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.

Good Evening, Record Lovers...

These are the first few words spoken by Graham Chapman on Side Two of Monty Python's first album, the self-titled Monty Python's Flying Circus. Despite the lack of visual elements, Theatre of the Mind tells us -- by his tone of voice, his air of authority, and his command to "Stand at ease!" -- that Graham is in his famous peremptory Army Colonel guise. That and the fact that he introduces himself as "The GOC Commanding Southern Area Relief Force with Special Responsibility for Any Waxings or Mechanical Reproductions of Any Kind," (followed immediately by a stern, "Don't snicker, Pearson!") (Apparently Pearson found it humorous when The Colonel said "reproductions.")  (*snicker*) 

Graham Chapman
as the Colonel from
the television series

Anyway, the so-called G.O.C.C.S.A.R.F.w/S.R.A.W.M.R.A.K., is there, in fact, to demonstrate how stereophonics work, first by walking from "this speaker here," and through the stereo image to "that speaker over there." Trouble is, Monty Python's Flying Circus was recorded and released only in mono. There's no stereo image at all, you see. Granted, Graham's voice gets further from the mic as he walks to "that speaker over there," but he undoubtedly can be heard in both speakers. "It don't work!"
Was that the joke? A stereo test on a monaural recording? Could be. It is, after all, Monty Python, and therefore... silly. 
A more interesting story exists that the Pythons had originally scripted The Colonel sketch to work in true stereo, and, only discovered in the eleventh hour, i.e. recording day, that the album was going to be issued only in mono.

An excerpt from Michael Palin's diary:

"The record, we were told, was to be done extremely cheaply, we were not going to have it in stereo, we could not afford to pay any copyright for the use of our invaluable music links -- so it was all done on organ, which reduced everything to the level of tatty amateur dramatics."

So perhaps the Stereophonic Test was supposed to be real, but you know what? When I first heard this record -- in my friend Paul's basement, circa age twelve -- I still found it funny. To me the bit was not lost because the stereo test didn't work. I thought it was intentional that it didn't work. It was Python after all. It was meant to be silly. Which made Graham's closing statement that if the test indeed failed, "See me after!" all the funnier.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. That all happened on Side Two of the album. Let's go back to the beginning...

Monty Python's Flying Circus Front Cover

Monty Python's Flying Circus

BBC Records #REB 73M

Copyright BBC London W.1. 1970

Produced by Ian McNaughton

Incidental Music by Anthony Foster

Chorus: The Fred Tomlinson Singers

Extra Sound Effects by Harry Morris

Sleeve Design by Terry Gilliam

Now, in most cases, there are (at least) two different versions of every Monty Python record: a UK version and a US version (probably many other countries too, but this blog is only concerning itself with the UK and US versions.) Sometimes the differences are minuscule, sometimes they're quite drastic. Well, perhaps drastic is too... drastic of a term. After all, their just comedy records. What I should have said is that sometimes the differences are big, sometimes they're littler. Either way I suck at writing.

Terry Gilliam, circa 1974,
in a scene from
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

In the case of Monty Python's Flying Circus, the differences between the UK version and the US version are in the littler category. Content-wise they are identical. That is, both albums contain the same tracks and they run in the same order. The sleeves and the labels, however, are different. In both cases, the copyright holder is indeed the BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation) and both are released by BBC Records (the record division of the British Broadcasting Corporation) part of BBC Enterprises (the parent company of the British Broadcasting Corporation), London England. In the case of the UK version, the album was distributed by PYE Records, England. The US version was distributed by ATV Records Incorporated, New York New York under a license to PYE Records, England. So you see, there are a lot of fingers in this... PYE. (*heh-heh*) (I told you I suck at writing.)

But the littler differences don't stop there, oh no. There are also two more versions, i.e. the original, and the reissue(s). Again the content is the same, only the packaging is different. The album cover shown above is from the original release of Monty Python's Flying Circus, with a sleeve design by Terry Gilliam, the American Python, a.k.a. the visual Python. He's the one who did all the animations on the TV series and in the movies.
Gilliam originally designed a wraparound cover for the Monty Python's Flying Circus album, that is to say the image on the front cover continued onto the back cover, giving the complete package a consistent look, fit and feel about it. The original back cover is shown below:

Monty Python's Flying Circus Back Cover

Gilliam carried over the string-tag concept from the front to the back, as well as the airbrushed gray-sky and yellow-ground elements. Within the tags are printed actual critiques from the era (circa 1970) from such publications as The Sun, The Washington Post, The Morning Star, The Observer, and The Daily Telegraph. There's also some fine print, down by the copyright information, stating that:

"Delicacies such as Crunchy Frog, Cockroach Clusters, Anthrax Ripples, and Frozen Albatross On A Stick mentioned on this record are probably obtainable from Monty Python Enterprises." 

They weren't. Probably. Most of these delicacies were, in fact, candies mentioned in the Side One Track Three skit entitled Trade Description Act, which, over the years became better known as the Crunchy Frog sketch. The Frozen Albatross On A Stick is in reference to the Side Two Track Four skit entitled The Cinema.

The Issue of Reissue. After a record stops selling well, they usually pull it from the market, or sometimes reissue it as a budget release, tantamount to a book coming out in papperbok, I suppose. This happened to Monty Python's Flying Circus. It ran it's course and the BBC pulled it off the market once it stopped being profitable. In the meantime, or during the meanwhilst, the Pythons went on to do a second season of their TV series... and another... and another... for the BBC, but chose to bypass the Beeb when it came time to do another album... and another... etc. Once they became a viable record selling machine, BBC wisely decided to reissue the first album.

I'm not sure why they decided to change Terry Gilliam's original graphics this time around, but they did. They kept the basic Foot-of-Cupid-Stomping-Through-The-TV-Set art, but changed the placement of the title, and removed the tag "WARNING! THIS ALBUM IS ORIGINAL MATERIAL FROM THE TV SERIES." It's possible that the reissue came out after the series had run it's course (circa 1974) and to advertise it as a soundtrack to a defunct TV show may have led to them removing said tag, but at the bottom of the new release, it still says, "From the BBC Television Series."

Reissue of Monty Python's Flying Circus Front Cover

I do know the reprinted cover was done very cheaply, as they just blocked-out the old yellow Warning! tag and replaced it with a white box with black lettering overprinted on it. Overprinting is a money-saving printing process, where they keep the multi-colored image from the earlier version and just print any new information using only black ink. This saves them from printing all new, full-color covers.

This is obviously what they did with the new back cover, too. They just threw away Terry Gilliam's original back cover with the multi-colored string tags and airbrushed clouds wrapping around from the front. Just threw it all away! And replaced it with...

Reissue of Monty Python's Flying Circus Back Cover

... nothing! Virtually nothing at all. Just a white back cover with black text. Oh, okay, they kinda drew a string tag in the upper left hand corner, and used the fancy Pythonesque Calliope font for the title, and kept the lame "The Worst Of" joke, but short of that, there's literally no design to it. It may as well be a newspaper: three columns of type, black and white and read all over. Word for word all the text remains from the original cover, including the real critiques and the sur-real "Crunchy Frog Probably Available..." delicacies verbiage. But clearly this cover was done in the name of saving money. The only thing cheaper than one color printing is no-color printing, and The Beatles already did that with an album cover in 1968.

More to come. Where's the PUBLISH button on this blogspot...? Oh here it

MPFC : The Content

Enough about the packaging, let us go inside the actual record sleeve, to the actual record itself, (actually).

The Camden Theatre in 2009,
home of the night club Koko.
Photo by Ewan Munro, c/o flickr.com

This first album was recorded on 2 May, 1970, on a Saturday afternoon in Camden Town, a commercial district in Greater London. The Pythons started to arrive at the Camden Theatre around 10:00am to prepare for the 4:30pm recording in front of a small audience of not-necessarily fans.

From Michael Palin's diary entry that day:

"Spent the morning in the rather attractive Camden Theatre -- a fairly small theatre, with Atlases supporting enormous mock columns and a rather luxurious intimacy about the atmosphere -- reading through the scripts, briefing the sound effects men. Somehow, one felt, this should have been done sooner."

Palin, for one, liked the fact that there was an audience there to play off of. Having started his show business career onstage at university -- as did most, if not all, of the Pythons -- working to a live audience encouraged immediate feedback as to how well or not a joke had gone over. I imagine this must have played out that afternoon in Camden Town much like an old time radio program, with the six actors on stage reading from scripts into microphones, not in costume and not worried about lighting and camera blocking and backgrounds; just concentrating on the material, as it were, with the help of the aforementioned sound effects men to audibly assist in creating the setting (a small, tinkling bell as a door opens, signifies someone entering a shop, for instance).

Certain other Pythons, however, had imagined the setting to be different: they didn't want a live audience. They wanted to perform in a secluded studio, where the sound was better controlled and they could do a second take if they muffed a line or something, and afterwards the sound effects could be meticulously added to create a nice, clean, audio version of their best sketches. In fact, that is how their subsequent albums were created. Terry Jones was one Python who disagreed with the performing for a live audience approach:

(Citation needed... I'll be right back. I have to find an old magazine I think have someplace wherein Terry Jones is quoted...) (I don't know who I'm talking to, nobody's reading this blog anyway...)

 SIDE ONE

The track listings on Monty Python records have never been anything more than a rough guide at best. There's so much silliness and little bits strewn throughout a Python recording that tracking everything would be nearly impossible, though I will try my best within this blog. I will start with the listing as given on the record label itself, and then editorialize as I discuss each track. Many of the subsequent Python albums, however, don't even have track listings. In fact, the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album says "Side 2" on both sides! And the third album, Monty Python's Previous Record has all the track listings for both sides on Side 1, due to the fact that Side 2's label is filled with a rambling diatribe by "A Harley Street Dentist" about how much nicer it is to write the list of contents for a comedy record than it is to poke around inside people's mouths all day. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We're still on the first album, Monty Python's Flying Circus. The track listing on this album is probably the most straightforward of any of their releases, and Side 1 goes something like this:

(1) Flying Sheep

(2) Television Interviews

(3) Trade Description Act

(4) Nudge Nudge

(5) The Mouse Problem

(6) Buying a Bed

(7) Interesting People

(8) The Barber

(9) Interviews

This is pretty much a correct and direct listing of the contents of Side 1, but, say you were looking for The Lumberjack Song. It's indeed on Side 1, but it's not listed separately, rather it is part of Track 8, The Barber. Nowadays The Lumberjack Song stands alone as a classic Python bit, but remember, when this record came out in 1970, The Lumberjack Song was nothing more than the ending to a sketch about a psychotic barber, with shades of Sweeney Todd.

I hope to clarify things like that as this blog goes on (and on and on and on...)

A more detailed track listing of Side 1 might look something like this:

(1) Flying Sheep
    (1a) Flying Sheep Sketch
    (1b) French Interpretation (Le Pouf Celebre)
    (1c) Pepperpots Vox Populi (on French Philosophers)
(2) Television Interviews
    (2a) Link Announcer (And now for something completely different...)
    (2b) Arthur Frampton : The Man With Three Buttocks
(3) Trade Description Act
    (3a) Crunchy Frog Sketch
    (3b) Superintendent Parrot Summing Up
(4) Nudge Nudge
(5) The Mouse Problem
    (5a) Mouse Problem Documentary
    (5b) Man-in-the-Street Vox Populi (on Mice Men)
(6) Buying a Bed
(7) Interesting People
(8) The Barber

    (8a) Barber Shop Sketch

    (8b) Lumberjack Song
    (8c) Letter of Protest / Art Critic Links

    (8d) Art Critic Sketch (The Place of The Nude in the History of Art)
(9) Interviews
    (9a) It's The Arts (Opening Announcement)
    (9b) Sir Edward ("Ed" "Ted" "Eddie Baby") Ross Interview
    (9c) End of Side 1

So you see, by the more detailed account, that the Lumberjack Song and the Art Critic Sketch are not even noted in the original track listing. Ohwhatagiveaway!

The Tracks Proper : Side 1

Side 1 Track 1

Flying Sheep (a) The Sketch

So anyway, the album begins just as the TV series did, with a sketch called Flying Sheep. Terry Jones and Graham Chapman reprise their television roles as a City Gent and Country Bumpkin, respectively. And respectably. Right off the bat, someone who has never heard nor seen Python before can respect their writing abilities based on the dialogue in this sketch. Chapman is not a redneck-type country bumpkin of the Jeff Foxworthy/Junior Samples blue collar comedy school:

"It is my belief that these sheep are labouring under

the misapprehension that they are birds!

Observe their behaviour..." 

"A sheep is not a creature of the air; it has enormous difficulty in the comparatively simple act of perching..."
 

"As for flight, their bodies are totally unadapted to the problems of aviation..."

"That's a depressing prospect for an ambitious sheep." 

Now remember, it's the country guy saying this! Not the city gent. You never hear Larry the Cable Guy or Gomer Pyle or any other stereotypical country bumpkin speak so eloquently and multi-syllabically. Right out of the box, you can tell that this record is not traditional sketch comedy. It's... well... something completely different.

Terry Jones and Graham Chapman in the original TV version of Flying Sheep

There are always a few differences between the TV versions of Python sketches and the album versions, but I'm not going to cover each and every difference between them. That'd be tedious: in the TV version, Jones says, "oh, jolly good!" when Chapman tells him he lives here, but on the album he says, "oh, good for you!" But I will cite differences if I think they are interesting enough.

Flying Sheep (b) French Interpretation

What exactly are the commercial
possibilities of ovine aviation?

The Flying Sheep sketch is followed-up on the album by a brief dialogue between John Cleese and Michael Palin speaking mock-French as they discuss the "commercial possibilities of ovine aviation." (I looked it up: Ovine means of, relating to, or possessing the characteristics of sheep; just as Bovine means of, relating to, or possessing the characteristics of oxen, cows and/or buffalo. You can learn a lot from Monty Python albums.) (Providing of course you've got a dictionary nearby.) 

This same French bit -- unofficially known as le Pouffe Celebre -- also followed the Flying Sheep sketch on the first episode of the TV series, but lasted much longer, due to the fact that on TV they had visuals to keep you interested. On the album, it's just some French gibberish that leads into the next little bit of the vox pop of pepperpots discussing their likes and dislikes of French versus German philosophers.

Flying Sheep (c) Pepperpots Vox Populi

"Oh, we get lots of French people
around here!" "All over!" "Yess!"

WTF are Pepperpots? Pepperpots are the little old ladies that you see running amok on Monty Python's TV show. It's the guys dressed in drag and speaking in high voices. John Cleese and Graham Chapman started calling these short, stout, round, often loud ladies pepperpots because they're rather shaped like pepper pots.
So WTF does Vox Populi mean? It's a Latin phrase meaning Voice of the People. More popularly known as Man-In-the-Street interviews, Vox Pops are a major linking device used often on the Monty Python TV show, but not so much on the albums. The pepperpots appear briefly, here on the Monty Python's Flying Circus record, answering the question:

INTERVIEWER:

How do you get along with French people?

PEPPERPOTS:

Oh very well! Yessss. So do I, yes! So does Mrs. E!

I like them... They think well, don't they... I mean, be fair:

Blaise Pascal, Jean Paul Sartre, Voltaire, Rene Descartes...

INTERVIEWER:

What do think of the Germans?

PEPPERPOTS:

RUBBISH!! Rubbish! Emmanuel Kant! 

Bloody "Ego posits itself!" My foot!

Nietzche?! HAH!

This, according to Python, is what little old ladies talk about in supermarkets. 

And now for something completely different...

Pepperpots & a Pepperpot

Side 1 Track 2

Television Interviews (a) Link Announcer

Four and a half minutes into Monty Python's Flying Circus we hear -- for the first time -- the phrase And Now For Something Completely Different. Eric Idle holds the honor of being the first Python to say the phrase, both on this album and on the TV series. He says it as a television announcer abruptly changing the pace of the programming, in this case, getting away from the pepperpot vox pops and into an interview program. There is no fanfare for the first time this phrase is used, there is no audience applause or even laughter. That's because this phrase was never meant to be a Python catch phrase, even though in 1971 it became the name of their first movie.

And now for something completely different was simply a phrase used by REAL television announcers when abruptly jumping from one type of program to another. For example, going from a show about horse jumping into a popular music program, a BBC announcer would state, "And now for something completely different, we present..." and so on. On a trivial note (and, really, isn't this and almost every other blog out there based on trivial notes?) on the 1967 British ITV series At Last The 1948 Show, which featured John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman, and Tim Brooke-Taylor, the show's announcer and link-person, The Lovely Aimie MacDonald, utters the phrase and now for something completely different when linking two sketches together. If you want, you can see it if you buy the At Last The 1948 Show DVDs. (Speaking of links, here's a link to Amazon.com.)

Soundtrack album for At Last The 1948 Show featuring
Python's John Cleese and Graham Chapman as well as
The Lovely Aimi MacDonald (inset)

(And yes, any time one mentions The Lovely Aimi MacDonald, one must refer to her as The Lovely Aimi MacDonald in full, always.)

But now back to the album at hand, er, foot, Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Television Interviews (b) Arthur Frampton : The Man With Three Buttocks

The album continues to follow the sketches from the first episode of the TV series with an interview of a man claiming to have... well... a bit to spare in the botty department. (British slang, botty = bottom.) Cleese is the uncomfortable interviewer, too timid to even mention his guest's... er... affliction on the airwaves:

"With me now is Arthur Frampton who... er... ahem, 

Mr Frampton, I understand that you... umm... 

is that chair comfortable?"

In the televised version of this sketch, Mr Arthur Frampton is portrayed by Terry Jones. Here on the album, the tri-buttocked guest is played by Michael Palin. One might assume this to be an "equal time"measure, since Jones just had a major speaking part moments earlier in the Flying Sheep sketch and Palin had yet to be heard.

Jones (right) as Frampton in the TV series. Curious Cleese (left) as the Interviewer.

As uncomfortable as Cleese is to mention this delicate subject to his audience, Mr Frampton is, to say the least, proud...

"I got three cheeks!"

He is not, however, as willing to... well... back up his claim.

INTERVIEWER:

We were wondering if you could see your way clear... to... well... giving us a quick... a quick... visual...

er... Mr Frampton -- Will you take your trousers down?

FRAMPTON:

What??!! I'm not taking me trousers down on television, what do you think I am?

In a gag not incorporated into the audio-only version on the record,
a BBC cameraman attempts to glimpse Arthur Frampton's tri-cheek claim.

INTERVIEWER:

Now see here, Mr Frampton! It's perfectly easy for someone to come along here to the BBC simply claiming that they have a bit to spare in the botty department... 

the point is our viewers need proof!

FRAMPTON:

I've been on Persian Radio... and The Forces Network!

More to come...