An Amazon.com essential video
While more cautious fans may want to pick and choose among the previously
released individual volumes of Monty Python for their collection,
true Pythonites will want to own this definitive, 14-volume DVD-only
boxed set that contains all 45 episodes (in chronological order)
of Monty Python's Flying Circus. This "persistently silly"
collection encompasses three-and-a-half seasons of dead parrots,
cross-dressing lumberjacks, loonies, upper class twits, and spam,
spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, and
spam. Click past the occasional clunker and go directly to such
signature sketches as the Ministry of Silly Walks, the Spanish Inquisition,
the Fish-Slapping Dance, the Dead Parrot Sketch, the Lumberjack
Song, the Cheese Shop, the Argument Clinic, and Nudge, Nudge. Taken
as a whole, one marvels at how Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric
Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam thoroughly subverted
television convention with "something completely different,"
like sketches with no punch lines ("You're average TV viewer
isn't going to understand this").
A warning to the uninitiated: there is much "material that
some may find offensive, but which is really smashing." Violations
of something called the "Strange Sketch Act" are the least
of the troupe's offenses, as witness the Oscar Wilde Sketch, the
Dirty Vicar Sketch, and the Most Awful Family in Britain Sketch,
all of which achieve "the really gross awfulness" all
Python fans are looking for. Say no more. --Donald Liebenson
Product Details:
Starring: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Eric Idle,
Graham Chapman & Michael Palin
Encoding: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. This DVD will probably
NOT be viewable in other countries. Read more about DVD formats.)
