AUTHOR'S NOTE: While much this information comes from my own research and observations, a series of books by Kim "Howard" Johnson (St. Annes Press) has aided me: The First 200 Years of Monty Python; Life Before and After Monty Python; And Now For Something Completely Trivial.

• Many different people from the world of pop music loved the Monty Python brand of humour. Not the least of these were the Beatles. Three of the four at one stage or another had links with the Python team.
• George Harrison was probably was the keenest of the four. He said in an interview, "Monty Python helped me get over the trauma of the breakup of the Beatles." He made an unaccredited appearance at some of the American concerts at the City Center venue (as a mountie during the Lumberjack Song). He also put up the money for the film Life of Brian as well as asking Palin to write the sleeve notes for an album which he made with the supergroup "The Travelling Wilburys". During his concerts the last record on a warm-up tape he played at the start of the gig was the Lumberjack Song.
• Eric Idle also directed some videos for Harrison. Harrison appeared on Idle's 1975 TV programme Rutland Weekend Television. This was a wonderful satire as Harrison - who was dressed up as though he was about to perform his 1970 UK # 1 "My Sweet Lord" surprised audiences as he went into a silly little song about pirates! Mick Jagger also did spoof interviews about the Rutles.
• Paul McCartney's links with Python were very much more obscure. Chapman had been invited to a party where his group Wings were being launched. McCartney was a fan of Python, and had wanted to meet a Python. Unfortunately, Chapman was slightly tipsy and was thrown out before McCartney arrived.
• Ringo Starr actually appeared in series 3 of the Python series. He appeared in a chat show (along with the pop star Lulu) in a show called It's. Neither of them said anything, with only Palin (who appeared in this sketch as the "It's" man) saying anything; although only a brief cameo, Ringo later said in an interview how pleased he had been to do it.
• In an interview recorded just two days before he was shot, John Lennon also sang the praises of the British comedy team. He said how much he enjoyed Fawlty Towers and added that he was disappointed that he was not able to appear with the comedy troupe in person.
• Other musicians to enjoy the humour were: Paul Simon (who recorded spoof interviews for Idle during The Rutles), Iron Maiden (who got Graham Chapman to appear in one of their promotional videos), Roy Orbison (who said he enjoyed memorizing their sketches), Aerosmith (who called them one of the icons of the 20th century) and Harry Neilson (who recorded a song for Chapman's film Yellowbeard--though it was not used in the final cut of the movie). Neilson also was an uncredited Mountie in the City Center concerts.
• A snake in Australia was discovered in the early 1980s, of which the Latin name starts 'Monte Python....' The full name: Montypythonsidesriversleighensis.
• In the 45 Python shows, there were:
  9 appearances by the knight with the rubber chicken (Gilliam)
  9 appearances by the 16-ton weight
  19 repetitions of "And now for something completely different" (+5 on film)
  26 characters named "Arthur," 16 named "Ken."
  9 appearances by the Colonel (+1 on film)
  39 people or things exploded (+2 on film)
  13 appearances by "Mr. Gumby" (Palin appeared 8 times as him)
  # of performances in drag (including film): Chapman = 45, Jones = 44, Idle = 31.
  # of performances in nude (including film): Jones = 5, Carol Cleveland = 4.
  
• One particular sketch from Series 2 (from How to recognise different parts of the body) took 18 takes to perform as Cleese and Palin could not stop laughing at each other...
• One sketch ("Spot the Brain Cell") was edited out of British editions as there were copyright problems. It was a spoof of "Take Your Pick", Thames TV. The original makers of the show complained and it was replaced by a shorter version of the "Nevil Shunt" documentary, which was also from Series 2.
• In Britain there is a racehorse called "Fawlty Towers".

GOT A QUESTION ABOUT MONTY PYTHON? Try to stump our resident expert! Mail cabp34@ccsun.strath.ac.uk or Michael.Clarkson@udcf.gla.ac.uk; put "Britcomedy Digest MP question" in the subject line.

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