Before Monty Python,Palin,Idle,Gilliam and i think Chapman wrote and appeared in a children's tv show(commercial tv,ITV) called "Do not adjust your set(t.v).I used to watch it.
I discovered Python on Channel 6 in Denver when they first ran it, and taped every show I could on my little Radio Shack cassette recorder. Played them over and over and over again. Thank you, Channel 6, for bringing us this still brilliant and silly classic.
I didn't see this interview when it aired, but I was lucky enough to be living in the Dallas area when Monty Python aired. I had no idea it was the first area of the country to broadcast it. Now I feel special.
The first episode of MPFC aired on KERA-TV in Dallas on Sunday, October 6, 1974 at 10:00pm, two weeks prior to when it first aired in Chicago on WTTW making KERA the first PBS station in the U.S. to air the series. The video was pulled from an in-studio appearance in March of 1975 days after the LA premiere of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Following the KERA premiere, a number of PBS stations followed suit such as WTTW, WNET and WHYY.
I watched Python every Sunday night on KERA back in the late 70s. It was the cornerstone of their "British Comedy Block", which also included shows like Fawlty Towers, The Two Ronnies, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, and several others. Before that, KERA's Sunday night 10:00 CST time slot had been filled by a bad movie series called "One Star Theater."
WOW! Wot a twezha to behold! Thanks for posting this! I grew up on Monty Python. We all memorized our favorite bits, incorporated Python phrases into conversation, and had the whole Python spirit seep deep into our psyches! So...where are Cleese and Idle?
The worst that's ever happened to me watching TV was being (slightly) set on fire. I can't imagine being electrified merely by watching a TV show. How tragic for that poor man
Very nice!! I'm reading MP's autobiography this broadcast is mentioned. EI is not there because a few months ago he officially left Python. JC rarely went on these publicity tours. PBS in Dallas was the first station to show Python. Funny thing MP took the armidillo and it scared him at night when he went to for a pee!
The armadillo!! I just finished reading the section about it and this interview in Michael Palin's Diaries 1969-1979. If you love Palin and/or Python you need to get that book!
Ahhh, lucky me, I was a teenager in Dallas when this aired. I can actually remember this fund drive! My friends and I would get in trouble with our parents for laughing so much--it came on late and they all were usually in bed by then.
Thanks for posting this! They're absolutely wonderful and gorgeous in this interview I love Graham Chapman TOO MUCH The world would be so DULL and DULL and DULL... without Monty Python :-)
Acording to my memory, I think that GETV (Georgia Educational TV - later Georgia Public Broadcasting) showed Monty Python as early as 1971 or 1972. I may be wrong, of couse, but I seem to remember seeing the TV show on GETV well before Holy Grail came out.
The TV show's last season was in 1974 (only Cleese left, Idle was still there). All the movies they did were after this and were made with the complete, original Python group.
So I guess we have KERA to thank for allowing the demented, yet brilliant comedy of Monty Python to come to American shores. This is the most brilliant scheme by a PBS station during pledge breaks or as I call them "beg-a-thons." AMAZING FIND!
terry wanted to say "owl-stretching time" which was the name of the fourth episode of the flying circus. actually they had further ideas such as "whither canada?" (first episode), "gwen dibley's flying circus", "it's", "vaseline parade" and many more.
One of my fondest memories was "discovering" Python in the mid 70's on PBS in college. A group of friends got me sort of chemically altered, let's say, and told me I *had* to watch this show. I'll never forget how surprised all the odd skit endings, non sequiturs, and weird editing made me feel, and how brazen and irreverent it seemed. Finally there was a type of comedy for the counter culture. Of course to this day you can recite any line from Holy Grail and people of any age will know it.
Contrary to what the narrator at the beginning says and Wikipedia, KERA first showed MPFC in July of 1974. I remember seeing it in TV guide and thinking it was going to be a real circus show and asked my mom if I could watch it. I still watch it faithfully. By 1979 the Sunday night British comedy line-up was Benny Hill, MPFC, The Two Ronnies, Dave Allen at Large, and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
They hadn't left; Life of Brian was released in 79, so things were still going on. They were probably busy elsewhere doing promotion for 'Holy Grail'. Great footage though; thanks for posting.
God how fantastic is this? I remember Cleese doing the radio comercial for Holy Grail -The first 100 people arriving at the theater got a coconut Yeah, I just bought a coconut..
Didn't see this one at the time but I remember them returning to NJ a couple of years later to do the telethon for PBS. One thing I remember was PBS, in a attempt to show the difference in censorship between PBS and regular TV, played the Dirty Vicar sketch. They tried to play it like it would be played on regular TV but the engineers screwed up so the line "I like tits" came out like "I like /beep/ tits /beep/"
Other proposed titles were "A Horse, a Bucket and a Spoon," "Bunn, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot," "The Toad Elevating Moment," "Whither Canada?" and "Sex and Violence." The latter three were recycled as first-season episode titles, as was "Owl-Stretching Time."
To be fair they never really broke up as they recorded several albums all through the 1970s and 80s and they did make the Holy Grail with John Cleese in 1974 and it was released in 1975.
This is according to Wikipedia's entry on Fawlty Towers: "Fawlty Towers was a British sitcom made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975." Could probably be chalked up to bad timing. Hope that helps...
Terry Jones was a bit restrained in describing the hold commercial TV had in the US in the 1970s. By 1975 all Python's TV stuff was finished, with only movies to follow. It was old news in the rest of the word. It had been a hit everywhere, subtitled and dubbed from one end of Europe to the other. The US was about the only country that had never heard of it. Such was the power of the networks, they kept it out for five years.
@mandeville7474 Actually it was Palin, Idle, Gilliam, and Jones. Chapman was not involved in "Do Not Adjust Your Set," he was involved in other things, including "At Last, the 1948 Show"
I tried watching this when it was first on here, but I was just too young -- 10 or 11 -- to understand ANY of it. By the time I was in high school and saw it again, it was like seeing it for the first time. By then, however, I had already seen every episode of Fawlty Towers thanks to my Mom, and I saw John Cleese and yelled, "Hey! it's that guy from Fawlty Towers!" My friends have teased me about that to this very day. Sigh. I was so uncool.
Anybody got any footage relating to the early broadcasts of series 4 (on ABC?)which were so hacked to pieces the Pythons sued the network and won? That would be interesting to see. Great footage. Thanks for downloading it.
Aww! Why did it have to end so abruptly? It's really great to see a Monty Python interview back in the days when they were actually still making Monty Python sketches (at least in movies). But was Graham Chapman drunk? I know he had alcohol problems and this might go as further evidence, because he always seemed to pull it together on the shows (or at least the editors did).
there were a few other interview of monty python on youtube with jones palin and chapman in 1979, does anybody here know where i can find those videos?
Valuable piece of historical footage. A treasure for all MP fans. Big points to you for uploading.
Before Monty Python,Palin,Idle,Gilliam and i think Chapman wrote and appeared in a children's tv show(commercial tv,ITV) called "Do not adjust your set(t.v).I used to watch it.
One hell of a cliffhanger.
Hard to believe Dallas TX introduced us blokes to Monty Python...thank you Ron! I was introduced in the 80's and blown away!
Love how Gilliam caught a bit of a British accent, it's strange!
They're all so frikin' adorable!
thank you for the rare footage i love the python fam FOREVER !
What a nugget! Thank you so much for sharing this with the rest of the Pythoniacs!
PBS introduced me to Monty Python's Flying Circus in 1978. This is great. Thanks for posting.
11 great nights of public TV, as opposed to the other 354.
Thanks for posting this interview. Only seen stills in such books as The Pythons by The Pythons etc.
I discovered Python on Channel 6 in Denver when they first ran it, and taped every show I could on my little Radio Shack cassette recorder. Played them over and over and over again. Thank you, Channel 6, for bringing us this still brilliant and silly classic.
Incredible material; thanx for sharing.
That was brilliant! Thanks so much for posting!
Aw! It got cut off! What show could be that important that it could be taped over Python? sheesh...
he was going to say 'owl stretching time'
thank you for posting this.
I didn't see this interview when it aired, but I was lucky enough to be living in the Dallas area when Monty Python aired. I had no idea it was the first area of the country to broadcast it. Now I feel special.
The first episode of MPFC aired on KERA-TV in Dallas on Sunday, October 6, 1974 at 10:00pm, two weeks prior to when it first aired in Chicago on WTTW making KERA the first PBS station in the U.S. to air the series. The video was pulled from an in-studio appearance in March of 1975 days after the LA premiere of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Following the KERA premiere, a number of PBS stations followed suit such as WTTW, WNET and WHYY.
I watched Python every Sunday night on KERA back in the late 70s. It was the cornerstone of their "British Comedy Block", which also included shows like Fawlty Towers, The Two Ronnies, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, and several others. Before that, KERA's Sunday night 10:00 CST time slot had been filled by a bad movie series called "One Star Theater."
amazing to see them in their prime. they were in the states to promote the holy grail film they had just made, amazing..
WOW! Wot a twezha to behold! Thanks for posting this! I grew up on Monty Python. We all memorized our favorite bits, incorporated Python phrases into conversation, and had the whole Python spirit seep deep into our psyches! So...where are Cleese and Idle?
Gotta love Mike for putting the Armadillo in front of the camera during the lumberjack song...
lol Graham's smile at 10:27
I agree. My favorite sketches were the Lumberjack song and the Pet Shop. "If you hadn't nailed it to the perch..."
I love that the tape ends, at the most important part of his sentence..! ...:)
THANK YOU!
The worst that's ever happened to me watching TV was being (slightly) set on fire. I can't imagine being electrified merely by watching a TV show. How tragic for that poor man
This is fanatstic really, thanx a bunch. Love the armadillo bit.
love Graham Chapman just casually smoking a pipe, haha.
Great footage, I love it.
And Graham saing "medically speaking I think something's wrong with it" about the armadillo XD
thanks for the vid !!! enjoyed it verry much !!!
I actually saw this interview back in Texas...I remember the armadillo sitting in Palin's lap. I was a big Python fan from their beginning.
Very nice!! I'm reading MP's autobiography this broadcast is mentioned. EI is not there because a few months ago he officially left Python. JC rarely went on these publicity tours. PBS in Dallas was the first station to show Python. Funny thing MP took the armidillo and it scared him at night when he went to for a pee!
Awww... Graham is awesome. I miss that guy so much...
cheers to KERA in Dallas
That was probably the thinnest and coolest ive ever seen Terry Jones looking. and the longest hair on Michael - he looked rather Beatles like. nice!
Terry Jones, cut off before he could utter "Owl Stretching Time".. which later became an episode title.
The armadillo!! I just finished reading the section about it and this interview in Michael Palin's Diaries 1969-1979.
If you love Palin and/or Python you need to get that book!
What Terry Jones was about to say was "Owl stretching Time" Which was one of the 1st names to be suggested for the show.
Python folowed me across the pond in 1975. Never got right since...
Ahhh, lucky me, I was a teenager in Dallas when this aired. I can actually remember this fund drive! My friends and I would get in trouble with our parents for laughing so much--it came on late and they all were usually in bed by then.
Thanks for posting this!
They're absolutely wonderful and gorgeous in this interview
I love Graham Chapman TOO MUCH
The world would be so DULL and DULL and DULL... without Monty Python :-)
Acording to my memory, I think that GETV (Georgia Educational TV - later Georgia Public Broadcasting) showed Monty Python as early as 1971 or 1972. I may be wrong, of couse, but I seem to remember seeing the TV show on GETV well before Holy Grail came out.
WOW... AMAZING.
The TV show's last season was in 1974 (only Cleese left, Idle was still there). All the movies they did were after this and were made with the complete, original Python group.
In '74, it premiered in Dallas. After that, 100 other PBS stations picked it up for October '74.
geniuws.i love the armidillo and graham looks awesome with the pipe
So I guess we have KERA to thank for allowing the demented, yet brilliant comedy of Monty Python to come to American shores. This is the most brilliant scheme by a PBS station during pledge breaks or as I call them "beg-a-thons." AMAZING FIND!
I remember watching this with my dad back in '78 or so. I didn't realize we were trailblazers.
terry wanted to say "owl-stretching time" which was the name of the fourth episode of the flying circus.
actually they had further ideas such as "whither canada?" (first episode), "gwen dibley's flying circus", "it's", "vaseline parade" and many more.
One of my fondest memories was "discovering" Python in the mid 70's on PBS in college. A group of friends got me sort of chemically altered, let's say, and told me I *had* to watch this show. I'll never forget how surprised all the odd skit endings, non sequiturs, and weird editing made me feel, and how brazen and irreverent it seemed. Finally there was a type of comedy for the counter culture. Of course to this day you can recite any line from Holy Grail and people of any age will know it.
Contrary to what the narrator at the beginning says and Wikipedia, KERA first showed MPFC in July of 1974. I remember seeing it in TV guide and thinking it was going to be a real circus show and asked my mom if I could watch it. I still watch it faithfully. By 1979 the Sunday night British comedy line-up was Benny Hill, MPFC, The Two Ronnies, Dave Allen at Large, and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
I love that man. Really lucky you were, I wonder what he was talking about when off air:)
I still have one.
Its so odd to see them in normal clothing, and speaking in their actual accents...
It's really great that someone managed to salvage this footage. :)
oh wow, the hair!!! lol this is so amazing! we want more!!!!!
raccooncartoon, you lucky, lucky person!
I love that non only is Chapman drunk in the interview, hes in the process of getting even drunker 😂
They hadn't left; Life of Brian was released in 79, so things were still going on.
They were probably busy elsewhere doing promotion for 'Holy Grail'.
Great footage though; thanks for posting.
God how fantastic is this?
I remember Cleese doing the radio comercial for Holy Grail -The first 100 people arriving at the theater got a coconut
Yeah, I just bought a coconut..
I didn't think there was anything Monty Python-related I hadn't already seen.
If there's anything I've learnt about the 70s, it's that everyone's hair looks like a wig.
I find him too, don't worry!
too bad it isn't longer :( and interrupting him!
Viva La Python!
I couldn't agree with you more! :D
Oh my god! He was electrified?! That's horrible!
well he was about to say "owl stretching time"
Didn't see this one at the time but I remember them returning to NJ a couple of years later to do the telethon for PBS. One thing I remember was PBS, in a attempt to show the difference in censorship between PBS and regular TV, played the Dirty Vicar sketch. They tried to play it like it would be played on regular TV but the engineers screwed up so the line "I like tits" came out like "I like /beep/ tits /beep/"
Other proposed titles were "A Horse, a Bucket and a Spoon," "Bunn, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot," "The Toad Elevating Moment," "Whither Canada?" and "Sex and Violence." The latter three were recycled as first-season episode titles, as was "Owl-Stretching Time."
To be fair they never really broke up as they recorded several albums all through the 1970s and 80s and they did make the Holy Grail with John Cleese in 1974 and it was released in 1975.
This is according to Wikipedia's entry on Fawlty Towers: "Fawlty Towers was a British sitcom made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975." Could probably be chalked up to bad timing. Hope that helps...
Terry Jones was a bit restrained in describing the hold commercial TV had in the US in the 1970s. By 1975 all Python's TV stuff was finished, with only movies to follow. It was old news in the rest of the word. It had been a hit everywhere, subtitled and dubbed from one end of Europe to the other. The US was about the only country that had never heard of it. Such was the power of the networks, they kept it out for five years.
@mandeville7474 Actually it was Palin, Idle, Gilliam, and Jones. Chapman was not involved in "Do Not Adjust Your Set," he was involved in other things, including "At Last, the 1948 Show"
Well, you've got to admit the ending of this footage being cut by the engineer was a very Monty Python thing!
I have never use this kind of comments. I dont normally do that. But I have to say - They are utterly gorgeous!!! I love those 70s haircuts.
"Terry Jones was about to say "Owl Stretching Time"."
yup.
I believe Terry Jones was about to say the show's original name was "Owl Stretching Time."
lol at the loud wine bottle opening at 12:14
Wow, they all look super foxy in this clip! :)
I tried watching this when it was first on here, but I was just too young -- 10 or 11 -- to understand ANY of it. By the time I was in high school and saw it again, it was like seeing it for the first time. By then, however, I had already seen every episode of Fawlty Towers thanks to my Mom, and I saw John Cleese and yelled, "Hey! it's that guy from Fawlty Towers!" My friends have teased me about that to this very day. Sigh. I was so uncool.
The Beatles of comedy!!.. and they have the hair to prove it.
They are about to creat the greatest comedy movie of all times!
I believe he was going to say "Owl Stretching Time"
It's also on Wikipedia - a full list of potential names.
Anybody got any footage relating to the early broadcasts of series 4 (on ABC?)which were so hacked to pieces the Pythons sued the network and won?
That would be interesting to see. Great footage. Thanks for downloading it.
Graham's hair is gorgeous too.
Love how English Gilliam sounded back then!
I remember Cleese doing the radio comercial for Holy Grail -The first 100 people arriving at the theater got a coconut
Aww! Why did it have to end so abruptly?
It's really great to see a Monty Python interview back in the days when they were actually still making Monty Python sketches (at least in movies).
But was Graham Chapman drunk? I know he had alcohol problems and this might go as further evidence, because he always seemed to pull it together on the shows (or at least the editors did).
Love those phones. And smoking on stage!
He may have been tired, but he was likely also quite drunk, as he generally was in those days.
Graham is so great!:))
there were a few other interview of monty python on youtube with jones palin and chapman in 1979, does anybody here know where i can find those videos?
Cleese was already gone from the group, he wasn't on the fourth season of flying circus.
Are you in the US? My local library had it, and I live in a small suburb of Richmond, VA. I think Amazon has it as well :)
Yeah the poor bastard. I think he stopped drinking after 1975 though; just before he played Brian.
They were promoting the holy grail, and Cleese was in that.
the set really looks like the set in the BlackMail skit from Monty python.
Graham was just about to tell the story of the masturbation debate with the BBC commissioner before he went off on a tangent.
John Cleese is my favorite. I also watched Faulty Towers.
The clip itself feels like 'Election Night' or something... How wierd!
mike writes about this armadillo in his Diary
He was dealing with his struggle aainst alcoholism
Monty Python and the Holy Grail ... "we don;t have a distributr yet..." :)