Monty Python Episode 20

[Jeremy Grayson]

Hiya,

Any obvious reason why "Spot the Brain Cell" was still being omitted from BBC2 repeats of episode 20 of Monty Python's Flying Circus as recently as 1991?

My copy here follows the script (so to speak) as far as the end of the Epsom Furniture race before cutting into the Nevil Shunt play and Gavin Millarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (sic) commentary thereon from episode 24, returning to episode 20 for the closing glance at the list of TV license fees and the end credits.

I know the sketch features three bishops jumping on a young lady near the end, but there's more provocative material that escaped censure during the shows' runs. And it's not as if John Cleese yells "Cl*t*r*s" as he does in the live version of the sketch, here prefering "Strap" (as in "dagger up the...").

Any clues?

Jeremy

[lotch]

Guest-Jeremy said:

Hiya,

Any obvious reason why "Spot the Brain Cell" was still being omitted from BBC2 repeats of episode 20 of Monty Python's Flying Circus as recently as 1991?

My copy here follows the script (so to speak) as far as the end of the Epsom Furniture race before cutting into the Nevil Shunt play and Gavin Millarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (sic) commentary thereon from episode 24, returning to episode 20 for the closing glance at the list of TV license fees and the end credits.

I know the sketch features three bishops jumping on a young lady near the end, but there's more provocative material that escaped censure during the shows' runs. And it's not as if John Cleese yells "Cl*t*r*s" as he does in the live version of the sketch, here prefering "Strap" (as in "dagger up the...").

Any clues?

Jeremy

From the Some Of The Corpses Are Amusing site:

"As a mark of respect to the family of Take Your Pick quizmaster Michael Miles, who died in February 1971, the first repeat of Series 2, Show 7, edited out the parody and replaced it with 'Railway Timetables' from Series 2, Show 11 (08/12/70). In the re-edited version the 'Furniture Race' sequence links clumsily into the opening gunshot and blackout of '...Timetables' but eventually cuts back to the end credits of Show 7 after Gavin Millarrrrrrrrrrrr (Cleese) has finished his monologue. The credits, which were superimposed over a notice showing the price of the licence fee, were clearly intended as a comment on tackiness of quiz shows like Take Your Pick. The joke still worked as a comment on pseudo-intellectual broadcasters like Millarrrrrrrrrrrr, but seemed somewhat out of place.

Amazingly, the episode was still being repeated by the BBC in this amended version until 1995, and no-one in charge seemed to realise this, despite several viewers pointing it out to them and the fact that the correct version of the episode was included on the BBC's original video releases of the series in the mid-1980s. It's sobering to think that, particularly given the age of Monty Python's Flying Circus and the nature of the industry at the time that it was originally made, the original edit of the episode could have been junked as a result of someone 'not realising' what it was. Other shows in the series weren't quite as lucky..."

[Jeremy Grayson]

Incredible also how much reverence the likes of Michael Miles were seemingly afforded back then. Will the same happen when Brucie Forsyth et al finally leave us? Probably not...

Jeremy

[David P May]

I seem to recall that when these Python shows were repeated in 1987, a viewer wrote to the Radio Times asking why the railway timetables/Gavin Millarrrrr sketches had been used twice.

The reply stated something along the lines of the original version of the episode being 'unavailable' and a compilation version being used instead.

The original version of episode 20 was broadcast on the Paramount Channel earlier this month, I'm not sure which version UKGold was putting out in recent years.

[Steve Burstein]

But the 'Spot the Brain Cell' sketch was ALWAYS in the US version.