Hello, my name is Reg. I'll be your announcer for the run of this page. And I'm pleased and deeply honored to welcome you now to the obligatory What's New section...
What's News?
January 29th, 2005: Spamalot! Eric Idle's new Broadway musical, lovingly ripped-off from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, is winning rave reviews, as directed by Mike Nichols and starring Tim Curry, Hank Azaria, and David Hyde Pierce ... not to mention our own John Cleese as the voice of God. Here's a link to buy tickets. In addition to the all-star cast album, Eric Idle will also be releasing an "official bootleg" album, "Eric Idle sings Spamalot," featuring his own versions of songs written for the show - including many that got cut out of it!
New Neil Innes CDs and things! I've been busy editing a feature film lately, but not too busy to help out at the official Neil Innes website. I've been designing some lovely new Cafe Press merchandise for you all, including a fantastic live CD called Live at Martyrs'. A must-have for any Neil fan. Our favorite singing minstrel and Rutle has been touring the US and UK lately, so check the dates and go! We've also released the 2 CD set "Breakfast with a Rutle," and Danny Barbour has released Neil's classic albums "Taking Off" and "The Innes Book of Records" on CD, as well as the GRIMMS album "Sleepers." For more news on this and other Neilness, visit the NeilInnes.org Message Board.
Out of the Trees has been recovered! The legendary one-episode show, written by Graham Chapman and Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), long thought lost, has apparently been recovered and may be screened in Britain very soon, perhaps as part of this year's Missing Believed Wiped programme.
Ripping Yarns and Rutles 2 on DVD! Michael Palin and Terry Jones have lovingly restored every episode of their classic post-Python series Ripping Yarns for a new DVD. The DVD features commentary, laugh-track-less versions of the episodes, and an incredibly rare BBC play entitled Secrets, written by Palin and Jones and not seen in years. (The play later became the film Consuming Passions.) Eric's Idle's latest film, Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch will be available on DVD this March. A companion to his classic film The Rutles: All You Need is Cash, the film features outtakes from the original film, as well as all-new interviews with celebrities like Tom Hanks, David Bowie, Mike Nichols, Carrie Fisher and many more - talking about how they were affected by the world's greatest rock group. I had a chance to see this film with Idle present in 2003, and I must say, it's hilarious, and a good buy for any Rutle/Python fan.
Gilliam News: Tideland and the Brothers Grimm! Terry Gilliam is one of the most fascinating film directors working today ... but his film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote shut down after only a week of shooting (as documented in "Lost in La Mancha," a must-see documentary available on DVD), and his film The Brothers Grimm, starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, was supposed to be released in November 2004, but will now not be released until November 2005 ... Gilliam's last released film was the 1998 cult classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. After a long quiet spell, it looks like Hollywood is about to get a huge dose of Gilliam once again. Gilliam's new movie is "Tideland," and he'll be letting fans in on the story of the making of it at the official website. "Brothers Grimm" will finally hit theaters - hard - this November. A great time to be a filmgoer ...
ERIC IDLE WRITES -- Recently, Eric Idle wrote Pythonline to say:
Cheer Up America.
Ok it looks bad but here are my tips for surviving the depression....
1) Cancel the papers for four years.
2) Ignore all letters from the army.
3) Don't fuck Republicans.
4) See if you can find an asshole to run next time.
5) Be extra nice to gays. They may be rounded up soon.
6) Remember the Roman Empire fell when the Christians took control."
HELP SAVE PYTHONET! Your donations will keep us alive. When I brought PythoNET back from the dead a few months ago, filling it with all new stuff, it didn't take long for the site to regain its old popularity, and more ... It makes me happy that so many people love and visit the site. We've gotten thousands and thousands of hits and exceeded 100 GB of traffic these past two months. Unfortunately, 100 GB of traffic is our limit. For these three months we've had to pay approximately 1200 dollars in overage charges. Which we simply can't afford. It costs a lot of money running a site like this, and Laurie Stevens, who pays for the site, is completely broke and simply can't do it anymore.
PythoNET's video section will be shut down temporarily - we can't afford to keep it online, and it's being shut down.
You can help prevent this. We need to buy a second server, and your donations to Laurie can help. Just a few dollars, or a couple of pounds, can keep PythoNET alive. Laurie Stevens also runs the Official Neil Innes site, and has done a great deal of good deeds for PythoNET and for other sites without asking anything in return. She doesn't know I'm asking this, but anything you can send her will help. Her email address is laurie@neilinnes.org - and you can paypal her money via that address. Your spare change could help keep this site alive.
We are looking for advertisers to post their ads on this site to provide funding to keep this site running. This is, as you've noticed, an incredibly popular site. If you're interested in advertising, let me know - my email address is ocpmovie at lycos.com.
March 23, 2004: Lots of new stuff today as far as scripts go. I've completely overhauled our Monty Python Script Collection. It now includes lots of Flying Circus material as well as post-Python projects such as:
and opened up a Fawlty Towers section, which is pretty lame right now, but that's only because I've just started.
I actually have a lot of very cool stuff done for the page which I haven't posted yet - I can't get to a broadband connection at the moment. I've encoded three more episodes of Rutland Weekend Television and there's also some more rare Python audio coming. So keep watching, that's all coming soon .....
May 9, 2004: Our Wind in the Willows page is updated to an insane degree. I scanned dozens of new photos from the official book, and posted them in beautiful high resolution. Not sure why I did this, but if we're going to be the only site for an obscure but rather good Terry Jones children's film from 1998, we might as well be a great one. Take a look, some good new stuff there. Also, new videos today:
All the Pythons wrote for David Frost's The Frost Report, but it was John Cleese who experienced the most success from it, first gaining notice as a performer appearing in sketches for the show. He was recognized on the street after this show, leading to starring roles on At Last the 1948 Show and of course Monty Python. This special 10-minute compilation features sketches from the show featuring John Cleese. With Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.
Sketches from Eric Idle's classic, rarely-seen post-Python series, Rutland Weekend Television. This is probably my favorite episode of RWT, due to bits like "Sprimpo," "24 Hours in Tunbridge Wells" and Eric's rant at the end. Neil sings "The Hard to Get," and sketches include "Ill Health Food Store," "Bad Continuity," and "The Massed Flashers of Reigate." Written by Eric Idle, music by Neil Innes. With David Battley, Henry Woolf, and Gwen Taylor. Visit our Rutland Weekend Page. More episodes below. Those with slower connections can also download this smaller 16 MB Realplayer version.
May 7, 2004: I've rewritten the biographies for all the Pythons from scratch. With thanks to George Perry's Life of Python, though most of it was off the top of my head. The Bit Players section has been redesigned a bit also, with new pics of Neil, Carol and Connie. I have also added a Neil Innes video page. I have made changes to the Life of Brian, Rutles, Graham Chapman Memorial, Do Not Adjust Your Set, Wind in the Willows and Python Industrial Films pages, along with some other pages I've probably forgotten. The Rutland Weekend page has some new images, the Rutland Weekend pictosketches have had broken links fixed all over, and there are two new episodes of RWT downloadable.
At this point I am adding new video clips every day. Clips just added today are:
Sketches from Eric Idle's classic, rarely seen post-Python sketch comedy series Rutland Weekend Television. Corporal Collier (David Battley), a character from a minor sketch in show 1.3 ("Army Religions"), returns to host this show. Neil Innes sings "I Give Myself to You" and "Crystal Balls", and sketches include "A Voyage Into James Burke," "Uri Geller Bending," "Husband and Wife," "Another Prison Sketch," and "Another Restaurant Sketch." Starring David Battley, Eric Idle, Neil Innes, Gwen Taylor, Henry Woolf, Terence Bayler, Carinthia West and Fatso.
This is a higher-quality version of a clip that's been available here for a long time. The Pythons, at their peak, recorded several industrial training films intended only to be shown to the executives and employees of Bird's Eye Frozen Peas, Close-Up Toothpaste, and Harmony Hairspray. The films would be educational for salesmen and marketers, but also showcase the Python sense of humor. They were never intended to be seen by the public. Over 30 years later, here they are. It's a testament to the Pythons' talent that they actually made the marketing of frozen peas funny. Also it's got Carol Cleveland in lingerie. Starring the Pythons, minus Terry G, who contributes the title art. Those with slower modems can download this smaller 8.3 Realplayer version.
After Monty Python's Flying Circus ended, Graham Chapman created a series with Douglas Adams (who would later create The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), and Bernard McKenna. That series was "Out of the Trees." Three scripts were written, but only one was ever produced. The pilot aired only once, got low ratings, and was never heard from again. It starred Chapman along with future Hitchhiker alums Simon Jones and Mark Wing-Davey. The pilot is thought to be lost, unless Jones or Wing-Davey has a copy. In this clip from "The Making of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," which is on the Hitchhiker's DVD, Douglas Adams recalls the lost show. He seems embarrassed by his own writing for the show, but in truth the script is quite terrific (we've read it), and we hope the lost show turns up someday.
A scene deleted from Eric Idle's film "The Rutles: All You Need is Cash," that you won't see on the DVD. Dan Aykroyd plays the man who turned down The Rutles. In the normal version of the film, Eric asks him "What's it like to be such an asshole?" But when the film originally aired on NBC in 1976, Eric couldn't say that word on television, so a much longer version of the scene was shot, with a new punchline. Eric and Dan Aykroyd both appear to be on the verge of laughing the whole time! This clip aired on TV but was not included on the Rutles DVD release, because the original footage from this scene was not found. So here it is.
Gospel time! Neil Innes sings "Slaves of Freedom," live. This song originally appeared on Eric Idle's "Rutland Weekend Television", and on Neil's own show "The Innes Book of Records," but here is a special live acoustic version.
The Rutles: Together Again! (1997) [Major Happy/Shangri-La]
(44 MB DivX AVI - visit Divx.com.)
"This is a shameless publicity stunt" ... The Rutles (minus Ollie Halsall and Eric Idle) returned in 1997 to record their best album, Archaeology. In this film shot and edited by Taly and Russ Johnson, Neil Innes, Rikki Fataar and John Halsey play "Major Happy's Up and Coming Once Upon a Good Time Band" and "Shangri-La," live on a rooftop in New York City. The video also features original art of Rutles merchandising and other good things.
May 6, 2004: A couple of new videos today. Videos and Rutland Weekend pages updated, as has been happening a lot this week. New images added to the Rutland Weekend page as well as two new downloadable episodes:
Sketches from Eric Idle's classic, rarely seen post-Python sketch comedy series Rutland Weekend Television. This is the final episode of Rutland Weekend ever. After a discussion about what words you can't say on television, Terence Bayler hosts a revue of sketches and music. Neil Innes sings "Slaves of Freedom," Neil and Gwen Taylor sing "Janitor's Kids," Eric sings "Smoke of Autumn Bonfires" and "Rover the Drover," and everyone sings "It's Hard to Make it When You're Straight." Also, The David Frost Show Again, The Return of the Pink Panzer, angels go on strike (and Neil sings "Fallen Arch Angel), and Rutlanders compete in the World's Most Boring Man competition, as Rutland Weekend goes off the air. Written by Eric Idle, music by Neil Innes. With David Battley, Gwen Taylor, Terence Bayler, Bunny May, Carinthia West and Fatso.
Sketches from Eric Idle's classic, rarely seen post-Python sketch comedy series Rutland Weekend Television. BBC2 presenter Tony Bilbow (who had a cameo in series 1 show 3) appears as himself in this episode, becoming Rutland Weekend's first international superstar! We hear the "Song O' the Insurance Men" and an "Accountancy Shanty" (not the same one as in Monty Python's Meaning of Life). Neil Innes, as the singing gynecologist, sings "Another Lonely Man," and takes a dangerous and silly trip to Germany. Meanwhile, unscrupulous insurance men prey on the weak of mind, and Tony Bilbow develops a sex problem. Written by Eric Idle, music by Neil Innes. With Tony Bilbow, David Battley, Gwen Taylor, Henry Woolf, Carinthia West and Fatso.
May 5th, 2004: Couple of new videos today. As has been happening every day this week. Enjoy it while it lasts!
I've been encoding episodes from the second season of Rutland Weekend Television. I have four done right now. I'll post two now just to get you started. I'd have 'em all posted right now, but I transport them here using zip disks ... which can be dodgy so I have to go back home and get two of the files again!
Rutland Weekend Television Episode 206 - "Rutland Weekend is Innocent"
(90.7 MB, Quicktime/Divx/3ivx)
The sixth episode of the second season of Rutland Weekend Television Hosted by Henry Woolf. Cower in fear at the terror of The Masked Accountant (Eric Idle)! Thrill to the exciting adventures of The Lone Accountant and Tonto (Eric Idle and Neil Innes)! Shield your ears as Eric Idle sings about wife-swapping, and Neil sings "Drama on a Saturday Night." And be very afraid as the writer of the show suddenly turns on his characters. Written by Eric Idle, music by Neil Innes. With David Battley, Gwen Taylor, Terence Bayler, Henry Woolf, Maggie Henderson and Fatso.
I started doing them in Realplayer format, but am now doing them as Divx AVIs, which I then convert to Quicktime files that play better on the Mac. Hopefully this will play on all systems. The file above is one of these. Lemme know if it works. The file below is Realplayer, and the ending is slightly out of sync so I might reencode it and fix it if I have time.
The second episode of the second season of Rutland Weekend Television. Hosted by Fatso, Neil Innes' backing group, who sing their way through the episode. Eric worries sheep, Neil sings "Topless A-Go-Go" and spoofs Elton John with "Godfrey Daniel," and "Expose" looks at sordid car-key-swapping parties. Finally, we enjoy an extended episode of the hard-boiled, tough-as-nails detective drama "Rutland 5-O." And Gwen swears. Written by Eric Idle, music by Neil Innes. With David Battley, Gwen Taylor, Bunny May, and Fatso (John Halsey, Billy Bremner, Roger Rettig and Brian Hodgson).
And here, have a music video from The Rutles Archaeology.
The Rutles (minus Ollie Halsall and Eric Idle) returned in 1997 to record their best album, Archaeology. Neil Innes, Rikki Fataar and John Halsey perform "Shangri-La" ... as a host of celebrities and celebrity impersonators appear to pay tribute to the legendary band. Special appearances by Slash, Janeane Garofalo, Richard Belzer, Eartha Kitt, and many, many, many more.
I have also debuted a new Rutles site at PythoNET. We didn't used to have one.
You'll spot it -- it's a billion individual tracks. It's a very recent Neil performance at a very small club (almost microscopic, and very dark, like your grandfather's bar in the basement) in L.A. March 22, 2003. Neil is accompanied throughout by Rutling Ken Thornton, the excellent guitar player. Neil had a sore throat that night, but still performed marvelously. Recorded by Bill Kates. I was there ... you hear my voice asking Neil stupid questions about The Young Ones and things getting proper video releases. These are two different sets. One is songs we've heard .... some Rutles in there .... and one set contains quite a bit more new songs you probably haven't heard before. "Hero of the Motorway", "Early Morning Train," "Eye Candy" ...
At the end, Eric Idle shows up (he was sitting at the bar with wife during most of the second set), in an excellent bit of business that was clearly pre-arranged but news to us! This is probably the only time you'll hear Eric Idle sing Rutles songs ... so that alone was worth it. Eric and Neil looked like old friends during this bit - I had a camcorder so I've got the very end of that on video somewhere. It was too dark to shoot most of the performance tho'. A documentary crew filmed this whole thing, so it exists somewhere in nice quality, but whether that will ever come to light, who knows?
May 1st, 2004:
I had some self-created Python MP3s up at PythoNET years ago, but thanks to various site moves, they all got screwed up a long time ago. Thanks to archive.org, I've found the original versions of these MP3s. They sound just fine now, and here they are.
Early-70s radio show by Eric Idle, a postcursor to Python and precursor to Rutland Weekend Television. I have been dying to actually hear something from this show for years, just to know what the hell it was all about.
It's very good to finally hear something. Some of the sketches he does are embarrassing because he'll play both parts and just play opposite himself, and you can hardly tell which character is supposed to be which, but the writing is comparable to Rutland Weekend.
In fact, "Penny For Your Warts" appears here -- a sketch which would later appear on Rutland Weekend! One of the least memorable RWT sketches, but it's very cool to know where it came from. You may want to fastforward through all the songs.
"Monty Python's Flying Circus" wasn't the only series Terry Gilliam did animation for in the early '70s. Python friend Marty Feldman had a show in the UK and the US called "The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine," which featured animations by Gilliam, including this cool title sequence. You can find lots of pictures from this sequence in the book "Animations of Mortality."
This animation had always looked familiar to me, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Now that I see it moving, I've figured it out. This segment was ripped off, on a shot by shot basis almost, by whoever animated the opening titles to the classic kid's show You Can't Do That on Television. The assembly line and the stamp on the huge photo face at the end in particular.
Eric Idle on Top of the Tops 1991: "Bright Side of Life" (9 MB)
"Bright Side of Life" was an unexpected hit years after "Life of Brian's" original release, in 1991. So Eric Idle performed the song on the popular UK music program "Top of the Pops." This performance is as cheesy as it gets - fake smoke, neon lights and all. Oh dear.
Wednesday, April 28th, 2004: Hey, who wants to listen to a nice, high-quality, probably-never-before-heard live performance by the Bonzo Dog Band?
Yes, I thought so ...
These clips amount to 25.7 minutes in total, including a backstage interview with Neil Innes. This concert performance was filmed for the German TV series "Jazz Bilden." Slightly edited, it's missing some bits, but the video of this still exists in an archive in Los Angeles called "Reeling in the Years."
The Bonzos perform "Urban Spaceman" on Beat Club, German TV. There was originally an announcer talking over this clip, so I've just edited in different sound over the clip to remove her.
Another clip from Terry Jones' Wind in the Willows, starring Steve Coogan and most of the Pythons. Coogan makes scared faces while the weasels sing "It's our secret of survival in a very nasty world," and the director goes nicely crazy with the special effects. I'm still using a six-year-old capture card for this rather than my nice Mac, and this clip's an easy way to tell that because it looks a bit like crap. (It's an analog card, so I can do whatever I want with the color settings - clearly I did this clip injustice this time.) Still a nice clip though.
Python Harmony Hairspray film ... I posted this before, but apparently the copy of it was screwed up or missing, so I'm posting it again to fix that. The sound quality is crap.
Memorial service for Graham Chapman .... I've posted the John Cleese speech at PythoNET before, but I wanted to do a nicer quality one which also had Eric Idle (with Douglas Adams, Tim Brooke-Taylor and everybody else) singing "Bright Side of Life" at the end. Eric mucks up the words, but his face says more than the words could here.
Those of you who don't like Realvideo will be glad to know that this is an MPEG. (And the Rutles vids were Quicktime.)
The Bonzo Dog Band perform "Equestrian Statue" in a Pathe Newsreel. With thanks to the British Pathe website. This clip features the original lineup of the band, with Sam Spoons and Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell. The Bonzos were good friends of the Pythons, starring on the pre-Python TV series Do Not Adjust Your Set. Bonzo Neil Innes later appeared in, and wrote music for the Python films.
The Bonzo Dog Band perform "The Head Ballet" in a Pathe Newsreel. With thanks to the British Pathe website. This clip features the original lineup of the band, with Sam Spoons and Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell. The Bonzos were good friends of the Pythons. If you're truly Bonzo-obsessed, we have the silent, raw footage from this newsreel here and here.
Monday, April 26th, 2004:
I've gone and updated the 1948 Show page to have many more actual facts on it. It's up to date now, and includes the episode guide by Matthew Sharp. It almost seems like a page on a restoration project now ...
Much more importantly, here's the start of the new Python-related videos at PythoNET. 1948 Shows and Bonzos in this round ...
http://orangecow.org/pythonet/videos/atlastthe1948showwiped.avi -- So all hail gav-lai ... he sent me the high-quality AVI of the episode of At Last the 1948 Show from Missing Presumed Wiped. Quality is gorgeous. A good episode too. Eric Idle is obvious on the right side of the screen during the "Scottish Ballet" sketch. You can even hear his voice! BIG file, about 150 megs. But worth it.
Now, here are the less insanely huge files I've just created.
AND NOW, AN INSANE NUMBER OF BONZO DOG BAND CLIPS. (8)
http://orangecow.org/pythonet/videos/canyonsspaceman.rm - Bonzos perform "Canyons of Your Mind" and "Urban Spaceman" on Colour Me Pop. Color! There's some really shitty sound editing in this clip since I patched it together from different sources (including a nice remastered CD), on an ancient computer which didn't really let me hear what I was doing that well. Sorry 'bout that. Maybe I'll do a fixed version some other time. But this is a lovely clip, isn't it?
http://orangecow.org/pythonet/videos/bonzosbyawaterfall.rm - Vivian croons "By a Waterfall" on Do Not Adjust Your Set. I love this clip because the kid audience gets involved -- at the beginning, when they start playing, one kid excitedly says "Bonzos!" And Vivian cracks up at the end.
http://orangecow.org/pythonet/videos/bonzosbeautifulzelda.rm - Neil sings "Beautiful Zelda" on Do Not Adjust Your Set. More shitty sound editing on this one - I have two different copies of this and they both have huge gaps in them, so I woggled between them. I had to shorten the opening because of this. But the editing makes this a more complete/better version of "Zelda".
Wait a sec, I had a nice remastered-sound version of the Beat Club performance of Urban Spaceman ... where the hell did that go?
Well, that will be up tomorrow then.
BONZO SECTION ENDS.
Quicktime file - my own personal edit of some footage from the Rutles DVD. This is my tribute to Rutles 2 basically. Since I don't have actual footage from it.
Long Tedious Explanation Ruining the Fun of the Clip
Intercutting between the old Eric and the young Eric. Eric did exactly this in the trailer for Rutles 2, which was called Rutles: Evolution then. I don't have a copy of that trailer, but I did something fairly similar here. I took Eric's intro to the DVD (which was shot at the same time as some stuff in Rutles 2, so some of this same footage is in Rutles 2), and cut it together with the deleted Blue Suede Schubert scene on the DVD (which is in Rutles 2), along with the previously-unseen extended version of Number One that first appeared on the DVD. I was shocked at how the Blue Suede Schubert footage came to life once I put the right audio on it (from the Rutles CD). Seemed lame on the DVD with short, muffled sound, but it's a great song when not muffled, so ...
Quicktime file of the beginning to the Rutles movie, ripped from the DVD. I edited in louder versions of all the songs, tho'. This is for those visiting PythoNET who've managed to go this long without hearing of the Rutles. You never know.
I actually have a whole bunch more, including Eric Idle singing at Graham Chapman's funeral, another Wind in the Willows clip ... But that's enough for now, isn't it?
Hello, my name is Reg. I'll be your announcer for the run of this page. And I'm pleased and deeply honored to welcome you now to the obligatory What's New section...
