I have only just learned a bit of Monty Python trivia

[Oeditpus Rex]

To wit:

The actor who played Helen Williams, demonstrative wife of boys' school teacher Humphrey Williams in "Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life'"...





Now, sex — sex, sex, sex. Where were we? Well, had I got as far as the
penis entering the vagina?



...was Patricia Quinn, who was also none other than Magenta in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."







I cannot think of a suitable self-punishment for taking so long to discover this. Suggestions are welcome.

[MissHoneychurch]

1. OMG

I can't believe it!! There is something about Monty Python you didn't know? :wow:


Now .... the punishment .... hmmmm .... a thread in GDP???

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. It does seem unlikely, doesn't it?

Nah, seriously — there's a British woman, Analda Anglin, who ran the Usenet group alt.fan.monty-python — I wouldn't be surprised if she had all the lads' home phone numbers on her cell phone. And she was like 18 when she started.

I may be in the top 10 percent of Python geeks worldwide, but I'm not even close to the elites such as her, or Kim "Howard" Johnson, who wrote "The First 200 20 Years of Monty Python," "And Now for Something Completely Trivial: The Monty Python Trivia and Quiz Book" and "Life Before and After Monty Python: The Solo Flights of the Flying Circus."



Now — what kind of thread? :scared:

[MissHoneychurch]

3. Let me guess

you have those books at home :D


Who are you supporting? Maybe a thread "I voted for .... but ..... starts to grow on me" or something like that :D

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. Well... I have one of 'em

"The First 200 20 Years of Monty Python"... along with "Monty Python Speaks," Graham Chapman's "Graham Crackers" (I inexplicably have yet to get his first book, "A Liar's Autobiography") and a couple of others. Oh, and of course, both volumes of "Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail BOOK." (I got those long before the scripts were available on the internets — hell, even before there was an internets.)



k, how about "I voted for Kucinich, but an African swallow starts to grow on me"?

No, wait — they'd take "African swallow" as a slur against Obama. :crazy:

[nytemare]

5. Now I must say "Ni" to myself!

I am a Pythonite, and used to go to Rocky Horror as a religion, and I didn't know that either.

Interesting piece of info!

:hi:

[quip]

6. The comfy chair?

BTW, Oedi, I have a question for you WRT the origin of the name "Flying Circus". Can this be traced back to Ian Fleming's Goldfinger and Pussy Galore?

[Oeditpus Rex]

9. Not that I'm aware of

That might've been in the back of the head of Michael Mills, the BBC's head of comedy at the time, but... okay, Barry Took, who'd been in a few comedy series and was sort of a comedic advisor to the BBC, was the guy who got the Pythons together and represented them at the Beeb, having known them from "At Last, the 1948 Show," which starred Cleese and Chapman (along with Tim-Brooke Taylor, Marty Feldman and Aimi McDonald), and "Do Not Adjust Your Set," which had Jones, Palin and Idle, with Gilliam contributing animations. (Both shows were on ITV.)

For some reason, Mills referred to the lads as "Barry Took's Circus," and in fact used "the Circus" to refer to them in memos and whatnot. Ultimately he insisted "Circus" be in the actual title. "Flying" was added because it just sorta fit, and "Monty Python" because it sounded like the name of a bad theatrical agent. (They'd also considered "Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus," not knowing there really was a woman in England named Gwen Dibley.)

Some of the other titles they kicked around (some of which were used as sketch or episode titles) were "Baron von Took's Flying Circus," "A Horse, a Bucket and a Spoon," "Bun, Whackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot," "Owl-Stretching Time," "Sex and Violence," "The Toad Elevating Moment" and "The Horrible Earnest Megapode" and "It's..."

[racaulk]

7. Are you suggesting that coconuts are migratory?

;)

[WinkyDink]

21. Could've been an African swallow. Lovely plumage.

[quip]

26. You've confused the Norwegian Blue with an African swallow. I'm afraid I'm going to

have to shoot you.

[racaulk]

28. Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-uh!

[Arkham House]

8. There can be but one punishment...

...a rabid assault from a fresh fruit...preferably a raspberry...

[Cabcere]

17. Release the tiger!

:P :hi:

[Oeditpus Rex]

20. Won't work

I'm packin' peaches. :D

[Cabcere]

23. *snort*

If I had a nickel for every time I heard THAT one... ;) :evilgrin: :rofl:

:hug:

[Oeditpus Rex]

27. Oh, shit!

Well played. :rofl:









"That's what she said."

[FloridaJudy]

25. Give the rack a turn! eom

[Kolesar]

10. Did you ever read Cleese's book about "families and other..."?

I heard his interview on NPR years ago. Sounded like my family. No wonder the boy was little wound up. I think his alter ego was Basil Fawlty.

[Oeditpus Rex]

13. Didn't even know he'd written such a book

Cleese was known, though, as the most rigid of the Pythons (except for financially; that was Idle's niche). Yet, he and Chapman came up with the most outrageous, socially unacceptable sketches.

Go figure. :shrug:

[Cabcere]

29. I think Graham Chapman's middle name was "Outrageous"

or possibly "Socially Unacceptable." :P I remember, when I was named high school valedictorian, wanting to do something like what John Cleese talked about at Chapman's funeral for my speech:

"I remember his being invited to speak at the Oxford union, and entering the chamber dressed as a carrot---a full length orange tapering costume with a large, bright green sprig as a hat----and then, when his turn came to speak, refusing to do so. He just stood there, literally speechless, for twenty minutes, smiling beatifically. The only time in world history that a totally silent man has succeeded in inciting a riot."

(C&P from http://www.geocities.com/fang_club/chapman_memorial.html ).

:rofl: A carrot. Fucking brilliant. :D I suppose it's a good thing I couldn't put together a carrot costume (or anything like it) on such short notice, because it rained on our graduation and so we had to have the ceremony in the gym, which was about a brazillion degrees. x(

[Oeditpus Rex]

30. So you coulda been a steamed carrot

:D



Chapman's unorthodox exploits are the stuff of legend. Once, at a party thrown by, I believe, a BBC bigwig, he dropped trou and calmly sat in a chair, sipping a drink, as if nothing whatsoever was amiss.

Let's not forget, though, that he and his partner, David Sherlock, adopted a teenage boy who had twice run away from home.



Miss ya, Gray. :cry:

[Cabcere]

31. LOL, yeah

:D

He really was an amazing person, wasn't he? :hug: Once again I feel cheated by the lateness of my birth...he died when I was about three, I think. :(

[Oeditpus Rex]

32. He died nine days after I stopped drinking

So I wasn't even aware of it at the time, as I was still a bit of a mess. :(

[Cabcere]

33. Oh, wow.

:hug: That's rough. :( I'm glad you're OK now, though. :pals:

[pokerfan]

11. I did not know that

and I'm a fan of both. Saw RHPS on campus in 1977.

Meaning of Life - Sex Education

[KitchenWitch]

12. You must let me be the big fish wielder in the fish slapping dance

[Oeditpus Rex]

15. An apt chastizement

I'm one who delights in all manifestations of the piscatorian muse.

[Cabcere]

14. That's amazing

...and any punishment I can think of at the moment would probably get this thread locked. :evilgrin: It's your fault though, really, for sending me the link to that YouTube video...I just watched it again and my brain is pretty much completely nonfunctional as a result. :crazy: :loveya: :hi:

[Oeditpus Rex]

16. It's just a flesh wound

:P

[leftofthedial]

18. surely thou must carry the holy hand grenade

on the next dead parrot society outing

including during the drag races

[Oeditpus Rex]

19. I shall place it in my bodice

during the Queen Victoria Handicap.

[WinkyDink]

22. And the counting shall be three.

[DS1]

24. I don't see how that's trivia

it's trivial, sure, but if she played similar roles or her characters' names were the same that would be interesting..

:shrug: