Noticias

Eric Idle is best known for his work/online feuds with Monty Python, but he also produced a number of notable works outside the Python canon. One of the best and most prolific of Idle’s solo endeavors was 1978’s The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash. The Beatles parody, about Liverpool’s “Prefab Four,” was the first ever feature-length music mockumentary, predating This Is Spinal Tap by six years.

The TV movie wasn’t a huge hit originally. When it first aired on NBC, All You Need Is Cash reportedly received “the lowest ratings of any prime-time television show airing on network television that week.” But it subsequently amassed a large cult following. Even Yoko Ono was a fan, despite the fact that her Rutles surrogate was a literal Nazi.

But for some reason, the original film isn’t available on any streaming services right now. And physical home...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx49jQkVkaE

Palestinian artist and filmmaker Razan AlSalah speaks with Grace Han on “A Stone’s Throw,” on the occasion of the film screening at CAAMFest.

In this 40-minute mid-length film, she revisits the memories of Amine, her father, in light of a 1936 incident when oil workers in Haifa blew up a British Petroleum pipeline.

Parsing through layers of Python code, recorded conversations, and Google Street View, AlSalah discusses with us the political limits of the archive, the aestheticizing toll of computational extraction, and her thoughts on the recent Oscar winner, “No Other Land” (2025).

Just recently, we heard a nice little anecdote about how the surviving members of Monty Python are still there for one another during life’s hard times. But now it seems that they’re already back to their regular routine of petty grudges and hurt feelings.

Last weekend, Monty Python and the Holy Grail returned to movie theaters thanks to Fathom Events and Shout! Studios. The screening, which was intended to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary, also included “an exclusive special introduction from Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and John Cleese.”

Notably absent from that list of names is the only other living ex-Python: Eric Idle. Why was the guy who played Brave Sir Robin and Roger the Shrubber not part of this new intro? Well, according to Idle, it’s because nobody actually invited him to participate.

Fielding questions from fans, who were naturally curious about his absence,...

Mel Brooks wrote and directed three of the greatest movie comedies of all time: The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. But when Brooks was asked about his favorite scene that he ever directed, he named a comedy bit that wouldn’t come up on most fans’ top 10 lists.

“Let me give you one of my movies that I love. I’m really proud, for sure, of this insane comedy I made called Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” Brooks boasted to the Daily Beast, via Far Out.

The scene in question? “Steven Weber is driving a stake through Lysette Anthony’s heart. Mel Brooks is playing Van Helsing. I say to him, ‘Drive the stake through her heart! Hit her hard.’ So he drives the stake through her heart.”

What happens next is Python-esque in terms of gross-out physical comedy. “There’s an incredible gush, an incredible fountain of blood that sprays him.

Despite the show’s occasionally unflattering portrayal of the justice system, a real-life judge recently cited The Simpsons during a case involving “fraudulent misrepresentation.” And no, it didn’t involve any claims made by 1984 film The NeverEnding Story.

A proposed class-action lawsuit against a Canadian paint thinner manufacturer made it all the way to British Columbia’s Supreme Court. As CTV News reported, the case was eventually dismissed, but in the introduction to the decision, Justice Joel R. Groves raised eyebrows by comparing the defendant to Springfield’s biggest/sketchiest brewery: Duff Beer.

“It is sometimes said that life imitates art,” Groves wrote. “In terms of the art, and I am perhaps using this term in the broadest sense possible, there is a somewhat notorious episode of the television show called The Simpsons, in which the fatherly character, Homer Simpson, is on a tour of a local brewery of the Duff Beer company,...

It’s 2025, and gamers are still finding ways to bring new things to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It’s been more than a decade since the game came out, but it’s still going strong, thanks to the modding community that refuses to let it die. The evolution of AI technology has only helped modders with new mods that are changing the game completely.

This game is alive beyond all odds. | Image Credit: Bethesda

Modders have made AI-powered mods that let you talk to NPCs who can react to your actions and craft a response accordingly. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but the community seems committed. Starfield, in comparison, also has a big modding community. But it looks like Bethesda isn’t intent on giving it the same care.

Skyrim has been renewed once again! This time with AI

Developed by the modder known as “Art-from-the-machine,...

It’s officially been five decades since Monty Python and the Holy Grail first delighted audiences and boosted the coconut shell industry. To celebrate the iconic 1975 comedy’s 50th anniversary, the BBC recently chatted with every surviving member of Monty Python, minus John Cleese and Eric Idle, who were presumably too busy rage-tweeting about the U.S. president and/or each other.

But just because they’re available for interviews doesn’t mean that fans should be expecting another Python reunion any time soon, as one member made clear.

Michael Palin noted that The Holy Grail very nearly didn’t happen because not everyone in the group was into the idea of following up Monty Python’s Flying Circus with a movie. “It was by no means unanimous that we should do a film after the television series,” Palin recalled, pointing out that two of the Pythons were busy working on their own TV projects,...

As of this week, it’s officially been 50 years since Monty Python and the Holy Grail first hit theaters. While some Python fans may choose to celebrate this milestone by paying nearly $300 to ask John Cleese questions about the production after watching the movie for the billionth time, here’s another idea: Why not visit the castle where much of The Holy Grail was filmed?

The building itself dates back to the 14th century, as The Daily Telegraph recently reported, but Scotland’s Doune Castle has fully embraced the fact that it’s become a tourist destination for Monty Python obsessives who are eager to visit the spot where King Arthur was taunted by an outrageous French soldier.

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Doune Castle wasn’t actually the Pythons’ first choice for a filming location. “We’d picked all these wonderful castles,” Terry Jones explained in Monty Python Speaks: The Complete Oral History,...

As we’ve mentioned before, this year marks the 50th anniversary of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And while a full-on Python reunion seems highly unlikely, due to tensions within the surviving members of the group, John Cleese has decided to reunite with himself for a Python-themed tour that won’t involve working with others, line memorization or really any prep work at all.

“Not Dead Yet! John Cleese and the Holy Grail at 50 Tour” will reportedly find Cleese visiting 17 cities throughout the U.S., for a show that will include a screening of the classic film, followed by a Q&a. According to the event listing at New York City’s Town Hall Cleese will “share behind the scenes stories, wit and wisdom — assuming he remembers any of it.”

But it isn’t exactly cheap. Tickets for the stop in Charlotte, North Carolina range from $69.05 to the...

John Cleese’s social media accounts are chock-full of heated political opinions, peppered with the occasional “Ministry of Silly Walks” Gif that his assistants no doubt scheduled for him. Now, one of Cleese’s takes is reaching a lot of eyeballs — but it’s nearly 40 years old, and was shared by the guy who used to host Fear Factor.

Yes, podcaster Joe Rogan recently took to Instagram to praise an archival clip of Cleese from 1987, in which the ex-Python ironically argues for the advantages for “extremism,” which include how it makes you “feel good” because it “provides you with enemies.” Get it?

“If you have a lot of anger and resentment in you anyway, and you therefore enjoy abusing people, then you can pretend that you’re only doing it because these enemies of yours are such very bad persons,” Cleese deadpanned. “And if it wasn’t for them,...

Eric Idle isn’t exactly known for holding back his opinions on social media. After all, he’s been spilling digital tea relating to Monty Python for quite a while now. Most recently, Idle took the opportunity to blast an old TV special that, in his opinion, represents the troupe’s creative rock bottom.

A Python fan shared a clip in which “seventh Python” Carol Cleveland asks if the BBC is “dumbing” their programming down, before introducing a panel of brick-toting Gumbys. The scene was an excerpt from 1999’s Python Night, which Idle was quick to dismiss as “unquestionably the worst Python show ever.”

Python Night was an evening of programming on BBC Two that included documentaries and clip shows, all intended to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Most significantly, it actually featured new material from the Pythons. Well, some of the Pythons.

Obviously Graham Chapman wasn’t around,...

“The Python Hunt” is that rare case where an indie film easily raises financing, grabs upbeat response from audiences and critics at a film festival, wins a prize, and launches multiple sales bids. After a rousing response at the big Alamo Drafthouse Lamar screening at SXSW, this colorful, populist portrait of a swath of python hunters — and by extension, America — could hit a commercial nerve.

Here’s how the filmmakers did it.

Work with your friends.

Filmmaker Lance Oppenheim brought an idea to his old Florida buddy Xander Robin (“Are We Not Cats”). They had been trying to make a movie together for years, and Robin had labored on his own film about the pet trade in the Florida Everglades that never got off the ground. The concept: cover the annual Python Challenge, a competition that pays $10,000 to the one hunter in 1,000 who brings in the most Burmese snakes, which...

When he’s not busy backing out of TV interviews, blowing up rockets or laying the groundwork for an Ebola pandemic, Elon Musk is still CEO of a major car company. But things haven’t been going so great at Tesla, and not just because owning a Cybertruck is apparently the automotive equivalent of wearing a “Kick Me” sign.

In 2025, Tesla’s share price has plummeted, reportedly costing Musk $102 billion. It’s been said that this is due to his work with the Trump administration, but even without Trump, presumably going full “midlife crisis Leatherface” at public events isn’t the best move for any CEO.

During a recent interview with Fox Business, Musk was asked about some of these problems, as well as the protests targeting Tesla dealerships and charging stations, and the recent X/Twitter outage. Musk responded to the pile-up of terrible news by invoking Monty Python’s Eric Idle,...

In the criminally underrated Peacock comedy Killing It, the desperate protagonist (Craig Robinson) decides that the only way to make seed money for his start-up business is by participating in a python-hunting competition in the Florida Everglades. Over two seasons, herpetological misadventures and a scathing critique of the state of the American Dream ensue.

The audience for Killing It was sufficiently small — I’m not sure Peacock exactly canceled the show so much as the streamer simply forgot it existed — that the reaction to Xander Robin’s new documentary The Python Hunt won’t simply be, “Oh! It’s a real-life Killing It!”

Like an invasive Burmese python, the storylines in The Python Hunt prove a little bit too squirmy and erratic for the documentary to come into a focus in a wholly satisfying way. But it’s still a wild and generally empathetic journey into the swamp of the American soul.

Monty Python famously reunited in 2014 for a series of concerts at London’s O2 Arena, thrilling fans and, more to the point, allowing them to pay off their staggering legal debts.

Apart from archival footage, the reunion obviously didn’t feature the late Graham Chapman. It also didn’t contain any new material, merely familiar songs and sketches from pre-existing Python projects. Which does beg the question: What exactly was the final Monty Python sketch?

While the last significant Python project was 1983’s Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, all six original members did get together one last time to celebrate the troupe’s 20th anniversary. And they did end up filming a new sketch. Unfortunately, it never ended up seeing the light of day, apparently, because it sucked so hard.

1989’s Parrot Sketch Not Included – 20 Years of Monty Python was a TV special, hosted by Steve Martin, which...

A running gag in Monty Python’s Flying Circus found the show occasionally cutting away to old stock footage of an audience of elderly women tepidly applauding.

Well, it turns out that this joke may have been closer to the truth than we thought.

According to The First 28 Years of Monty Python by Kim “Howard” Johnson, the clip was really “stock footage of a Women’s Institute meeting.” Michael Palin noted that it was likely pulled from the BBC’s vast library of footage by their researcher, but confessed that “it was rather like our own audiences (at the start).”

Much of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was filmed in front of a live audience, but this wasn’t their choice. According to producer and director Ian MacNaughton “that was BBC policy, to have a studio audience.” And that policy didn’t always work out for the Pythons. As they were...

These days, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is obviously considered a comedy classic. But when it was first released back in 1975, there was no guarantee that people would like it. And specifically, there was no guarantee that film critics would like it.

Several critics did enjoy the Pythons’ first original feature film. The New York Times’ Vincent Canby called it “a marvelously particular kind of lunatic endeavor,” and Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune, hailed Monty Python and the Holy Grail as “an incredibly silly film of great humor, brilliant design and epic insanity.”

But other critics weren’t so impressed. Variety argued that it was “basically an excuse for set pieces, some amusing, others overdone.” Gene Siskel claimed that it “contained about 10 very funny moments and 70 minutes of silence”. In the U.K., film critic and journalist Barry Norman hosted Film 75, the 1975 iteration of his long-running movie review series.

While most of the roles in a Monty Python film tend to go to members of the group, obviously some do end up being played by non-Pythons. Various supporting parts were played by well-known actors, as well as frequent Monty Python collaborators Neil Innes and Carol Cleveland. Sadly, whichever bunny rabbit played The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog seems to have been uncredited.

For their second film, the controversial 1979 Biblical spoof Monty Python’s Life of Brian, director Terry Jones stumbled upon a new source of on screen talent: random tour groups.

Python scholar Kim “Howard” Johnson was invited to the set of Life of Brian in Tunisia to document the filming. In 2008, he published his diaries from that time in the book Monty Python's Tunisian Holiday: My Life with Brian. Howard’s account is full of vivid behind the scenes details — such as how John Cleese was preoccupied with cracking...

There have been a lot of stories over the past year about the various feuds between the surviving members of Monty Python. And while that may be kind of a bummer for fans to hear, Sir Michael Palin recently pointed out that one source of interpersonal friction was a key part of what made much of their comedy so great.

In a new interview with The New York Times, Palin discussed his career as a travel documentary host, as well as his published diaries, which chronicled the early years of Monty Python. When the Times suggested that Eric Idle was “upset” by the diary’s release, Palin explained that none of these public beefs would last long if the Pythons were in closer proximity to one another. “The great thing about Python was, when we were all together, any disputes we had were dealt with fairly briskly,” Palin clarified. ”I...

Steve Martin and the Monty Python gang are seemingly big fans of each other’s work — although John Cleese’s opinion of the American comedian may have soured slightly in recent years, after Eric Idle gave him the role of God in Spamalot and “fired” Cleese.

Martin is such a Python admirer that he was tapped to host the TV special Parrot Sketch Not Included — 20 Years of Monty Python, which featured the final onscreen appearance of those six unforgettable comedians: “John, Paul, George, Ringo, Bob and… one other unforgettable guy.”

But when Martin first got into Monty Python, he didn’t even know what they looked like. That’s because the show didn’t air in the U.S. until 1974, but their albums were widely available.

The Pythons began issuing audio recordings of their sketches as early as 1970. And while their first release, simply titled Monty Python’s Flying Circus,...

On Thursday January 30 2025, History broadcasts Swamp People: Serpent Invasion!

Python Showdown Season 5 Episode 5 Episode Summary

The upcoming episode of “Swamp People: Serpent Invasion,” titled “Python Showdown,” promises to bring excitement and competition to the swamp. As temperatures rise, the hunters face not only the challenge of catching pythons but also the heat that makes their task even more difficult. The King of the Swamp has decided to spice things up by launching a contest to see which team can catch the biggest python.

In this episode, different hunting teams will showcase their unique strategies and local knowledge. Each group will approach the challenge in its own way, aiming to outsmart the snakes and emerge victorious. The competition will add an extra layer of intensity as the hunters push themselves to the limit in the sweltering heat.

Viewers can expect to see the hunters working together, sharing tips, and perhaps even...

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: John Cleese is leaving Twitter.

If your eyes start rolling to the back of your skull, that’s probably because Cleese has stomped around promising to leave the party before. It was just last September when the high-drama comic huffed a public farewell.

That exit lasted a full eight days before Cleese needed to respond to an eight-month-old tweet from ex-Python mate Eric Idle. Cleese’s own daughter Camilla predicted he wouldn’t be able to stay away for long. Turns out she knows the old man pretty well.

Now Cleese says he’s had enough of Twitter — again — and he really means it this time. Maybe. “Hello, Twits,” the comic says in his probably-farewell video. “I just want to say to all my beloved Twits that I am moving to Substack because I think I would encounter a better class of person there.

Monty Python is commonly referred to as the “Beatles of comedy” — or are The Beatles the Monty Python of music? In any case, the two groups did overlap to some extent, thanks to Python fan George Harrison, who famously befriended the comedians and financed Monty Python’s Life of Brian when no other studio would.

The Python member who was most tight with Harrison was Eric Idle. Idle even credited the former Beatle for saving his life and lifting him out of a depression.

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Recently, a fan asked Idle on social media whether or not he ever considered working on a musical project with Harrison. Idle noted that, in addition to collaborating on Life of Brian, he also directed two music videos for Harrison, including the distinctly Python-esque video for the 1977 song “Crackerjack Palace.”

Idle also pointed out that he did co-write a song with the music legend: “The Pirate Song.

Swamp People: Serpent Invasion recently debuted its fifth season. In addition, it introduced a new face among those taking on serpents: Hillbilly Dave. Many fans are wondering just who this new python is.

Hillbilly Dave Knows Where A Python ‘Jackpot’ Can Be Found

Swamp People: Serpent Invasion is a spin-off of History Channel’s Swamp People. Coming out in 2020, it features figures like Troy and Chase Landry, Bruce Mitchell, Cheyenne “Pickle” Wheat, Zak Catchem, and Bill Booth teaming up to fight invasive pythons in the Everglades. The series notably serves as Swamp People‘s third spin-off, after Outback Hunters and Swamp Mysteries With Troy Landry.

The series recently debuted its fifth season earlier this month. On January 2, 2025, the series premiere, “Jackpot,” introduced viewers to a new figure: Dave Hackathorn, also known as “Hillbilly Dave.”

‘Hillbilly’ Dave Hackathorn – History Channel

In the episode, Zak and Aaron Crum team up with Dave,...

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which turns 50 this year, is clearly one of best comedies ever made. And, barring some sort of dark twist in the Peter Rabbit series, it’s the best movie to feature a bloodthirsty bunny gnawing someone’s head off.

While the idea of sequelizing this beloved classic may seem foolish to some, it very nearly happened. Back in 1997, Eric Idle pitched a Holy Grail follow-up to the rest of the Pythons. Although the project never came to fruition, Idle’s original outline survives. He’s currently selling copies of The Final Crusade, but he also posted info about it on his blog in 2013.

According to Idle, The Final Crusade was to be “about a group of grumpy old men being pressured to get back together again for a last quest,” which would “allow us to mock ourselves.” And that mockery wasn’t exactly subtle.

Even the most original shows aren’t created from nothing. Saturday Night Live, like every comedy show before or since, can point to funny ancestors that helped draw up the blueprint for its success. Here are five comedy classics that formed the template for the show that became SNL…

[subtitle]1Your Show of Shows [/subtitle]

“Saturday Night Live always had its roots showing,” wrote Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller in their oral history Live From New York. Those roots began in the golden era of live TV in New York, especially Your Show of Shows featuring Sid Caesar and his troupe. The comedy was enhanced by the thrill of the live broadcast, a “this is happening now!” quality that had disappeared from television before SNL brought it back in 1975.

When Dick Ebersol made his initial Saturday Night pitch to NBC, Your Show of Shows was one of his examples of what SNL would try to emulate,...

Proving that Canadian news shows aren’t always hopelessly dull, a vintage clip of the Monty Python gang improvising shtick for a Vancouver news crew recently resurfaced on social media. The young Pythons approach a “man on the street” reporter who’s holding a sign informing passersby that they can “say anything they want.”

Terry Jones proclaims that the show is doing a “real service to the community” by allowing people to say words like “grunties” on TV, but Michael Palin bops him on the head and then encourages Canadians to patronize the arts. Specifically by buying tickets to their show: “Remember a full theater is a happy promoter– theater!”

Meanwhile, Eric Idle propositions Neil Innes (“Do you want to come back to my place?”), and John Cleese makes a royal plea. “I’d like to say that I think Prince Philip should come clean about his toupee,” Cleese deadpans,...

"Monty Python's Flying Circus" was a tough sell in the United States, and it's easy to see why. Many of the TV shows and media tropes that the Pythons lampooned on their famously absurd sketch comedy show were unbearably insular to British audiences. There were jokes about local television personalities, spoofs of English news programs, and send-ups of the BBC's tendency to cram dry, not-at-all-entertaining documentaries into their programming blocks.

The BBC had made a deal with Time-Life Television to broadcast reruns of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" in the United States, but after a deal had been struck, Time-Life deemed the series to be "too British" for U.S. audiences. Ultimately, it was shelved. Time-Life's suspicions about the Pythons were proven true when the troupe's 1971 anthology film "And Now for Something Completely Different" tanked at the box office. Additionally, the six silly men performed a 30-minute block of material...

Everybody has their own personal favorite Monty Python sketch. For some, it’s the famous “Dead Parrot” routine; for others, it’s “Nudge Nudge” (though I’m guessing no one will claim the cannibalistic undertaker bit).

Then there’s the iconic “Ministry of Silly Walks,” in which John Cleese plays an absurdly flexible civil servant working within the titular ministry, where he oversees grant applications for the development of new wacky ambulatory methods. According to Michael Palin, the idea began as a phrase he jotted down in his notebook. When he wasn’t able to figure out what to do with the concept, he handed it off to Cleese’s writing partner, Graham Chapman, who told Palin, “I think we could do something with that.”

There are no bigger fans of the sketch than the residents of Brno, Czech Republic. This coming Saturday, the city will hold a “Silly Walks March,...

It’s 2025 which, despite the lack of flying cars, robot butlers and miraculous poop-cleaning seashells, is very much the future — at least compared to the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Even though so much time has passed since the days when the internet was just a twinkle in the eye of Al Gore, people are still very much enjoying the comedy of Monty Python, who first hit the comedy scene way back in 1969 with the debut of Monty Python’s Flying Circus on the BBC.

The Pythons are seemingly just as popular in the 21st century as they were in the 20th, as evidenced by their run of sold-out shows at London’s massive O2 Arena in 2014…

…and their streaming success, first on YouTube, then Netflix and now Shout! TV. Which, when you think about it, is highly unusual. I mean, it’s not like many other decades-old BBC shows are hot streaming commodities these days.

As fans are well aware, a number of famous rock stars contributed to Monty Python projects — Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd all helped to finance Monty Python and the Holy Grail, George Harrison mortgaged his home to pay for Life of Brian and, more recently, Mick Jagger introduced the troupe’s reunion show press conference while implicitly poking fun at his own career.

Despite this cozy relationship, few musicians took any direct artistic inspiration from the sketch comedians — although Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson did name-check Monty Python while attempting to explain the album Thick as a Brick.

But in 1988, one of the biggest rock supergroups in music history, The Traveling Wilburys, included more than one shout-out to the Pythons in their debut album.

The group’s stacked lineup included George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne and the legendary Roy Orbison. According to Orbison’s son,...

Stars: Michael Madsen, Bryan Clark, Paul Logan, Aaron Groben, Grace West, Lauren Parkinson, Savannah Goldstein, Jesse Bernstein, G.J. Echterkamp | Written by Blake Miller | Directed by Jim Wynorski

DinoGator is one of those movies I never thought I’d actually get to see, at least not this side of a bootleg copy. Originally shot in 2016 under the more accurate title CobraGator, it came close to release in 2018, only to disappear into the murky depths of the swamp of lost films. Not even the involvement of the legendary Roger Corman, who served as executive producer, could convince distributors to lure it out, until now. So, was it worth the wait? Well, that really depends on how much you enjoy the taste of cheese.

The story kicks off with a trio of doomed characters venturing into a cave. One of them plays a recorder like a snake charmer’s flute. But instead of charming any creatures,...

Monty Python isn’t exactly known for creating the most festive content, with the possible exception of the first five minutes of Life of Brian, and the “Christmas in Heaven” musical number that wraps up The Meaning of Life.

But, oddly enough, one Python member secured their role in the troupe by finding a creative use for an old holiday tradition.

Back in 1968, Terry Gilliam was having trouble getting work. He had previously made photographic comic strips for a magazine called Help!, including one in which a horny John Cleese hits on his kid’s Barbie doll.

When Help! went under, Cleese told Gilliam to get in touch with the people making Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children’s comedy series featuring Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, which had become a surprise hit with adults. Gilliam later wrote that he was only hired because producer Humphrey Barclay “took pity on me,...

Whether he likes it or not, Terry Gilliam is smack-dab in the middle of a Monty Python feud. While Eric Idle and John Cleese are doing the public mud-slinging, Gilliam and his offspring are at the heart of the conflict. Idle can’t believe the Python comedians don’t have more money in the bank, blaming Gilliam’s daughter, Holly (who runs the group’s business affairs), for financial mismanagement.

“Python is a disaster,” Idle tweeted earlier this year. “If you put a Gilliam child in as your manager you should not be so surprised. One Gilliam is bad enough. Two can take out any company.”

Oof. Cleese has fired back on multiple occasions, including earlier this year.

“I have worked with Holly for the last 10 years, and I find her very efficient, clear-minded, hard working, and pleasant to have dealings with,” Cleese tweeted. “Michael Palin has asked me to...

A lot of comedy fans love both Mel Brooks and Monty Python, and would presumably be thrilled if they all got along splendidly. Unfortunately, one of the very first meetings between the Blazing Saddles director and a Python member didn’t go so well.

Back in 1987, Brooks met Michael Palin, while the latter was in Los Angeles making A Fish Called Wanda. At the same time, Palin was trying to hire Brooks’ wife Anne Bancroft to star in his film American Friends, which eventually came out in 1991 (with no Anne Bancroft). Palin ran into Brooks at the studio commissary, and they immediately got off on the wrong foot.

As Palin wrote in his diary at the time, Brooks was “chunky, rack-like, barrel chest, with a firm, no-nonsense light paunch.” He then grabbed Palin’s hand and shook it “probably five or six times.” Then he affably implied that Monty Python...

Eric Idle is struggling to see the bright side of his estrangement from John Cleese.

In an interview on the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast, the Monty Python star reflected on his public feud with Cleese over the British comedy troupe’s management.

Asking about the disagreement — and likely voicing what many Monty Python fans are thinking — O’Brien told Idle that he doesn’t want “mommy and daddy to fight.”

Idle replied: “We don’t disagree about comedy, this is only about money. This is only about business. I mean, a fool and his money are easily parted — six of us, much more quickly.

“There’s no right or wrong way to deal with business, and if somebody has one view of it, and somebody doesn’t, and somebody has another, those can lead to very bad arguments.

“Unfortunately, we don’t see each other enough. I haven...

As we’ve previously mentioned, there’s currently a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to build a statue honoring late Monty Python member Terry Jones in his hometown of Colwyn Bay, Wales. In a rare moment of agreement, all the surviving Pythons have thrown their support behind the project, dubbed “A Python on the Prom,” which will possibly result in a detailed bronze replica of Jones playing the organ while completely naked.

The campaign has, at the time of writing, raised 83 percent of its goal, but organizers are hoping to make up the difference with a new exhibition celebrating Jones’ life. “The Life of Terry” will open in Colwyn Bay on December 12th, with all proceeds going toward the statue fundraiser. The exhibit will reportedly feature more than 100 items that have been loaned by Jones’ family and the Monty Python archive.

The items will include rare personal photographs, as well...

The ongoing feud between Eric Idle and John Cleese has gotten a lot of attention this year. It’s basically the Drake-Kendrick beef, but for comedy lovers who can’t sleep through the night without getting up to pee at least once.

Monty Python fans who have been disappointed by their comedy heroes’ incessant online squabbling aren’t alone. Idle appeared on the most recent episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, and the former Late Night host revealed that, he too, has been bummed at the troupe’s recent acrimony.

Conan is obviously a huge Python fan, so it’s perhaps no surprise that, during his chat with Idle, he brought up the spat. Prefacing his line of inquiry by noting “we don't have to talk about this,” he admitted that as someone who’s been “influenced and awed by Python, I think of it as sort of (like) Santa Claus.

Monty Python have obviously inspired a number of comedians, writers, filmmakers and aggrieved garbage dump custodians, but it turns out that they also had a big impact on the actor best known for gunning down countless Russian mobsters and downloading kung-fu directly into his cerebral cortex: Keanu Reeves.

Reeves recently attended the Southbank Literature Festival to promote his new novel The Book of Elsewhere, along with his co-author China Miéville. When the moderator asked Reeves about which work of art from his youth “has been the biggest inspiration” in his work, the actor, at first, couldn’t come up with an answer. But then he admitted that it was actually Monty Python.

“It was such a wonderful influence and model of storytelling,” Reeves said of the iconic comedy troupe, noting that their humor “was so physical but also so intellectual and social.”

This might seem a little bit surprising, considering...

Monty Python legend/old man yelling out cloud John Cleese recently appeared on BBC One’s Morning Live to promote the stage revival of Fawlty Towers that’s currently playing in London. Cleese doesn’t act in the play, but he scripted the adaptation, hence why it’s billed as “John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers” (an unforgivable act of Connie Booth erasure).

Cleese also took the opportunity to discuss the production of the original series, specifically how it was as stressful and chaotic as Basil Fawlty’s hotel. “There wasn’t time to hang around — we had two hours to record that show,” Cleese recalled. “We started at 8 and finished at 10, and if it wasn’t in the can, there wasn’t an ending to the show.”

Cleese also claimed that the hurried schedule frequently led him to worry that episodes wouldn’t be completed: “Whenever there was a break,...

Contrary to John Cleese’s baffling suggestion that Monty Python’s Flying Circus was somehow banned, the show has been widely available on Netflix since 2018. The popular streamer has also been the home of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and various other Python specials and documentaries. Oh, and Eric Idle’s bizarre faux radio play What About Dick?

But all that is about to change.

The entire Python catalog will disappear from Netflix on November 1st, meaning that a lot of folks may be spending Halloween night binging 50-year-old comedy sketches. This marks the end of the much-publicized association between Netflix and the Pythons, which not every member of the group has been super-happy about.

Since Netflix has failed to renew its deal with Monty Python, the iconic comedy troupe’s back catalog was free to find a new digital home. As reported...

John Cleese is best known as a member of the British comedy troupe Monty Python. Let’s look back at the Oscar-nominated funnyman and his 12 greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1939 in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, England, Cleese rose to prominence thanks to the British sketch series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” which ran for four seasons on the BBC from 1969-1974. The troupe — which also included Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin — revolutionized comedy with their surreal, experimental sketches, the best of which were assembled into the film “And Now for Something Completely Different” (1971). This led to other cinematic outings, including “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975), “Life of Brian” (1979) and “The Meaning of Life” (1983).

Cleese achieved big screen success of his own with “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988), which he wrote and starred in as an uptight English barrister who becomes entangled in an elaborate...

It’s no secret that the Monty Python bond isn't super-strong right now. And the reason why it’s no secret is because a lot of the inter-Python bickering has transpired on social media. Eric Idle and John Cleese made headlines for posting snide comments about one another, the result of Idle’s vocal discontentment with the handling of Monty Python’s finances. It’s basically the British comedy equivalent of watching your parents fight.

While the Idle-Cleese feud has certainly garnered a lot of attention recently, it isn’t exactly a fresh phenomenon. Not only is this not the first time that Idle and Cleese have squabbled, it’s not even the first time that they’ve squabbled in front of all their social media followers.

The two Pythons also beefed way back in 2011. And it will probably come as a shock to precisely no one that it was also about money.

As Eric Idle continues to promote his new book The Spamalot Diaries — technically it’s an old book that’s been dusted off and published — the Monty Python legend recently stopped by The Daily Show to chat about it with host Jordan Klepper.

Klepper admitted to being a huge Python fan, telling Idle, “I would not be doing comedy in this world if it wasn’t for you and the folks at Monty Python. Thank you.” Klepper also joked that “there was a 15-year period before I actually got legitimate employment in comedy — and during those 15 years I would have cursed you on the streets. But once I found a little bit of employment in comedy, now you’ve become a hero once again.”

As the conversation progressed, Klepper brought up Idle’s Python frenemy John Cleese, who the host noted has “been prickly about modern woke audiences.” For context,...

Poor Eric Idle. And by “poor Eric Idle,” I mean literally poor — the former Monty Python star is once again lamenting his lack of riches, telling The Times U.K. that “these days everything in showbiz is on YouTube or Spotify so I do have to earn a living. I’d love to retire, but, alas, I can’t.”

He blames his old Python pals, specifically the fiscal mismanagement of the group’s earnings, but doesn’t want to get into it. “I’m not getting involved in a to and fro, for me it’s not very important,” he explained. “Sad to say I don’t really care because I’ve got a lot of other things to do in my life.”

None of that stopped Idle from getting involved in a to and from earlier this year on social media, complaining on Twitter that, “We own everything we...

While the surviving members of Monty Python are no longer a working comedy team, they have been producing a ton of “why does everyone in Monty Python hate each other?” content this year. Eric Idle and John Cleese have been publicly feuding on social media, Cleese has been needling Michael Palin during interviews and the ghost of Graham Chapman has allegedly been haunting Cleese, possibly in a Christmas Carol sort of deal.

Most recently, Palin has been busy promoting the latest installment of his published diaries, and naturally, the press has been asking him about the current state of the Pythons’ emotional well-being. His response wasn’t exactly encouraging.

“I’ve given up trying to hold together that original family,” Palin told Andrew Marr of Lbc. He went on to explain that the Pythons tended to get along best when they were producing material, but not so much afterwards. “The thing was,...

As his daughter predicted, John Cleese's self-imposed exile from Twitter/X didn’t last long. To be fair, the Monty Python star managed to stay silent (save for a couple of retweets) for nearly nine days before deciding to fire new shots at archenemy and former comedy compatriot Eric Idle.

The latest grenade lob continues a social media feud from earlier this year. Idle publicly complained that the group’s relative lack of riches was due to mismanagement by Terry Gilliam’s daughter, Holly, who runs the company that steers Monty Python projects. Cleese, Michael Palin and (surprise) Terry Gilliam came out in support of Holly at the time. Cleese said that he found her to be “very efficient, clear-minded, hard-working and pleasant.”

What sparked the flames again? Deadline reports that Idle created “a fresh post on X (once Twitter),” accusing Cleese of firing former manager Jim Beach and installing Holly.

Earlier this year, a sad truth for fans of Monty Python was unveiled when a feud between members Eric Idle and John Cleese was made public. Idle would profess that the brand had been mismanaged due to Cleese firing former manager Jim Beach and appointing Terry Gilliam’s daughter, Holly, in the position. Eric Idle revealed that funds have dried up from his Monty Python days, writing, “I don’t know why people always assume we’re loaded. Python is a disaster. Spamalot made money 20 years ago. I have to work for my living. Not easy at this age.”

Back in February, Idle made it clear on social media when he posted, “I don’t mind but once they put Gilliams daughter in as Manager and Cleese fires Jim Beach, well it’s over.” A fan responded to the situation by inquiring why other members didn’t get a say on the management replacement decision.

John Cleese and Eric Idle are continuing to duke it out on social media.

The Monty Python legends exchanged barbs earlier this year, locking horns over their estrangement after Idle complained that he still had to work because Python’s earnings had dried up.

Idle blamed the mismanagement of the Python brand on Terry Gilliam and his daughter, Holly. The latter runs Hdg Projects, which manages Python and helped stage Monty Python Live (mostly) – One Down Five to Go, the group’s 2014 reunion shows at the O2 in London.

Cleese, along with Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, later made clear that they endorsed Holly’s management. “I find her very efficient, clear-minded, hard-working, and pleasant,” Cleese said.

Now, in a fresh post on X (once Twitter), Idle has accused Cleese of firing former manager Jim Beach and installing Holly. He said this was the reason their relationship was “over.”

I...

While most news about Monty Python these days tends to involve bitter financial disputes and long-simmering tensions blowing up on social media, there’s at least one recent Python-centric story that’s unquestionably heartwarming. And no, we don’t mean John Cleese’s decision to quit Twitter.

There’s currently a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to pay for a statue honoring Terry Jones, which is to be erected on the promenade in Colwyn Bay, Wales where the late Monty Python member lived until he was nearly five. Jones, of course, passed away in 2020 due to complications of a rare form of dementia, which he was diagnosed with in 2015 — although his death still hasn’t stopped him from booking acting jobs.

The GoFundMe campaign, dubbed “A Python on the Prom,” seeks to raise £120,000 for the bronze sculpture. Run by Jones’ family and the Conwy Arts Trust, the campaign was...