Word: circus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...This choleric temperament would define Cleese's post-Flying Circus personality: as Basil Fawlty in his Fawlty Towers sitcom; as the martinet sergeant in the film of Peter Nichols' Privates on Parade; and, right now, in Spamalot, as the Voice of God. When Arthur cravenly compliments Him on the notion of a quest for the Grail, Cleese the Almighty bellows in that distinct and cutting tenor: "Of course it's a good idea. I'm God, you stupid...
...their prime - which extends from the debut of Flying Circus through Life of Brian 10 years later - the Pythons were lauded as doing for comedy in the '70s what the Beatles did for pop music in the '60s. They extended Britain's primacy of Cool through a decade that, in other respects, was pretty bleak. Not that a Silly Walk through Harrod's could lessen the likelihood of an IRA bomb, or a thought of the Parrot sketch could warm a body through a winter rendered heatless by the oil embargo. But the Pythons lightened the load. Whatever the real...
...Another thing about the Beatles and the Pythons: both could be called musical comedy acts. Just as the Fab Four made humor a crucial part of their appeal, so the Pythons frequently used songs in Flying Circus ("Eric the Half-a-Bee," "The Lumberjack Song," "Dennis Moore") and their films. Idle's blithely idiotic ditty, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," helped make Life of Brian that rare Crucifixion movie you could hum your way out of. And the Jones-Palin anthem from The Meaning of Life ("Every sperm is sacred / Every sperm is great / If a sperm...
...Idle might have been born to showbiz. His grandfather, Henry Bertrand, had been manager of a circus called Robey's Flying Midgets. "I ended up in a circus too, and a flying one at that." In fact, his childhood was more Dickensian-poignant than Python-comic. In 1945, when Eric was two, his father died when coming home from the Army for Christmas; the car he'd hitched a ride in was hit by a truck. The family had few resources, so for a dozen years, from age seven, Eric was raised at the Royal Orphanage in Wolverhampton, an institution...
...John was older by a few years - a seniority crucial to lads just down from university. Cleese was the only one who had hit 30 by the time Flying Circus began, and the one who had become a familiar television personality pre-Python. He was also the first to get bored by the show. Cleese did go on the lam a lot, leaving the Pythons more times than Judy Garland sang "Over the Rainbow." He wrote little for the third season of the TV show (he claims doing only the two most famous sketches, Cheese Shop and Dennis Moore...