Eric Idle Once Accused John Cleese of Colluding With BBC Censors to Cut a Monty Python Sketch

Eric Idle and John Cleese’s recent social media feud garnered a lot of attention from fans, but it’s far from the first time that the two Monty Python members squabbled. As one resurfaced interview clip illustrates, their behind-the-scenes tension goes back decades, and once involved an argument over drinking urine. 

One of the most infamous lost Python sketches is “Wee-Wee Wine Tasting,” which was filmed for the Season Three episode “E. Henry Thripshaw's Disease” but ultimately cut from the broadcast. As Idle recalled in the 1990 documentary Life of Python, the sketch, which he wrote with Michael Palin, found a refined gentleman visiting a wine cellar, and taking guesses as to the contents of his glass (Pouilly Fumé? Médoc?) only to be constantly informed that the wine is, in fact, “wee-wee.”

While most members of the Pythons got behind the “very silly” sketch, Cleese was vehemently opposed to it and, as Idle speculated, “collaborated with the BBC to cut (it).”

Terry Jones, too, recalled that Cleese very much “disapproved of the ‘Wee-Wee’ sketch.” Although he admitted that it was “extremely silly and in bad taste,” Jones also pointed out that the group “couldn’t think of anything else” at the time. “We were running out of material by that time!” he confessed.

Cleese has copped to the fact that he wasn’t exactly a big fan of “Wee-Wee Wine Tasting,” claiming that it wasn’t funny enough to justify “the slight tackiness involved.” In other interviews, he was even harsher, calling it a “deeply embarrassing piece of material.” And while he never admitted to having a hand in its excision from the show, he did state that he was “utterly on the side of the BBC censor” on that particular issue. 

Cleese has pointed out that he was generally the more “conservative” voice within the group, and thought that the BBC censors during his tenure on Monty Python’s Flying Circus were “terrific.”

Terry Gilliam noted that Cleese and the BBC had very different reasons for disliking the “Wee-Wee” sketch, with the network censors’ notes inadvertently revealing that they were “very sick people.” Apparently one of their objections was a moment where a man “drinks menstrual urine.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” was the Python’s response to the note, which apparently stemmed from the fact that “one of the white wines was a very light Rosé.”

Footage of the sketch has sadly been lost to time, but while the script was unavailable for years, in 2017 the full sketch was published in the book Monty Python’s Flying Circus: Hidden Treasures. 

So there’s nothing to stop you and your friends from buying the book and performing the sketch for yourselves, just to stick it to John Cleese. 

You (yes, you) should follow JM on Twitter (if it still exists by the time you’re reading this).