‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ Was Nearly Erased by the BBC

The Monty Python gang have appeared in movies, stage shows and a surprising number of confusing video games, but it all began with the classic 1969 BBC series Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Yes, the TV show is where we first saw classic routines like “The Dead Parrot Sketch,” “The Spanish Inquisition” and the masterclass in televisual bad taste that was the “Undertaker Sketch.” Then there are underrated gems like the wildly absurd “Confuse-a-Cat” sketch.

The point is, the world is definitely a better place with Monty Python’s Flying Circus in it. But the entire show was nearly lost to time, like tears in the rain. Or, more appropriately, SPAM in some kind of SPAM rain.

Back when Monty Python’s Flying Circus was first being produced, the BBC regularly reused videotapes by using a “bulk-erasure machine” that would “systematically wipe out shows that were believed to have exhausted their usefulness.” The reason being that tapes were pricey, and TV was thought of as ephemeral content to be “consumed in the moment,” not works of art that required archiving.

Many episodes of Doctor Who can never be seen again as a result of this practice. The same goes for much of Python antecedent Spike Milligan’s Q… series, and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s Not Only… But Also. 

Monty Python’s Flying Circus very nearly met a similar fate. According to Terry Jones, in 1971 he received a call from a BBC employee warning him that the company was planning to erase the first two seasons of the show and use the tapes for more “serious” entertainment like “ballet and opera.” Steve Coogan relayed the same story in the documentary series Monty Python: Almost the Truth, suggesting that Jones then “bought the tapes from the BBC.” 

Yeah, it doesn’t seem like he actually bought the tapes. In Jones’ telling of the incident, he bravely “smuggled out the tapes and recorded them onto a Philips VCR home system.” Michael Palin recalled that they hastily acquired a “clunky” tape recorder, and Jones’ Python bootlegs “were all in his garage, waiting to be brought out at a suitable time.” 

Similarly, Terry Gilliam once got a call from the channel asking him if he wanted to keep some cans of film that were taking up space, and when he arrived at the BBC, he found all of his animation reels “being thrown out the back door.”  

Ultimately Monty Python’s Flying Circus wasn’t wiped from existence, not just because of Jones’ rogue backups, because the BBC licensed the show to PBS for broadcast in the U.S. And even some other BBC programs, once believed to have been lost to excessive wiping, have subsequently been recovered, including footage of a young Woody Allen boxing a kangaroo.

Is anyone not rooting for the kangaroo?

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