Monty Python’s Flying Circus Touches Down

At times, it seemed that officials from the Ministry of Earnest Questions were there just to ask a trio from the Ministry of Silly Walks the difference between British and American humor.

But Eric Idle quickly put things in perspective. “American humor pays more,” he explained.

So things went here at a Museum of Broadcasting seminar that launched a 20th-anniversary celebration and display of the works of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. This look back in humor is to run through Feb. 25.

The Circus, of course, is that free-wheeling British troupe that began on the BBC in 1969. Its varied forms of stiff-upper-lip silliness, such as exploding humans to show the population explosion, remain legend.

Before calling it quits in 1974, the troupe made 45 acclaimed half-hour episodes, the last batch of six without tall, loose-limped John Cleese, the star of the celebrated Ministry of Silly Walks skits.

The year they ceased fire, their series started on U.S. public TV, at first in Dallas, in those days much more hip than New York. Then the show spread throughout America.

On Monday, Python graduates Idle, Terry Jones and the American member, Terry Gilliam, were on the museum’s Python panel. Alas, their colleagues--Cleese, Graham Chapman and Michael Palin--had previous commitments.

Still, it was most enlightening as an overflow crowd explored the history and ramifications of Python humor, and sometimes got a straight answer.

The mostly young Pythonologists, one of whom said he was doing his master’s thesis on the group, showed a detailed knowledge of their subject that rivaled a convention of Star Trekkies, posing such questions as:

--”When did you conceive of the dead parrot sketch and were there complaints from animal activists?”

--”How did the effeminate drill team sketch come about?”

--”Why did you dress up like women, and was it a secret fantasy?”

How fragile TV tapings can be was indicated when Jones was asked about a sort of deranged British “You Are There” history special he and Palin did in 1969. It was called “The Complete and Utter History of Britain.”

“It doesn’t exist,” he said, somewhat wistfully. “It’s been wiped.”

The museum’s Python retrospective includes examples of their series, plus what its members did, solo and together, before and immediately after disbanding.

How difficult post-Python life can be was indicated by Gilliam, the series’ surreal, black-humor illustrator, when asked about his surreal, controversial movie “Brazil,” over which he did much-publicized battle with Universal Studios several years ago.

Unfortunately, he said, “you win the battle and they win the war.” His new movie, “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” due to receive its U.S. premiere in San Francisco on March 8, promises to be just as divisive among audiences. It is already shaping up to be Columbia Pictures’ most difficult marketing task in years.

Like Gilliam and the others, Idle, who contributed the leering “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” to the Circus, thence to America, has not been idle since the Pythons irrevocably uncoiled.

In 1978, Idle achieved a measure of cult fame with “The Rutles,” which NBC aired. It traced, with satire aforethought, the rise of “The Rutles,” a British rock group that some thought vaguely resembled the Beatles.

The late John Lennon loved the show, Idle said, but the Beatle Paul McCartney, well . . . Idle’s mobile face became deadpan. “Paul didn’t like it. Word filtered back.”

Idle spent last year gadding about the world, playing the valet role to Pierce Brosnan in a TV remake of “Around the World in 80 Days,” scheduled to air on NBC this spring.

Monday’s Python persiflage resulted in frequent laughter and, at one point, the trio got a present from a young fan, a brown, furry mechanical cat’s paw. At least the paw looked fake.

That night, the trio, minus their paw, were feted at a place where rock stars and other swells congregate, the Hard Rock Cafe.

The list of invited guests included billionaire publisher Malcolm Forbes, model-actress Lauren Hutton, actor Val Kilmer, and a delegate simply known as Tiffany.

Before all that, Jones reflected at the museum on how the video fates and America had so well treated a bunch of satirically minded college lads who called themselves Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

He said he never thought the troupe had made shows that would last. Idle agreed. “The only thing we ever agreed on as a group,” he said, “was that the show would never go in America.’