Monty Python's Flying Circus - The Album (1970)

Gilliam's sole contribution-- the Album Cover.

After Monty Python's Flying Circus' first season, which was a critical and ratings success, the lads were politely urged by the BBC to make them an album. Having made the request, the BBC apparently decided that it's work was primarily done. The album is incredibly low rent, with a torpid semi-live audience listening politely to the sketches we've come to regard as classics. Palin talks about it briefly in his Diaries. It was Saturday, May 2nd, 1970, at Camden Theater. (Is this now called the "Camden People's Theatre"? Anyone?) They got there at 10:00, scripts pilfered from the show in hand, and started to rehearse the sound effects for the afternoon taping. They were told it was going to be done on the cheap; no money for music, no money for stereo. (No money for stereo?!) All music cues would be accomplished with the help of an organ, which, says Palin, "reduced everything to the level of tarty amateur dramatics."

But Chapman, the group hedonist, brought along a bottle of scotch, and the recording went off without much of a hitch. The small audience, and the non-audible sound effects made for tepid response from the audience. But it's interesting to see what worked and what didn't, and to speculate on why. We also begin to see the lads creating new material for the albums, messing with the radio medium as  playfully as they did television just a few months before.  We won't go into the sketches themselves, since we've covered them in the show blog, but the variations might be interesting to other obsessed maniacs.

"Flying Sheep" plays just like the show, only without the big laugh at the line "From Harold." The silliness had not infected the audience yet. They keep the sketch going with Cleese and Palin doing the Frenchmen, and it gets scarcely a titter. Then, as in the show, they cut to the Pepperpots discussing French philosophy. But in a twist away from previous material, they compare French philosophers to Germen philosophers. This is a fun bit, despite the  lack of response from the crowd. Idle seems to have adopted the role of MC, bringing his energy and volume way up to try to inject some life into the crowd-lette.

Idle takes us to "A Man with Three Buttocks," with Frampton played by gravelly, working-class Palin, instead of Jones. The laughs are more reliable, until they ask for the "quick... visual..." The lads seem to have forgotten that they're not on television. They probably did the whole piece standing up in front of microphones, and thus the physical bits made no sense. They redo the "continental version", with no reaction, and roller rink organ music takes us away to--

"Crunchy Frog". Cleese pronounces it "choco-laytes", and the first real laugh is Cleese advising what the box should say. Having heard this act many times on live performance albums, and heard laughs at every single line, it's perplexing how little the crowd laughs. Chapman follows with the PSA, cut off by the sound of a toilet flushing.

We come up on the sound of a club, and Idle launches right into "Nudge, Nudge", high speed, scarcely waiting for a laugh. But his "yes" gets a laugh, and the punchline hits hard-ish. We go straight into "The Mouse Problem." Cleese's awkwardness gets the biggest laughs yet. Palin as the announcer adds Cleese's phone number when giving out his personal info. Chapman steamrolls over some laughs in his sociologist bit, and the lads do their "man on the street" interviews, with some new additions; Jones as a Pepperpot says "I didn't say anything, it was just my tummy rumbling," and Cleese's Pepperpot advises the Mice/Men should be kicked in the upper lip with a steel-toe boot. None of the interviews get much of a laugh. The stream-of-consciousness presentation that we celebrate the show for is lost on this audience.

Organ music plays the wedding march, and Jones and Cleveland, panting, start off the "Buying a Bed" sketch. Idle gets a big laugh with his faulty translation. Chapman, instead of a paper bag, puts a bucket on his head, and insists he's "not coming out." (I think that ship had already sailed.) Idle and co. have to get into a fish tank and sing, instead of a tea box, probably because they had fish tank sfx, whereas the tea boxes just sit there silently, and are thus bad radio. These are minor adjustments made to work with the medium, as well as random spoken silliness thrown in. Carol Cleveland gives us the punch line, which gets not a titter. You know, for all the talk about England and their superior senses of humor, they're better at making jokes than they are at getting them.

"Interesting People" is next. Ali Bayar ("Stark... raving... mmmmmad.") is represented by a chicken clucking. The sound effect for the cat with influenza is reminiscent of Alvin and the Chipmunks, quite silly indeed. During the shouting match between Cleese and Jones, there's a big laugh for something we don't hear. The lads are slowly warming these guys up. "No, I fling her," gets a huge laugh. Instead of cutting away, like they do in the show, Palin promises another show next week with, among other things, a politician in a glass of water.

Next, for reasons that surpass understanding, comes the "Barbershop Sketch". Jones actually enters asking for "the barbershop sketch". Cleese provides a hushed voice over-- "The barber is washing and rewashing his hands, trying to remove the blood stains from his coat." It doesn't help. All of the visual gags that this already pallid sketch rely on have been cut away (heh) and the only thing even remotely funny is Palin's psychotic Tourette's outbreaks. Fortunately, it's only a minute and a half of our lives wasted, and Palin launches into the "Lumberjack Song". This sketch is invulnerable to the caprices of an audience. You could sing this song at the Mormon Tabernacle and you'd bring down the house.

Cleese reads the complaint letter, Jones asks why we can't have more art critics, Cleveland grants the wish, and a couple of Pepperpots mutter "Look, an art critic." It doesn't get a laugh, but listening to this little randomness train makes me smile. "Interview" is next, with Palin as the art critic speaking about the place of the nude in his bed... ART! When he says "Bum... Oh, what a giveaway!", it scores like little else has in the show has so far. A boxing bell rings, and Idle, doing his Eddie Waring impersonation, announces "It's the Arts", and Cleese interviews Chapman's Sir Edward Ross. Chapman's terse reactions are great, and when he starts to walk off, he mutters as he goes, getting further from the mic. Cleese's final line lands pretty well, and then Cleese abruptly announces "End of Side 1." I guess any landing you walk away from is a good one.

What's interesting to me is the group's refusal to improvise in this live situation. The lads are being paid (very little) to perform their sketches, as written and as previously performed, and for the most part, that's what they do. I begin to have serious admiration for them as performers, because we see now that they made strong choices when they did the show, that those choices are repeatable, and that they repeat them with such specificity and consistency. It's easy to imagine, in their patented surreal presentation, that they're trying stuff out or just winging it. No. Every bit of randomness is a carefully planned and executed bit of randomness.

Let's move on to side 2. (For those of you reading that weren't around back then, we used to put our discs on vinyl. They were larger, you played them with a needle, and you put content on both sides of the vinyl disc. When one side finished, you had to remove the needle, lift the disc off of a spindle, flip it, slide it back down on the spindle and replace the needle on the outer rim. None of this "slide it in and listen" crap. We had to work for our entertainment back then.)

We begin with Chapman's Colonel character, who introduces himself as the "GOC Commanding Southern Area Relief Force with special responsibility for any waxings or mechanical reproductions of any kind. Don't snicker, Pearson." He's taken it upon himself to test the stereophonic capabilities of the recording, and by walking across the stage chiming "Left" every other step, he tests the mics-- which completely fail, as this is a mono recording. (Did we mention this was done on the cheap?) I'm not really sure where this joke comes from. Did Chapman know that the recording was mono, and he wanted his inept Colonel to show up the cheap ass BBC? Or did Chapman not know, and this was just a happy accident? Palin seems to have known the recording limitations when he mentioned it in his diary, and Chapman did put away some scotch, so maybe he didn't know, or forgot that he knew. But the others would have reminded him, right? Told him not to test the mics-- unless they thought it was funny! Was Chapman improvising, right after my previous paragraph? I don't know. But it's a fun moment, and nor preceded by the TV show.  He finishes the test with an apology to the audience; "Sorry to interrupt your enjoyment, but that's what the army's all about." And then he introduces the next sketch, which, like the last one, begins with a boxing bell ringing. This time, it's Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson. Idle's delivery is less genteel and polite than in the show-- he's got his performing face on, loud, strident and fast. Jones responds with equal speed and testiness. The embarrassment that highlighted the TV version is replaced with a general anger. It's still funny, though. When Cleese comes to back up Idle, Idle expositions "Good Lord, you're the man who interviewed Sir Edward Ross on the other side." A crashing sound establishes that "Two Sheds" is tossed off stage, and Cleese and Idle whisper endearments to each other, as in the show.

Calliope organ music transitions us to "Children's Stories". Idle is perfect, and the pages riffling is equally funny. The music starts up again, sped up, and Chapman's Colonel tells the engineer to stop messing about with he speeds. So far, Chapman's Colonel is my favorite part of this recording. He switches hats quickly as we launch into "Visitors". Not a lot of laughs, but Cleese and Jones manage to snag a few with their Albee-esque couple. When Cleese sits on the cat, we get another "Alvin and the Chipmunks" sound effect. After Jones' laugh and inadvertent incontinence, we hear a fart sound. Palin yells "The goats gone poohs." Does the fart sound relate to the goat, or Jones? Palin's diary is silent. Finally, instead of "Let's have a ding-dong," Cleese requests "Jerusalem." The second time the song's been sung in this show.

Bad... really bad... organ music takes us into "Albatross", which gets the most consistent laughs of any sketch yet. He finishes with offering other sea birds, like "Stormy Petrel on a Stick"  as well as "Gannet Ripple!" (I thought, until this moment, that in the show, Cleese asks people to "Get it on a stick!" But it's "Gannet on a Stick", isn't it?)

When describing the recording, Palin talks about the "Hilter" sketch as being a sad casualty of the afternoon. He's right. Chapman messes up the "Sorry, Mein Feurher... mein Dickie Old Chum", but the rest of the sketch is right on the money. Cleese moves across the stage when he gives his Minehead speech, fading out and in-- as though he were walking through the audience. The biggest laugh comes from Jones' Gumby saying Hilter has beautiful legs.

A siren sounds in response to Chapman's upper class twit falling over backwards whilst afroth, and as if replicating a Gilliam animation, has SFX of the siren getting closer, further away, then closer, then sounds of a stretcher carried out, all in service to Idle's "Me Doctor" sketch. Seems like a long way to go for such a trifle. Still, Idle's first joke out of the gate does very well, and it keeps getting some laughs throughout. Instead of the chicken-wielding knight, Chapman's Colonel stops the proceedings
with a "What a silly way to carry on." (I can practically hear the scotch in his voice.) Cleese approaches him with a complaint, and Chapman sends him to the pet shop "on the next track." Though he scarcely gets a laugh,  the original lines he has for this album are perfect, right on the Monty.

The next track is, of course, "The Parrot Sketch", and it succeeds like no other sketch on this album. The laughs are consistent, get off to a fast starts, and keep growing. Whether by design or accident, they left out the joke about the bird being nailed to the perch, but that only makes it funnier during the long monologue at the end, when Cleese says "If you hadn't nailed the bird to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies," which got a big laugh. I wonder if they used a stuffed parrot for the taping-- I imagine they did, because the "Now that's what I call a dead parrot" line gets a big response. Unlike the future live performances, they keep it going, showing us Cleese's trip to Bolton and the discussion with Jones' British Railways person, who Cleese addresses as "British Railway Person". Ain't radio grand? "Jones' line "I wanted to be my own boss" and Palin's "It was a pun" get big laughs. Chapman's Colonel stops the sketch and hands it over to Cleese as the "Self Defense against Fresh Fruit" guy.

The final sketch is decidedly anti-climactic. It gets hardly a single laugh. It's a visual sketch, despite the funny concept and lines, and there's nothing for the audience to latch onto. The sound effect fr the 16 ton weight sounds nothing like a sixteen ton weight. Red currant and raspberry gets switched up in the sketch. His self-explosion ends the sketch-- and the recording-- with a bang. You wouldn't even know the audience was there.

And there we go-- an inauspicious beginning to the recording career of the world's funniest comedy troupe. They march out like good soldiers into the whither indifference of a clueless audience, acquit themselves admirably, and get the hell out of there. They score a few victories-- Chapman's Colonel is the only one that comes to mind-- and of course, it wound up selling over ten thousand copies, proving the market for all things Python. But the next time they went into a recording studio, they did it under the guidance of their own LLC, instead of the BBC, and they jettisoned the useless audience from their strategy. From here on out, they'd do it their way.