end!"

~ Terry Jones re: multi-grooved records

There have been several variations of the aforementioned Horse Race record over the years. The one shown below was an actual game you would buy at a toy store (as opposed to a record shop). It came in a box with a game board inside, an "odds chart", and a 10" record. The record had three grooves cut into side one and three grooves cut into side two, so when you bet on "your" horse and played the record, you had a one-in-six chance of winning! As Terry J said above the commentary started off the same for each groove; as the race went on, the dialogue would change announcing a different winning horse for each groove. Pretty damn clever. These sorts of "game" records date as far back as 1901. Basically since the dawn of recording. But leave it to Python to use this technology on a modern day (well, 1973) comedy record and NOT TELL ANYONE about it. Until years later, of course.

CG reproduction of  mid-century 78 RPM "Magically-Grooved" Horse Race game box,
cleverly titled "Phono-Finish." Upper left corner states: "Amuse and Mystify Your Friends!"
Why, when we were kids, was it always a good selling point to "mystify" our friends?

Would you like me to show you a diagram of your intestines? I mean of how multi-groove records work? Below is a diagram of a triple-grooved record, such as the Horse Race game. The colored lines represent the path the needle takes across the record when the stylus is set down at the leading edge. (This is exaggerated, of course, as the grooves are a lot closer in real life, obviously.)

A similar diagram below shows the dual-groove of The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief.

Later pressings -- circa 1980s reissues -- of The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief album do not have the dual-groove. At least not in the States. I don't know if they discontinued the gimmick on the UK edition. My guess is yes. But at one point when the record wasn't selling as much anymore, Arista chose to "flatten" the whole thing down to a single grooved side, with Background to History starting off Side Two -- and leaving a small silent gap where the break would be -- followed by Mrs Niggerbaiter Explodes/Minister for Overseas Development.

It's pretty easy to see if you have an original dual-grooved edition -- not that they're worth a whole lot, I mean Python sold millions of these records in the 70s -- but you can see by looking at the runout groove near the center label. One side should look normal, with the grooves getting wider until they eventually merge by the label, and the other side you should notice twice as many grooves running off into the label.

Oh, the fun never ends regarding MT&H...

Original UK versions of the record have a note from a man named George "Porky" Peckham etched into the runout groove of the double-cut side. George Peckham was a record cutter at Apple, the Beatles's Record Company, from 1968 and has been one of England's foremost cutting engineers for the next 40-odd years. It was his job to cut the grooves into the original Master Disks that the vinyl records were then pressed from. Well, George, or "Porky" as he was affectionately known, would leave a "signature" in the runout area of the master disks he cut, and subsequently it would be forever embedded into every vinyl record pressed from that master.

George's traditional "signature" was the phrase, "A Porky Prime Cut" or just his name, "Porky." By the time Python had the idea for the multiple groove, Michael Palin states in his diaries that everyone in the record trade recommended "Porky" as the most trustworthy man in England to handle such a delicate task as cutting a multi-groove. This led to Michael's visit to Apple at 3 Saville Row in the Mayfair section of Central London, circa 1972, where he quite coincidentally bumped into George Harrison, who went on to become great friends with The Pythons and even financed a film for them six years later and blah blah blah don't get me started! See what happens when I start talking about Python records!? I expect to hear Michael Paln's voice any minute yelling, "Take it up!! TAKE IT UP!!!"

Anyway, etched into the inner groove of the original UK release of The Monty Python Matching Tie & Handkerchief record, George Peckham wrote "A Porky Ray Adventure" because it was such an adventure cutting this double groove.

Now, go and pull out all of your albums and check the inner grooves to see if George Peckham was the master cutting engineer! (Joe Walsh writes on his records, too, by the way.) (But don't get me started again.)

Photo of George "Porky" Peckham, stolen from Mersey Beat's website. Please follow
the link below and learn more about the man who cut "the infamous double groove!"

For more on George "Porky Peckham, click here and read about him on Mersey Beat's website.

http://www.triumphpc.com/mersey-beat/a-z/georgepeckham_studioyears.shtml

This is a techn-eke out a living...

More from MT&H...

The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief album. 1973

On side one, track five of The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief album, you'll find a cut called "Word Association," sometimes known as "Word Association Football."

Like many elementary school nerds in the seventies, my friend Dave W and I would sit in study hall and try to transcribe Python bits. (Lotsa people did this, right?) (Right?) Inevitably, he would hear different things than I would, and write them down, and I would write down the things I would hear, and then we'd share them with each other and go, "Oh! So that's what Balls Pond Road means!" and so forth.

It took us half a semester to dissected this piece...

"Word Association Football" is a confusing word-play (Dave W would say "it's not confusing to me!") monologue spoken by John Cleese. It's meant to be a simple speech about free association of words and phrases, but, as he's reciting it, Cleese begins to digress from his speech, free associating the very words and phrases he speaks (the famous explorer.) And to add to the confusion ("it's not confusing to me!" ~ D.W.) Cleese begins associating more words and phrases on top of the words and phrases he's already associating, and more on top of that etc etc etc...

Dave W and I narrowed it down and trimmed away the digressions and associations, and found the core of Cleese's intended speech, which is transcribed below in bold black type. We then decided -- in 9th grade speech class -- that he (Dave) would give the straightforward version of the speech in front of the class, and I would get up after him and give the same speech only this time with Cleese's digressions and associations intact, as illustrated below in coloured annotations.

That was our plan anyway.

Just to be safe, we asked our teacher Mr Schubert ahead of time if we could do this, and he responded -- without even looking up from whatever work he was doing -- and said, "If you wanna do sketches, join Mrs Carlson's drama class..." So we never got to do it.

(click to enlarge)

By the way, Dave W is now a successful lawyer and father of two, while I'm still transcribing Python skits on a stupid blog. He probably doesn't even remember any of this. Ask him if you see him. (On second thought, don't. He might just charge you for his time.)

Where many a selfish bastard has been kicked.

A Gem from the Previous Record

As read by Eric Idle on Monty Python's Previous Record, these brief advertisements are pure Eric. The first one always made me laugh. Still does. The second one, Funerals at Prestatyn, had to grow on me. As a younger chap, aged 11 or 12, I couldn't always decipher what the English lads were saying. I always thought Eric said, "... and our fee at 8.50, we'll be at your door within 10 minutes..." thinking the joke was, this funeral service is so cut rate, that if you wave 8 pounds 50p at them, they'll be at your door within ten minutes. Then when I saw my first Fiat 850 and realized that was in fact the vehicle of choice that Eric planned to use to pick up said certified stiff, well... his version was way funnier than mine. I still don't know what the last line of this bit means: "Danish and Scandinavian books see everything?" Excuse me while I kiss this guy.

Fiat 850

Why is it that so many of Britain's top goalies feel moved to write about the Yangtse?

A section of a 1915 map of Yangtze Valley. From Wikimedia Commons.

When I set out to create this blog, my plan was to write about the Monty Python record album catalogue -- which in my opinion has not received enough attention in other, more official biographies and documentaries -- and to comment on each album, in order, from the album cover graphics to the sketches within the grooves to the differences between the audio versions and the televisual versions... and so on.

I got as far as part of side one of the first album.

I feel like the Harry Baggitt character from the Summarize Proust Competition sketch on The Monty Python Instant Record Collection LP: "... as you can see on the Proust-Ometer, he only got as far as Swann's Way, the first of the ten volumes..."

A good try, though, and very nice posture...

But, like Harry Baggitt, my doctor has encouraged me to stick with this (as well as my other hobbies, which, among others, includes golf.)

Instead of following the albums in order, I have decided to jump around as the mood hits me. This will mix things up for me (and my at least two readers) and keep it interesting. Then, when I've written everything there is possibly to write (six, seven, eight years from now, at this rate) I'll gather them all together and put them in chronological order.

Like today I heard a football fight song and it reminded me of the Yangtse Kiang sketch from Monty Python's Previous Record. So I'd like to comment on that, forthwith and all.

Monty Python's Previous Record released in 1972. "Not this record! Not this record!"

We Love The Yangtse.

The Yangtse Kiang sketch appears on Side Two of Monty Python's Previous Record, the third album in the Python oeuvre. It is an original sketch, not culled from the television episodes. It begins with a beautiful, swirling orchestra (according to the liner notes of the CD edition of this album, the music is called "Beachy Head" composed by one R. Cornford and published by Studio G Music, although a search of their online music library turned up nothing. We are about forty years on from the recording of this album, so... for what it's worth. A good try though, and very nice posture.) Over the music is heard the voice of Terry Jones, as if introducing a travelogue programme:

I must admit, as a twelve year old -- or however old I was when I first bought this album -- I didn't get the Yangtse Kiang sketch. I didn't quite follow the logic, or illogic of it all: UK football stars praising a river in China? Oh, now I get it.

There's nothing to get, of course. It's silly. It's Python. One of Python's styles is to combine styles: in this case, a geography documentary is combined with a sport documentary, with quotes from the players (football goalies) as well as sport commentators.

So it begins like a National Geographic special, with the aforementioned music and the "serious" voiceover narrator. Serious to the point where it switches to a sport documentary:

JONES:

Yangtse Kiang. The Great Yellow River. Which, from time immemorial, has fascinated and tantalized the hearts and minds of men from all corners of the earth... 
(i.e.) Bob Wilson, Arsenal:

And there's the switch. Suddenly the show becomes a "summing up from the team" interview. Except, these goalies, so moved by the beauty of the subject matter, have all, apparently at one time or another, written poetry about the Yangtse:

"A wondrous river;

Her broad banks a-swelling;

Home to a race

Of fish."

~ Bob Wilson: Arsenal

voiced by Graham Chapman

* * *

"Oh Yangtse!

Oh Yangtse!

Beautiful river!

River full

Of fish!"

~ Peter Shilton: Leicester

voiced by Eric Idle

* * *

"Yangtse Kiang

River of the Eastern dream;

Teeming with carp, and perch,

And trout, and

Bream."

~ Sprake: Leeds United

voiced by John Cleese

The sketch is now a Python-Hybrid: what am I listening to? A documentary on the Yangtse River? Or a Sports Program about Football? Why, it's both! 

Our announcer, Terry Jones, introduces some experts to the panel: First, former footballer and then-manager of Leeds United, Brian Clough...

JONES:
"Why is it that so many of Britains' top goalies feel moved to write about the Yangtse? Brian Clough?"

Brian Clough: voiced by Eric Idle

"Well, you must remember, David, er, that these, er, goalies -- especially Wilson, and on occasion Gorden West of Everton -- are romantics, er, they're dreamers, er, the Yangtse's a symbol for them, er, for them it evokes, er, David, a temple as well as a, er, spiritual continuity."

Gorden West of Everton: A dreamer; a romantic... on occasion.

Next up: Former Scottish footballer and later manager for Liverpool, Bill Shankley offers his views on Britain's goalies-turned-river-poets...

Bill Shankley: voiced by Michael Palin

"Oi, it's a... a river of many moods! To a young goalie like Peter Shilton of Leicester, the Yangtse is a beautiful river; but to a more seasoned goalie, like Phil Parkes of Wolves, it's a river of regret, of disillusioned ambition... and I think this is good."

Phil Parkes of Wolves: to whom the Yangtse perhaps symbolizes regret and disillusioned ambition.

MORE TO COME...

Why Another Monty Python Blog?

Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time, by Angelo Bronzino, 1545.
Look closely at the bottom left corner, above the dove. It's the foot of Cupid, but it's more famously known as 
The Monty Python foot used in the opening title sequence of their TV series, and on the album cover of their first LP.

Yes, why indeed another Monty Python blog? Well, because this one is going to focus on the group's albums. The recorded works of Monty Python are often overlooked or given very little attention in proper biographies and documentaries and such. I've heard tell that there exists a radio program about the very subject of Python Records called Monty Python's Wonderful World of Sound -- a title taken from a cut off their third LP Monty Python's Previous Record -- which aired on BBC Radio a couple of years ago, but which I have been unable to find on the internet. Oh, I've found references to it and links to it, but no streaming or downloadable files as such. So I haven't actually heard it.

No. My research is done by having listened to and memorized every groove of every Monty Python record since about 1977. When I was a kid, I would more or less study these albums. Geek that I was (is?) (am?) I was listening to comedy albums while all my friends were listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Rush. Comedy records were and are (is?) (am?) of great interest to me, and at one time in my life I probably had over 500 of them in my vinyl record collection. Today I have maybe 200 or so, maybe 300 if I count the CDs.

But of these 200 (or maybe 300 or so if I count the CDs), I'm only going to focus on about ten or twelve of them here in this blog: The Monty Python LPs. Of course, I plan to cover all of the original Python LPs, that is to say, those that are not collections or reissues, rather their original planned releases. Like the Beatles, there are probably more Monty Python collections out there than there were original releases. But if this blog goes well and holds my interest -- as well as that of the two or one other people who are likely to read it -- then I'll get into the re-issues, the greatest hits collections, the best-of's and the infamous, never-released Hastily Cobbled Together For a Quick Buck bootleg(s).

But first, a word or two about who Monty Python even is (are?) (was?) (am?)

Ohnotthemagain!

Monty Python has been written about many many many many many many many times before. But for the novice who may have happened across this blog by chance, which happens often here in blogdom, here's a brief introduction to the group who created the brilliant comedy albums I wish to discuss in this blog.

From left: Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese. 
a.k.a Monty Python.

First of all, Monty Python -- not unlike Jethro Tull or Toad The Wet Sprocket -- is a group often mistaken for an individual. (Oh by the way, which one's Monty?) They are indeed six men from mostly England. Gilliam is the lone American in the group. In the 1960s, all of them worked in the London television industry as writers or performers or both. Their paths crossed here and there and at one time or another they had all worked together. Admirers of each others work, sometime around 1969 they decided to team up and do a television series of their own. They eventually came up with a sketch comedy show and called it Monty Python's Flying Circus, for no better reason than they liked the way it sounded. As it happens so often in television, nobody expected the show to last more than a few episodes, or one season at the most. After about five or six episodes, however, it begat a following. And after thirteen episodes, it was renewed for a second season, and grew from there. The TV series, back in the days before home-video, spawned a soundtrack album, also called Monty Python's Flying Circus, and a feature film entitled And Now For Something Completely Different, both made up of favorite sketches from the first season of the TV show.

From there it grew even more. Charisma Records in England agreed to release more albums, and PBS in America began to run the TV show. By then (1974-75) a second, more proper film was in the works, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a comedic retelling of sorts of the Legend of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. The Grail film and the TV show in America shot them to superstardom, and they went on to make more TV episodes and more movies, and more live concerts, and more live concerts made into moves and... best of all, more albums.