- George Harrison
Monty Python Encyclopedia, by Robert Ross (1997)
');} else if(theDay==2){document.write('Once when filming, a British middle-class lady came up and said, \'Oh, Monty Python; I absolutely hate you lot.\' And we felt quite proud and happy.- Eric Idle
David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 44
');} else if(theDay==3){document.write('The Python veto, which exists, is largely for business purposes, to prevent a majority vote going against individual rights, and it operates like the UN (with about the same results).- Eric Idle
David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 109
');} else if(theDay==4){document.write('Actually we did explore the possibilities for a stage show at one stage but we never really quite understood what the deal was because before we really got to understand the figures, Michael [Palin] said he didn\'t want to do it. I didn\'t want to do it because I don\'t like movies very much...- John Cleese
Interview: Monty Python and the Holy Grail Re-release
');} else if(theDay==5){document.write('I could never understand how we were all supposed to get in the same room for six months to write the damn things. We can\'t even get in the room for two days. When we met at Aspen that time, somebody was arriving late and somebody else was leaving early.- John Cleese
John Cleese, on writing scenes for Monty Python\'s Meaning of Life with Graham Chapman and the other members of Monty Python; interview in "Ullo John, Gotta New Ending?," by Andrew Collins, Empire, February 1997, pp. 64-67.
');} else if(theDay==6){document.write('I probably owe my life to the fact that I couldn\'t get the rest of them to vote for my material. Graham and I wrote this savage attack on the Ayatollah Khomeini, about this frenzied loony with all these religious objections to toilet paper. It was just a scurrilous, way over-the-top attack on Islamic extremists. I thought it was hilarious, and the others didn\'t, so it never got in. And I owe my life to that, because we would\'ve got at least a fatwah each. Actually, maybe that\'s what happened to Graham...- John Cleese
John Cleese, on writing scenes for Monty Python\'s Meaning of Life with Graham Chapman and the other members of Monty Python; interview in "Ullo John, Gotta New Ending?," by Andrew Collins, Empire, February 1997, pp. 64-67.
');} else if(theDay==7){document.write('What do I not miss [about Britain]? Answering endless questions about Monty Python - like nothing happened for 16 years.- Eric Idle
Eric told BBC News Online
');} else if(theDay==8){document.write('The one thing I remember about Christmas was that my father used to take me out in a boat about ten miles offshore on Christmas Day, and I used to have to swim back. Extraordinary. It was a ritual. Mind you, that wasn\'t the hard part. The difficult bit was getting out of the sack.- John Cleese
On Bristol Radio one time. Source: BBC America
');} else if(theDay==9){document.write('It\'s this weird mixture of intelligence and infantilism which I think is unique. We sort of spanned the breadth of what could be considered funny from very clever, sophisticated stuff to the dumbest, most childish, silly nonsense.- Terry Gilliam
On Python\'s humor; Todd Camp, "The Full Monty: Celebrating 25 Years of \'Python\'," The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 8, 1998, p.1
');} else if(theDay==10){document.write('That was when America started sinking into the depths, when Python hit the screen . . . another virus from England.- Terry Gilliam
On the debut of Monty Python on KERA\'s PBS station in 1974; Todd Camp, "The Full Monty: Celebrating 25 Years of \'Python\'," The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 8, 1998, p.1
');} else if(theDay==11){document.write('Our intelligent stuff was actually a bit fraudulent because what we used was key words and names of people that you would only know about if you went to college. So it appeared that we were intelligent, in fact, we were just nicking that stuff out of books half the time.- Terry Gilliam
On Python\'s intellectual humor; Todd Camp, "The Full Monty: Celebrating 25 Years of \'Python\'," The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 8, 1998, p.1
');} else if(theDay==12){document.write('I went through a period of feeling women\'s breasts at the bar, using the excuse, \'It\'s all right, I\'m a doctor.\'- Graham Chapman
On his days as an alcoholic and being out of control; Courage to Change
');} else if(theDay==13){document.write('The worst case of party-pooping I have ever come across.- Terry Jones
On Graham Chapman dying one day before Monty Python\'s 20th anniversary.
');} else if(theDay==14){document.write('We were always getting on to Michael for talking too much.- Eric Idle
On Michael Palin who was the last to talk to Graham Chapman before his death.
');} else if(theDay==15){document.write('[Graham Chapman] had two rare gifts: the ability to get us un-stuck with some inspired off-the-wall conceit when I was enmeshed in very on-the-wall musings; and in addition, the priceless talent of knowing whether something was funny or not.- John Cleese
On Graham Chapman, in an October 6, 1989 tribute in The Independent
');} else if(theDay==16){document.write('For about three or four years after the Python TV shows, I enjoyed watching them - not all of them, as there were some I was not so keen on.- Graham Chapman
Interview with Kim Howard Johnson (Life Before and After Monty Python)
');} else if(theDay==17){document.write('I love being shown new technology and fucking about with it. When we got into TV, nobody had mined it for silliness, so we were given the toys and allowed to play. That\'s what I find exciting about the Web; we\'re just playing with the toys. And there are no executives, which I really find refreshing.- Eric Idle
On the Internet in1996, in Entertainment Weekly
');} else if(theDay==18){document.write('A trip to New Zealand and America made me a little more broad-minded about myself, and immediately after qualifying [exams] I gave up medicine and became a raging poof. But no mincing - a butch one with a pipe.- Graham Chapman
In A Liar\'s Autobiography
');} else if(theDay==19){document.write('I wasn\'t at all sorry to say good-bye to the law; it was easy to convince my parents that it was okay because this was the BBC so there was a pension scheme - it was almost like going into the entertainment branch of the civil service.- John Cleese
David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 13
');} else if(theDay==20){document.write('I always drew when I was a kid. I did cartoons because they were the most entertaining. It\'s easiest to impress people if you draw a funny picture…- Terry Gilliam
David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 19
');} else if(theDay==21){document.write('The only art training I had was in college… I took several art courses... My training has actually been fairly sloppy and I\'ve been learning about art in retrospect.- Terry Gilliam
David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 19
');} else if(theDay==22){document.write('The very first cartoon I ever had published was an idea by… Joel Siegel (now the famous television critic)… He was working at an ad agency and got me in because I had long hair - the agency needed a long-hair in the place.- Terry Gilliam
David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 20
');} else if(theDay==23){document.write('I had two weeks to do it in, and four hundred pounds. The only way I could do it in that time was using cutouts. I just did these silly things with these cutouts and nobody had ever seen that before on British television. And the result was instantaneous; within a week I had all these offers to do all this other stuff. That\'s the power of that going out there and millions of people seeing your stuff.- Terry Gilliam
On his first animation, which was for the Frank Muir show We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh; Speaks! P. 21
');} else if(theDay==24){document.write('It was known internally as Baron Von Took\'s Flying Circus. It was then reduced to The Flying Circus and subsequently The Circus. All the internal memos said "The Circus…" I have a copy of the memo somewhere which predates anybody else\'s claim to have invented the name, it\'s something I\'m fairly jealous about - I mean, I don\'t give a damn, but I did invent it.- Barry Took
On the origins of the title Monty Python\'s Flying Circus, Speaks! P. 25
');} else if(theDay==25){document.write('An animator? Who wants an animator? There\'s no animators in programs, what\'s an animator going to do, for God\'s sake? That\'s Walt Disney, we can\'t afford that!- Michael Palin
Describing the BBC\'s early financial wranglings concerning the Pythons (and in this case Gilliam\'s role)
');} else if(theDay==26){document.write('Terry Jones was very interested in the form of the show, wanting it be different from any other - not only should we write better material than anybody else, but we should write in a different shape from any other comedy show.- Michael Palin
On the early debates about how Monty Python\'s Flying Circus should take form.
');} else if(theDay==27){document.write('Once we agreed on the idea of not having to end sketches, and having things linked and flowing, it allowed us to get out of a sketch when it was at its peak, when it was really still good; we would laugh when it was funny and it would move on when it wasn\'t funny.- Terry Gilliam
David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 37
');} else if(theDay==28){document.write('This was the leitmotiv; If it made us laugh, it was in; if it didn\'t, we sold it to other shows.- Eric Idle
David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 37
');} else if(theDay==29){document.write('That was the best time of Python, the most exciting time, when you knew you were going to hear new stuff and they were going to make you laugh.- Terry Jones
On reading sketches together as Monty Python, reviewing each other\'s writing. David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 38
');} else if(theDay==30){document.write('Gilliam stayed home and did his own thing since we soon got tired of listening to him trying to explain in words what he was doing.- Eric Idle
On reviewing Terry Gilliam\'s material during writing sessions. David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 39
');} else if(theDay==31){document.write('The idea of having characters in quite elaborate costume just coming in to say one word - "So" or "It\'s" - in the middle of a bit of narration, all that seemed very fresh. We enjoyed that feeling of being able to clown around the way we wanted to.- Michael Palin
On early writing sessions with the Pythons. David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks! p. 40
');}