Steve Martin Originally Thought Monty Python Was a Recording Act
Steve Martin and the Monty Python gang are seemingly big fans of each other’s work — although John Cleese’s opinion of the American comedian may have soured slightly in recent years, after Eric Idle gave him the role of God in Spamalot and “fired” Cleese.
Martin is such a Python admirer that he was tapped to host the TV special Parrot Sketch Not Included — 20 Years of Monty Python, which featured the final onscreen appearance of those six unforgettable comedians: “John, Paul, George, Ringo, Bob and… one other unforgettable guy.”
But when Martin first got into Monty Python, he didn’t even know what they looked like. That’s because the show didn’t air in the U.S. until 1974, but their albums were widely available.
The Pythons began issuing audio recordings of their sketches as early as 1970. And while their first release, simply titled Monty Python’s Flying Circus, only featured clips from the TV show, later efforts became far more experimental. Instead of just copy and pasting sketches from the series, they eventually wrote new material that played with the audio format in fun ways, such as “Are You Embarrassed Easily?,” a mock audio survey measuring the discomfort associated with various naughty noises.
And the 1973 album Matching Tie and Handkerchief was an especially inspired concept: a physics-defying “three-sided” record. This was accomplished by including two sets of grooves on the second side of the vinyl record, meaning that listeners might hear entirely different sketches depending on where they dropped the needle.
And while And Now for Something Completely Different had represented a cinematic attempt to promote the comedy of Monty Python to Americans, the albums were arguably a bigger boost. The Pythons’ producer, John Goldstone, was shocked to see people in Los Angeles lined up to see Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and believed that the albums were a key contributor to that success.
“That kind of underground thing had happened,” Goldstone theorized. “It was partly to do with the record albums being available and some kind of recognition of Python as a television series, and they were there, and it worked.”
Martin was one of those fans who dug the recordings, not even realizing that the group had made anything else. “For a long time I thought they were a record act,” Martin said in the documentary From Spam to Sperm. “I had no idea they did a TV show. I listened to this album and I was just taken aback. I thought it was stunning. I thought it was hilarious. The kind of thing you could listen to over and over and over.”
Martin later ended up befriending the Pythons, and became especially close with Eric Idle. He probably checked out their movies and TV shows at some point too.
