Eric Idle Calls Out ‘The Worst Monty Python Show Ever’
Eric Idle isn’t exactly known for holding back his opinions on social media. After all, he’s been spilling digital tea relating to Monty Python for quite a while now. Most recently, Idle took the opportunity to blast an old TV special that, in his opinion, represents the troupe’s creative rock bottom.
A Python fan shared a clip in which “seventh Python” Carol Cleveland asks if the BBC is “dumbing” their programming down, before introducing a panel of brick-toting Gumbys. The scene was an excerpt from 1999’s Python Night, which Idle was quick to dismiss as “unquestionably the worst Python show ever.”
Python Night was an evening of programming on BBC Two that included documentaries and clip shows, all intended to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Most significantly, it actually featured new material from the Pythons. Well, some of the Pythons.
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Obviously Graham Chapman wasn’t around, having passed away shortly after the group’s 20th anniversary special. And Idle, who was already frustrated with the other Pythons following their failed plans for a reunion tour and a canceled Holy Grail sequel, opted not to participate. “Eric just didn’t want to have anything to do with it at all,” John Cleese revealed in The Pythons Autobiography by the Pythons.
Idle claimed that the script he was sent “wasn’t like Python at all, it was like a John Cleese commercial.” He was eventually cajoled into filming a solo monologue from his home, but called the final product “too long and very unfunny,” bragging that he “had the good taste to avoid it.” Looking back at some of the footage, including the moment in which Cleese gets sprayed with kitten guts, it’s tough to argue with him.
While they were able to get Python superfan Suzy Izzard to fill-in for Idle during some of the sketches, the material from the special certainly wasn’t up to the standards of the Pythons’ previous projects. The fact that it was shot with no audience present made the sketches feel all the more stilted and awkward.
Cleese believed that the new stuff was “very funny” and “was surprised by the negativity of the reviews,” but other Pythons were almost as displeased with the results as Idle. “I don’t think it’s the best work we’ve done,” Michael Palin argued. “It was an attempt to create what came rather spontaneously, quickly and easily 30 years before but didn’t any longer.”
He also pointed out that the writing process suffered due to Chapman’s absence. “Without Graham, we’re not Monty Python any longer,” Palin admitted. “You can have variations on Python without Graham, but it will not be what it was.”
Which isn’t what anyone who paid hundreds of pounds to see “Monty Python” at the O2 arena in 2014 wants to hear.
