Monty Python's Flying Circus - Set 5 (1998) USA
Monty Python's Flying Circus - Set 5 Image Cover
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Director:John Howard Davies, Ian MacNaughton
Studio:A&E Home Video
Writer:Peter Crabbe
Rating:4
Rated:NR
Date Added:2006-03-19
ASIN:0767024494
UPC:0733961700824
Price:$39.95
Genre:Monty Python's Flying Circus
Release:2000-02-05
IMDb:0287570
Duration:180
Aspect Ratio:1.33:1
Sound:Stereo
Languages:English
Subtitles:English
Features:Box set
John Howard Davies, Ian MacNaughton  ...  (Director)
Peter Crabbe  ...  (Writer)
 
Robert Klein  ...  Host
John Cleese  ...  Himself / Various roles (also archive footage)
Terry Gilliam  ...  Himself / Various roles (also archive footage)
Eric Idle  ...  Himself / Various roles (also archive footage)
Terry Jones  ...  Himself / Various roles (also archive footage)
Michael Palin  ...  Himself / Various roles (also archive footage)
Graham Chapman  ...  Himself / Various roles (archive footage)
Eddie Izzard  ...  Himself / Monty Python Imposter
Carol Cleveland  ...  Various roles (archive footage)
Cathleen Summers  ...  Herself
Summary: This set contains six "persistently silly" episodes from Monty Python's third and final full season (the ones introduced by Terry Jones's naked keyboardist). The quality of the sketches is not as consistent as it was in the first two seasons, but no Monty Python collection is complete without such series benchmarks as Njorl's Saga, an exciting Icelandic tale appropriated by the North Malden Icelandic Society; a courtroom burlesque featuring Eric Idle as a very apologetic mass murderer; the Argument Clinic sketch; Gumby brain surgery; and the Fish-Slapping Dance, which Michael Palin is on record as saying is his personal favorite bit of Python nonsense. A warning to more sensitive viewers: There is "material that some may find offensive, but which is really smashing," as well as blatant violations of something called the "Strange Sketch Act." Chief among these is the one in which Terry Jones appears as a pitiable man whose every utterance reduces listeners to hysterical fits of laughter; the ill-fated expedition to Lake Pahoe (located at 22A Runcorn Avenue); and an in-person documentary about the sex life of the mollusk, from the scallop ("second in depravity only to the common clam") to the whelk ("gay boy of the gastropods"). EpisodeĀ 30 has the distinction of featuring two of the most hilariously annoying characters Monty Python ever perpetrated on the public: John Cleese as Miss Anne Elk, who has a theory on brontosauruses, and Idle as the extremely loquacious Mr. Smoke-Too-Much. --Donald Liebenson