Python favourites still wildly funny

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This article was published 22/02/2006 (7140 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FOR fans of the legendary Brit-import comedy troupe, the PBS series Monty Python’s Personal Best won’t exactly be something completely different.

In fact, the six-part collection of favourite sketches, clips and quick-hit gags — which premieres tonight at 8 on the U.S. public broadcasting system — will be something thoroughly familiar, with a couple of marginally different bits thrown in here and there.

But that doesn’t dull the impact of this inspired compilation, which is ostensibly arranged according to each troupe member’s personal Python preferences. It’s still wildly silly and brilliantly, dizzyingly funny stuff.

The five surviving members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus wrote and produced their contributions to Personal Best, and then collaborated on a sixth film in honour of deceased colleague Graham Chapman.

The series opens with Eric Idle’s Personal Best, which finds the now-L.A.-based Python alumnus revisiting the venue where a famous 1982 comedy concert was transformed into the big-screen hit Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

Showing that he hasn’t lost his knack for playing the dithering TV presenter, Idle introduces his episode with a familiar brand of deadly-serious silliness:

“Tonight’s Personal Best, the 16th in this series of six, looks at the work of Eric Idle,” he deadpans. “He has often been described as the funniest of the Python boys.

He obviously is not the nicest — that was clearly Ringo — but many people have suggested that he might have been the third tallest.

“Was he, indeed, over six feet tall, or was he, perhaps, two shorter men sitting on each other’s shoulders?”

Idle’s collection of comic contributions includes several snippets from the Hollywood Bowl feature — the Bruces singing the Philosophers’ Song, the travel-agent sketch (which ends with a memorable chase through the audience while Idle continues an extended rant on ill-mannered British tourists), and the classic “Nudge, nudge, wink, wink” skit — as well as such segments from the Python TV series as the Silly Olympics, an interview with a man who speaks completely in anagrams, the hairdressers’ expedition to Mt. Everest and the Australia-bashing “Bruces” sketch.

A second episode, Graham Chapman’s Personal Best — which was not available for preview — also airs tonight.

John Cleese’s Personal Best, which airs next Wednesday at 8 p.m., is just as inspired as Idle’s. The tallest of the Pythons includes a new bit in which he plays a cranky, completely senile and obviously-near-death 95-year-old version of himself. It’s very funny, and Cleese demonstrates a continuing affinity for the kind of politically incorrect humour the Pythons did so well but that few modern-day troupes would even attempt.

Among the sketches chosen by Cleese are a wrestling match to determine the existence of God, the fan-favourite Upper Class Twit of the Year Show, an exploding rendition of the Blue Danube waltz, the brief but hilarious Fish Slapping Dance and the unforgettably deranged sergeant-major teaching his troupes how to defend themselves against an attack by someone armed with fresh fruit.

Terry Gilliam’s Personal Best, an animation-only collection from the group’s sole American member, also airs next week. Films by Michael Palin and Terry Jones arrive on March 8.

They are — if you consider yourself any kind of comedy fan at all — not to be missed.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca