User reviews

First of all, a note: this comment is not just for the title under which it is listed, but for the entire first disc of the DVD pack called "The Life Of Python", which is a program assembled in 1999 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the creation of the Monty Python team. The program begins with the entertaining, informative and not at all dry documentary "It's The Monty Python Story", which tells us....well, the title is self-explanatory. Among the highlights of this documentary: we see people holding signs that say things like "Python=Serpent=Satan" outside theaters playing "The Life Of Brian"; Cleese, Palin and Jones admit that "The Meaning Of Life" is not quite as good as their other films; Palin (probably the most eloquent of the bunch) and Gilliam explain why they are opposed to the idea of a formal reunion. Then we get a nice little feature about Palin re-visiting some of the places where the Pythons filmed some of their sketches 30 years ago. The show lags a bit in the middle, with a brand new "Gorilla Sketch" which I frankly found awful, and a "lost" 10-minute May Day Special, which Cleese symbolically finds in the BBC garbage dump, and which probably belongs there (as Cleese himself admits!). But then the show makes a brilliant recovery with another, shorter documentary ("From Spam To Sperm") about Monty Python and their music, which (as you know) is impossible to get out of your mind once you've heard it, and we get to see how Eric Idle became a pop star! There are also some great animated bits, not only by Terry Gilliam but also by the "South Park" creators, and Cleese gets some laughs when he complains about this whole celebratory program being shown on BBC-2, instead of the more popular BBC-1 ("thanks a lot for the vote of confidence!"). (***)

When I saw the commercial for this Tv show, for some reason I thought it would be a rubbish, boring, old documentary with no humor in it at all. But this has turned out to be very good. It has clips from the Python Tv show and films and interviews with the python team. If you ever get the chance to see this then do so, it's very good. Monty Python fans won't be disappointed.

In his review, Nick Roberts said, "I found that one bit was not on the DVD that I knew about, it could have been aired on BBC and was cut from the DVD, or was an out take from the show. It was where Palin plays a man who wants to be remembered as an idol so he comes to a man played by Cleese, who eventually shoots him." This is actually from an episode of the documentary, "The Human Face", which John Cleese wrote and presented. Michael appeared in one show, in a couple of short sketches.

As for "Python Night" itself, it's a shame that Eric wasn't more heavily involved. Nothing to do with anything Carol Cleveland said, as a previous poster has speculated (besides which, the bit Eric's quoted as being annoyed about - Carol commenting on the lack of roles for women in Python - was actually dubbed in from a documentary made 10 years previously), and more annoyance that plans for a stage tour had taken a nosedive. But it would have been nice to see the whole surviving group, in costume, doing some silly sketches.

That aside, I loved the whole evening of programmes, the documentaries, the unearthed footage, the new sketches, a new Gilliam animation, and the very skillful way that Graham's Colonel was brought into the proceedings (though the editing of the American "Life of Python" DVD removes the lead-in to this - celebrity 'tributes' to the Pythons - which slightly spoils the moment), so that, just for a moment, it did feel like all 6 Pythons were genuinely reunited for the night. Here's hoping there'll be more reunions still to come.

I loved it alot. I never thought for a second that it would be boring. Nothing about Monty Python could be boring for me and I love when they talk about their Python days. At one point it got sad for like a minite.

I saw this a couple of years ago and I thought It would be kinda boring and mundane but of coarse, Monty Python would never alowe that.I really liked it and found it very intertaining but the problem is it was only 3 hours. I especially like when they showed clips from stuff I forgot about like Hollywood bowl and ect.