POLL: Favorite Monty Python Member

palin's diaries are great, and he's always seemed so nice.

Palin was the most versatile performer as well, and quietly the backbone of the group.

Though Cleese was the most obviously charismatic and probably the most natural comedian.

more obviously charismatic than chapman? i don't know about that.

I'm voting Jones, because no-one else will...

Eric Idle: 0 votes

I'm stuck between Cleese and Gilliam myself.

Torn between chapman and palin, I may have to decide it on who had the best legs as a pepperpot. Gilliam stands a class apart, i love his animations and the show wouldn't have been anything without them but still can't name him best.

Chapman all day.

if not for palin, i'd definitely have gone for jones. i think he'll get votes.

How the fuck am I supposed to decide between any of them (except Idle, natch), it's bloody impossible.

I don't understand all the love for Chapman, and non-love for Idle. Idle made me laugh far more than Chapman.

I'm torn between Palin and Cleese.

GC all the way

Why, though? Genuinely curious.

I guess because chapman wrote more of it than anyone else and he did the angry vitriolic and shouty characters so well, and for Brian.

Chapman was the most genuinely surreal and insane one

He's the angst-ridden depressive who wrote most of the stuff and died young. Python's Ian Curtis.

nate:

Idle's record of incredibly dickish behavior is hard to get past for some of us. Also, I don't think he was really that funny relative to the others.

chapman by a mile; huzzah, you tragic queer

"Douglas Adams remembered seeing Chapman in his local pub, casually whacking his penis against the bar to attract the attention of the bar staff"

thanks wikipedia!

I though people wouldn't vote for Chapman, because in comedy it's often the straight (no pun intended) guy who's underrated. I guess I was wrong, but I'm gonna vote for him too anyway.

Python had no one "straight man," and Chapman was particularly good at it himself.

Graham Chapman was enormously attractive when he had short hair (no bowl cut). Pain was pretty attractive, too. They're both at the top of my list but I voted Palin.

Pain was pretty attractive, too.

I didn't think of you as a masochist.

yeah, palin's had books and travel since python, chapman didn't even bother his arse with a fish called wanda

Wasn't Chapman basically one foot in the grave at that point?

I thought he was like in Holy Grail days, them having to do dozens of retakes bcz he was too drunk to go on...

Yeah, his Holy Grail days were disastrous by all accounts -- the success of his performance lies in all the good editing of his part. In contrast he had cleaned up/sobered up for Life of Brian, and whereas Arthur was a one-note stiff (funny as hell, obviously), Brian was a perfect portrait of a befuddled guy surrounded by crazy people.

i voted cleese because he's the first one that comes to mind when i think monty python. but i don't actually have a favorite. my favorite python sketches are pretty well dispersed among them.

Chapman played Brian in Life of Brian, ergo he wins my vote.

voted gilliam cause i dont think hell get a lot of love

Palin is my favorite Python member, but Chapman is my fave Python during the Python years.

I voted Chapman

Gilliam has had the most interesting post-Python career, but it's kinda hard to compare him to the others, because his work was and is on a sorta different level.

Someone should write a book called Monty Python: The Python Years.

Jones. Interesting guy. Anyone else remember his late night chat show?

Chapman

Michael Palin makes me laugh the most, partly because he always looks like he's about to lose his shit.

I voted for Jones. Hard to pick. If I was unaware of Idle being such a prick, I would have voted for him. They were all extremely funny during the Circus though.

Eric Idle = Mike Love of Monty Python, except Idle was at least nearly as talented.

Idle deserves at least a little love for Nudge Nudge Wink Wink.

No Carol Cleveland, no cred.

Where is Fred Tomlinson Singers band?

Tuomas!
http://kungfurodeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/0312369352L.jpg

Sorry, that was for Aimless. Who's not here right now anyroadup.

I came here to say Chapman and I'm quite suprised at how many other ppl have, so now I'm torn between him and Gilliam. I always liked Idle too but more cause he was pretty good lookin' in the 70s.

This is going to be one of those polls where everyone says Chapman or Palin and then the silent majority votes Cleese to a 20-vote margin of victory.

I went for Gilliam since he's clearly had the best post-Python career out of any of them.

Fawlty Towers was brilliant and I suppose a case could be made for Fish Called Wanda (I didn't think it was that great) but everything else Cleese has done since has been pretty meh.

Chapman - talented but undisciplined writer and decent performer but never seemed to want to build on his early success.

Palin - sad that he's now turned into the exact figure he ripped the piss out of in that "cycling holiday" episode of Python which is still my favourite.

Jones - seems happier as a Prof of Medieval History and newspaper column polemicist these days.

Idle - petition to take his name out of the poll and replace with Neil Innes? Python's Mike Love indeed - unseemly legal battles, right-wing tendencies, generally lowering the tone of the brand.

The funniest guy is the one with the biggest set of personality issues, no surprise.

At least Mike Love wasn't meant to be funny.

Gumbies!

Fawlty Towers was brilliant and I suppose a case could be made for Fish Called Wanda (I didn't think it was that great) but everything else Cleese has done since has been pretty meh.
FT was indeed brilliant. AFCW awful, especially for using my name for annoying fish-tortured character.

Chapman - talented but undisciplined writer and decent performer but never seemed to want to build on his early success.
He was carrying the Peter Cook torch.

what isn't surprising is that ilxors are desperate to change their vote to whomever they think will get the least.

Yes but at least Peter Cook did have the odd flash of the old brilliance towards the end - the Clive Anderson show, Why Bother? - whereas Chapman's post-Python career was essentially one of failed sitcom pilots and endless college lecture tours to pay the bills.

And then there was Yellowbeard.

What a way for Marty Feldman to go.

Gilliam stands a class apart, i love his animations and the show wouldn't have been anything without them

It's hyperbole like this that ends in ppl thinking Baron Munchausen is a good film.

baron munchausen is a great film! brother grimm isn't though

Gilliam has not made any great films, the first hour of Brazil coming closest.

Idle's record of incredibly dickish behavior is hard to get past

Why do folks pay attention to this? Doesn't bother me re Groucho, Sellers or Jerry Lewis either.

Munchausen is indeed great, such a great ode to imagination.

complete w/ annoying Robin Williams riffing!

People are going to vote on the basis of extra-Python stuff, u know it.

Groucho, Sellers or Jerry Lewis were funny.

Robin Williams doesn't bother me, because the scene is so funnily set up.

Whoa! I didn't know Eric Idle came from South Shields!

(i'm not counting Idle's neutering of Grail into Spamalot)

We really need an "Eric Idle's greatest crime" poll.

Spamalot
Endless "jokey" cash-in tours
Acting like a cunt to Neil Innes
Burn Hollywood Burn
Will and Grace

But most of the laughs in Life of Brian came from Eric Idle.

but why stay relevant?

I saw Idle with his wife during a play intermission in NY and couldn't summon nerve to sit next to them and ask "Is she a goer, eh?"

Calling Kinnock a cunt
Doing "Always Look On The Bright Side" on Royal Variety Show dressed as footballer with Tiller Girls
Nuns On The Run
Spamalot again
Spamalot a third time just in case

Breakaway biscuit adverts

(in which he used and debased the nudge nudge wink wink routine and I DON'T CARE IF HE WROTE IT IT IS WRONG)

elderly Buster Keaton did a ton of TV commercials recycling his old gags, who cares

But in his defence...

...and it came on for a half an hour every week, from the smallest county in England, which is Rutland. Which the then-conservative government had bureaucratized out of existence after a thousand years of history.

IGNFF: A very English way of doing things.

IDLE: A very English way. I'm glad to say that the conservative government is now history and the county is back. You can't just rule out English history because it's convenient for you. The people never accepted it, and they put their road signs back up. It's about 54 square miles, I think. But it's very ancient, and has several very major castles and a major public school. So the gag obviously was a small television station, which parodied everything on television – it did its own drama and its own documentaries... Hence The Rutles, which came out of that.

Theme tune for One Foot in the Grave.

.. and in his undefence...

Rutles 2

Trust Dingbod to say Carol Cleveland before I had a chance to.

Palin and Idle were my favourites as a kid; Ripping Yarns had the edge over Rutland Weekend Television, but I really liked the ranty monologues ("Watney's red barrel...") than seemed to be Idle's chief contributions to the original show. Plus he wrote by himself; Palin/Jones and Cleese/Chapman were writing teams. Cleese was an amazingly self-confident performer though - you sometimes felt the others were still in Footlights, nervously glancing at their mates for approval, but Cleese just blazed away.

But Idle's post-Python career has been so bad it's hard to remember if/why he was funny. The first couple of Palin travelogues were great and he even looked like having a moderately good film career for a while (cut entirely out of Sleepless in Seattle I only learned recently!).

Oh, I dunno. I'll vote for Mikey P.

elderly Buster Keaton was funny.

and as a plus, Idle's "what's the diff between life and a Saturday Night Live sketch" joke.

best solo Python movie: Palin w/ Maggie Smith in A Private Function

The first couple of Palin travelogues were great

I think they've all been good up to the recent eastern Europe one, which was a huge nosedive in quality.

Also the Python that never was: David Jason - worked with Palin, Jones and Mike Love on Do Not Adjust Your Set and either wasn't asked to join them in Python or they asked him to join but he had work commitments elsewhere, depending on whose anecdotes you trust.

too working class for python????

I voted on the basis of python career, otherwise gilliam would have got it, mainly for Baron Munchausen.

Terry Gilliam was awesome in that one weird-ass last season episode about buying an ant that didn't really have any skits, just one long thing about a guy in a department store. And Gilliam reads a poem (IIRC) about an ant, and it is very funny. I really get sick of his animations, though: they get really samey after a while and I just skip them on the DVDs.

Gilliam is a very stange looking guy!

I love Palin as the professional Cardinal Richeliue impersonator. "uh-oui."

I just saw Time Bandits and pretty much disliked it. :(

!

Why so?

I didn't like the characters or the plot.

I found it quite an ordeal to finish watching.

For me it's a very nostalgic movie -- saw it in the theater when I was ten or eleven, and was the first specifically Python-derived project of any sort I saw, but the last time I saw it it still held up for me very well. But ultimately I think it's the type of film that can be both a kid and an adult movie without being classified as one or the other or a variant of each ("a kid's movie that adults can enjoy!" etc.).

I guess it was just a bit precious for me. And that kid's voice reminded me of Wobbewt from "Meet the Feebles" (this was v distracting).

I did think while watching it, though, I would have flipped the fuck out about it if I saw it at, say, age seven.

<I>And that kid's voice reminded me of Wobbewt from "Meet the Feebles" (this was v distracting).</I>

"We've got to get the map back, or he'll destroy the world...the DIWTY WAT!"

I'm realizing my vote for Jones came down to this one moment in a Python episode, where Jones was the cashier of a shop, and told the customer, "Hold on for a moment", Jones took off his top hat, detached his fake mustache, tossed it into his top hat, put it back on, and then proceeded "you were saying?"

I had no idea this was totally improvised. Kudos for this not necessarily being a classic moment. I know other Python members were capable of pulling off similar, but Jones did that sooo well, I had no idea it happened the first time i watched that skit. Hence <3 Terry jones.

Terry Jones was the John Entwistle of Python.

Policeman, not cashier. (Thus he pitched the mustache into his police helmet.) YES I KNOW TOO MUCH TRIVIA.

Terry Gilliam was the Martin Swope of Python.

time bandits is amazing! I saw it when I was 9. It certainly remains amazing where Fish Called Wanda has not

has anyone seen the Terry Jones Mr. Toad film with all the surviving Pythons in it (except for Gilliam, maybe)?

gilliam, because when i think of python the first thing i think of is the animations, which blew my mind so hard as a kid (long before i even tried to pay attention to what else was going on) that the persistence of reality was something of a disappointment.

and because the second thing i think of is his face in the spanish inquisition.

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/050321/151820__si_l.jpg

and because i really liked the idea of him being a bit different to the others; a bit of an outsider.

after that, i couldn't really choose. except that it wouldn't be idle.

(actually: when i think of terry gilliam i picture him doing that insane imp-grin face. that's perhaps unfortunate -- although, as abbott points out, he really is a fucking weird-looking dude.

i always liked gilliams various half-second insert characters who would say one word or punch somebody. that face...

Watched Time Bandits with Abbott... I thought it was pretty "meh." It's no 12 Monkeys.

"Two shrugs up" - Viceroy & Abbott

You two.

Time Bandits has some great things in it, but it doesn't really work as a whole. Plus the ending is like, eh? I'd say Munchausen is like a better version of Time Bandits.

Would like to see Jabberwocky again - dunno if it would hold up but I remember it being pretty out there, even for Gilliam. Perhaps 'cause it was his first solo effort and still very python influenced.

Plus the ending is like, eh?

it's just me that was freaked out for about two weeks, then? hmm. i think i was a weirder kid than i realised.

i'd say it was more 'wha?' than 'eh?' maybe even 'wtf?'

do people really think eric idle wasn't funny on python? i mean he's not one of my favorites by any means but he did lots of funny stuff -- "nudge nudge," the guy who wants to leave the army because it's too dangerous, all those talk show hosts...

Yeah, that was what I meant. I was kinda freaked out by it as a kid too. Still don't think it's a good ending though.

(x-post)

The ending for time bandits is second only to the ending for "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"!

I voted for graham Chapman because he is awesome in "Life of Brian". Palin would have won if I'd taken "Ripping Yarns" into account.

what happens at the end of time bandits? i suspect it MIGHT be this movie i saw the end of as a kid and got freaked the hell out by, but i'm not sure.

The difference is, though, that Holy Grail is a Monty Python film, so you can sorta expect an ending like that. Whereas Time Bandits is essentially a kids' fantasy film, so having a Monty Python ending does disservice to it.

(x-post)

what happens at the end of time bandits?

kid's parents explode, no-one gives a shit

do people really think eric idle wasn't funny on python?

no, not at all: he was brilliant. it's just, as discussed above, his twattishness has rather sullied his reputation. so if i'm going to have to make a difficult choice, he's the easiest one to chuck.

even in python, i'd find him less versatile than the others.

what happens at the end of time bandits?

kid's parents explode, no-one gives a shit

-- ledge, Friday, 25 April 2008 10:23 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Also! The fireman is Agamemmnon, The kid's photographs taken on his adventures in time are real, and best of all, the arena in which the battle between good and evil is played out is briefly seen on the kid's bedroom floor (a stacked up chessboard, toy soldiers, cowboys and tanks)

I've cast my vote for Cleese on the strength of his physical comedy. (I've read Cleese came to hate the "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch after constantly being asked to do bits of it for fans; but as a fan, I do think he was brilliant in it.)

The best thing about his Hitler routine in Fawlty Towers is that he puts his index finger to his lip to indicate a moustache even though he already has a moustache.

Speaking of Cleese doing Hitler, this sketch is pure brilliance.

Time Bandits is Gilliam's Other Good Movie.

I think Brazil and 12 Monkeys are Gilliam's two best. And I might have voted for him in this poll if I were taking the post-Python careers into consideration.

eric idle because he was a rutle

Gilliam has not made any great films, the first hour of Brazil coming closest.

rong

Head: Chapman
Heart: Palin

So I voted Palin.

brazil and fear and loathing (and didn't he co-direct holy grail? or one of the movies?) are very good, if not quite great exactly.

i get kind of impatient with the animations too, though the ones that bother to tell a story -- the prince with the spot, etc. -- are pretty funny.

That one was rather odd for the censorship it got at the time - they changed "and later he died of cancer" to "and later he died of GANGRENE" in this really obvious overdub, which I suspect they made obvious on purpose. Were the BBC behind that?

http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/235/40697235.jpg

Seems that even the haters have blocked out Idle's Splitting Heirs film, with Rick Moranis, Catherine Zeta Jones and the not at all ripped off from Wanda nude sene:

http://cheerup.brian.free.fr/Miscellaneous%20Pictures/MiscSplittingHeirs14.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

because of the bump...

Chapman

Chapman.

I didn't know Eric Idle was a dick, but I've not really been paying attention.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ILX OTM

poor wee terry jones.

<i>I didn't know Eric Idle was a dick, but I've not really been paying attention.</i>

Everybody in the entertainment industry is a dick, don't worry about it. Not worth keeping track of.

Oops

http://www.drmcdougall.com/images/store/ebook_cso_front_200.jpg

Michael Palin? What is this, vote for the nicest Python member?

oh, he's not THAT nice.

http://www.mustardweb.org/mustardpics/issue1&2/brazil_babyface.jpg

I was a Gilliam voter. I can't believe that people upthread were saying that the end of Time Bandits was 'meh'. I'll add my name to the 'was completely freaked out by it as a kid' crew.

That one was rather odd for the censorship it got at the time - they changed "and later he died of cancer" to "and later he died of GANGRENE" in this really obvious overdub, which I suspect they made obvious on purpose. Were the BBC behind that?

I never knew about this, but have strong memories of the GANGRENE overdub. I thought those overdubs/random splices were quite common in Python, and they were actually some of my favourite things... never stopped to think it might be forced through censorship, I just thought they were purposefully surreal.

i think it was both- once forced/pressurised to make any change they made sure it was as obvious as possible.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/full/100112207.jpg

sorry. http://twitpic.com/1nlr2n

http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/full/100112207.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0ZRYP5X5F6FSMBCCSE82&Expires=1273819770&Signature=POa%2FohdTvT8AEjEHcTVLZqLV6Jw%3D

really hilarious Alan Bennett-written comedy from the '80s, A Private Function, w/ Plain & Maggie Smith, out on US DVD next month. Set in postwar-rationing England.

^Palin obv, Michael

Man, we had that as a freebie with some newspaper, ages ago.

a private function is really good. glad to see it's making it to dvd.

All Gilliam defenders wrong, animations are very overrated once you're over the gimmick and the vast majority of his actual appearances are unfunny mugging rubbish.

Think if run again Palin would probably give up a lot of votes to Jones but I have nothing to base this on

Idle has penned a "sortabiography"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/monty-pythons-eric-idle-recalls-days-of-old-when-knights-said-ni/2018/09/20/da615a9c-b5ff-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html

https://i.imgur.com/SYlG7eE.jpg

I saw Idle with his wife during a play intermission in NY and couldn't summon nerve to sit next to them and ask "Is she a goer, eh?"

― Dr Morbius, Thursday, April 24, 2008 10:43 AM

btw it was Steve Martin and Robin Williams in Waiting for Godot. I learned in the recent Williams bio that they were good friends, it seems.

Terry Jones done sorely wrong by this poll/FPTP. His vowels alone could move mountains.

idle was my favorite when i was little, i think. never thought much of jones or gilliam; chapman was fine but whatevs

can't really speak to most of the post-python stuff, but i recently caught most of jones' 'erik the viking' on tv and dear god it's among the very worst things i've ever seen

cleese
chapman
palin
idle
jones

gilliam

the top five are pretty much interchangeable for me. it's hard for me to deny cleese's genius.

His vowels alone could move mountains.

https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/outline/wales.gif

Yes I know but how many unadulterated Welsh baritones does one get to hear on TV in America

If we're talking performances, Cleese and Palin strike me as the most irreplaceable. But I basically agree with voodoo.

If we're talking writing, I'm fuzzy on who wrote most of the material.

Gilliam wrote nearly all his own material solo, otherwise the first three series are divided between the teams of Chapman/Cleese, Jones/Palin, and Idle/Ego. (Idle says it was harder to get his stuff up, because the others always had a guaranteed laugh at the reads because of their partner.)

The fourth series is more Jones/Palin (eg the bicycling episode that's like a proto-Ripping Yarns) than anyone, with Idle obviously second, Innes invited in, and Chapman trying to find a new partner in Douglas Adams & al.

I wouldn't have voted for Eric anyway, but here we go

https://i.imgur.com/Kp5yhKL.jpg

dude didn't have any problem with a guy in power seizing intellectual property from the hands of the creators to exploit to his own ends in the past

https://neilinnes.media/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/neil-fp-2.jpg