All language subtitles for The.Meaning.Of.Monty.Python.2013.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

[mellow music]

Downloaded from
YTS.MX

Good morning, good morning,
2:30 in the morning.

It's tea time.

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

[sighs]
This is worse than fucking filming.

[chattering]

Old comedian's home.
Hello, comedian. How are you?

Yes.

-Hello, hello...
-Hello.

Uncle Weiner.

This is lapsang souchong.

So it's a bit like
a tea and a cigarette.

I'm going to evacuate and have a shower.

hope I feel a little better,
I'll come out back again.

[Idle]
♪ Just remember that you're standing ♪

♪ On a planet that's evolving ♪

♪ And evolving at 900 miles an hour ♪

Still doing a gig in California.

There's Eric.

Hey!

-Good morning.
-Good morning.

What time is it?

It should be dark there, shouldn't it?

It's three in the morning.

[all groaning]

[Idle] It's three in the morning, yes.

So that's why you look like that.

[chuckling]

This is how I look
at three in the morning.

So which chair am I sitting in?

The only other one
that's not occupied, John.

Work it out, work it out.

What you on, Eric? Are you
having something to drink or not?

I had a lapsang souchong
and now we're on Brendan's breakfast.

Trying to see the books on Eric's shelf.

Can you see that clearly?
I... you're very fuzzy.

-Can you read books entirely?
-No, I can't at all.

I'm just wondering
if any of them are mine.

-[chuckles]
-Really?

There's a Michael Palin section.

Oh, where is it?

I have some very rare,
unsigned Michael Palin books.

Where? Where did you find them?

Eric, where...
I've been trying to find one.

You have to send up for them
from the publisher

because they come
signed from the factory.

Don't worry, Eric, I'll come over
and soil them, personally.

There is a shop in Henley, apparently,
where you can get unsigned copies...

It's called something like Jonkers
or something like that.

I'm gonna vouch for that.

I, Me, Mine by George Harrison.

That's even greater
than the unsigned ones.

On the bottom shelf.

That's actually my...

No, it's not by George Harrison,
it's by somebody very similar.

Uh... John Locke.

-John Locke? Oh.
-John Locke, yeah...

-[Idle] It's Francis Bacon.
-Francis Bacon?

[Idle] Francis Bacon, yes.

He actually... No, it was actually
Shakespeare who pretended to be him.

I have a theory that all Francis Bacon's
works were written by Shakespeare.

They were. Oh, clearly, yes.

Do you know he died in my house?
Francis Bacon.

-[Palin] Francis Bacon?
-It's true.

-What?
-Francis Bacon died in my house.

[Cleese] Not at your mother's...

Thousands of people
died in your house.

By the way, lucky bastard.

Exactly.
[laughing]

He set the tone for it.

He was trying to invent
the TV dinner it appears.

And found a dead chicken,
stuffed it with snow, got a chill.

They put him to bed in the house,
the bed hadn't been heated properly,

he caught pneumonia and he died.

-In your house?
-Which room?

-I don't know. I don't know.
-In the kitchen?

-Francis Bacon the artist?
-No.

[chattering]

Criminal political leader.

The one who's so encouraging, he said,
"We must put nature on the rack...

Oh, you're right.

...and force her
to reveal her secrets."

It's a nice Elizabethan turn of phrase.

That's very good, that's rigorous.

Wasn't the sort who died
on the bed or on the pillow,

one sort of teethes
the secrets out of nature.

[laughing]

[chattering]

Any famous die in your house, Terry?

No, no...

I thought Aristotle
had died in our house,

but it was all bloody rumor.

-He'd never even been there.
-Who?

-Aristotle.
-[all laughing]

Never been anywhere near Kensington.

You know, the estate agents
will tell you anything, won't they?

"Oh, it's very, you'll like this,
Aristotle was here for three years.

Why is it called
"Aristotle Lane" then?

Exactly, exactly.

Absolute cheeks.

I bought it on the basis of Aristotle
Lane, thought it'd be good for me.

It was to toughen me
up a bit intellectually.

He was a bugger for the bottle.

-[Palin] Bugger for the bottle, yeah.
-He was a bugger for the bottle.

Hobbes was fond of a drum
and René Descartes...

[guitar strumming]

♪ Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable ♪

[♪ Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table ♪

-That's enough of that.
-♪ Wittgenstein was a... ♪

-Wittgenstein?
-Wittgenstein.

It's come up again. The second time
this morning Wittgenstein's come up.

We were talking about
Wittgenstein earlier

and I was asking whether it was
"Wittgenstein" or "Vittgenstein."

What do most people say?

I should imagine it's depends whether
it was in Austria or Cambridge.

Oh, very good answer.

He was the Professor of Philosophy
at Cambridge University in 1940.

Oh, right.

And, also, interesting enough, he went
to school with Hitler in Graz, in Austria,

when a little boy.

There's pictures of him next to Hitler.

[laughing]

That's a bummer for your CV isn't it?

There's some theory that Hitler
developed his anti-Semitism

because he hated Wittgenstein so much.

Just 'cause he liked the boy
next to him, he didn't like.

That's... that's probably
what it's about.

Isn't it sad? Yeah, and Wittgenstein
had a one-handed brother pianist.

He lost his arm in the first World War
and became a concert pianist.

-Oh, great.
-[Idle] A one-handed concert pianist.

And people like Ravel
wrote special pieces for him.

I love that.

It's like being a one-handed cricketer,
you know, gotta admire their spirit.

I was watching Somerset
playing Glamorgan once

in the pub, Terrace Pub,
Weston-super-Mare,

and the guy next to me was moaning on
about Somerset.

And he was talking about a fellow
who played for his local village team,

he said to me he'd give his right arm
to play for Somerset.

[all laughing]

Not that he would've stood out because
they were wooden spoon winners,

you know, bottom of the championship
table, for seven consecutive years.

[laughing]

Why a wooden spoon?

I don't know where that came from.
That's the right expression, isn't it?

-Yes, wooden spoon.
-Yeah, wooden spoon.

From the bottom of a...

[overlapping dialogue]

Eric, our wooden spoon correspondent.

-It's rhyming slang, Michael.
-What for?

It's cockney rhyming slang
for being fucking bottom.

-Oh. Oh, yes.
-It's not particularly good

cockney rhyming slang.

Fucking bottom wooden spoon.

That's got a certain non-ring to it.

Like Vaticans, remember?

Vatican cities.

-Oh, yes.
-[Palin] Oh, yes.

[overlapping dialogue]

They were known as
Bristol cities in the old days.

Yeah, Bristol's.

No, don't worry about the cause of this,
just do it.

And will it. Sorry.

-[Gilliam] Who?
-You mean this is not "doing it"?

I think we all have a completely
different feeling about Meaning of Life.

I think some of it's
the funniest stuff we ever did

and other bits I didn't like at all.

-Yeah.
-And I always felt that the problem was

that we rushed into it.

We really shoulda just stepped back from
Life of Brian for a couple of years,

and then I think something would've come
together that would be more integrated.

We were trying to find a form,
a narrative, weren't we, like,

the holy search
for the grail was a narrative,

Life of Brian was a narrative.

The trouble was it was almost on the
last day in Jamaica

that we came up with the title.

And then it was, "That's it, that's it,
this goes here,"

-because everything then fitted.
-Three days in, actually.

It was three days in
and I came down to breakfast

and everybody was
looking glum and thinking,

and Mike suggested we should
turn it into a TV series.

I thought, "What if I only got,
I've got the script timings, which..."

One of the script girls did.

And I thought,
"What are we worrying about?

We've got 70 minutes
of really great material,

and we only need to write
20 minutes more."

And then that turned around. And Eric
came up with The Meaning of Life.

And we could say, "the life of man,"

and that was the third,
Wednesday, three days in.

And I know when Terry said that,
Eric looked very surprised,

but I have to say
that's how I remember it,

because I believe
that after a couple of days,

we read this material out, we didn't see
any way of integrating it,

and I'm almost sure that I said,

"Look, guys,
why don't we just forget this,

-Yeah.
-and have a lovely two week holiday,

and then go back to London and say
'We worked our brains to death

and it just didn't work. It's a failure
and we're not gonna make it.'"

And the next morning you came down

because I think you'd been working on it
that night or in the morning...

Well, I just thought, "What have I got
that nobody else has got?"

And I thought, I got the timings
the script girl had done in the thing.

So, I didn't, just came...

I remember sitting out at the table,
do you remember?

Outside the place in Jamaica and all
these guys walking out of the beach

offering to sell us weed.

"No, no, we're writing comedy.
Writing comedy, please."

We should've just taken it.

And the film would've probably made
much better.

But I do remember them.

-I still love the idea,
-Couldn't believe the court case though.

-What?
-Remember the idea of a court case?

The whole thing was being,
taking place within a court.

And, because it was a con
that we had made this film

and we needed to do Hamlet on an island
out somewhere in Jamaica,

the whole thing was a lie and, ultimately,
we all then,

we're going to be killed at the end.

We were going to be found guilty.
Don't you remember this?

[Cleese] No! I don't remember this.

-Do you remember it, Eric?
-Nope, not at all.

I remember it being more
of a tax deductible, a tax dodge.

-But that was the idea.
-Big tax dodge.

It was a tax dodge,
and we were in court having to justify

why we were playing Hamlet in Jamaica.

Don't remember that happening
but it's really good.

Do you remember we once,?
[clears throat]

Do you remember we were once
having a writing meeting

-and somebody came in...
-Yeah.

...from outside and said,

"Guys, they're setting up a corporation
which is going to help with tax,

and they just want a name for it."

And we said, "Call it, 'Evader Tax Inc.'"

[all laughing]

And they went back and told
the accountants in New York

-and several of them fainted.
-Yeah.

The fear that adjourned us.

-It was our own company, wasn't it?
-[Cleese] Was it?

[overlapping chatter]

-KGB.
-So you remember it

-as being a court case?
-No, it was what Eric was talking about,

in fact, it was a tax dodge.

It was when you could get lots of money
from the government and da da da.

Then we were putting it in a court room,

and we'd the sketches, and each one would
be thrown up as evidence

of why it wasn't a tax dodge
when it obviously was,

and that's why the executions,

we were talking, at one point,
about how each person would be executed,

-how... what you would choose for it.
-Oh, right.

And that ended up with the scene with
Graham being chased by the topless girls.

That was a product of that.

It was also World War Three,
was the other...

I remember that bit.

-Yeah.
-Huh? What do you remember?

World War Three,
I remember we had World War Three,

and it was going to be
sponsored by various corporations.

So people were going into battle carrying,
you know, Nike on their backs,

and huge slogans, "Coca-Cola, bombs."

And that ended up with a very nice
World War Three sketch which Mike wrote,

which is about the prime minister going
into the bunker, the alarm's gone off,

and he comes down,
he's in the bunker, he says,

"Good morning, sir."
"Good morning, I am the Prime Minister"

"Yes, could I just see your pass?"

"Uh, yeah, no, unfortunately,
I left my pass on my desk."

He said, "Well, that's perfectly all
right, sir, I just can't let you in."

"Well, I am the Prime Minister."

"Well, anybody could say that
at this point, couldn't they,

at this particular juncture?"

It's a very funny end, that the Prime
Minister couldn't get into the bunker.

Cause there's a lot
of very good stuff called,

when it was called
Monty Python's Fish Film.

-[Palin] Yeah.
-And I actually have a script of that.

Have you ever read it?

It was a brilliant, another brilliant
script by Michael and Terry, I think,

where they're on a plane
and they're bombing Dresden.

[makes airplane noise]

"Sir, have you seen the rear gunner?"

[laughing]

Bit of a peach, isn't he?
Oh, yeah. [mumbles]

"I mean, no seriously,
he's startling beautiful.

I mean, he's got a sort of
otherworldly quality to him.

I don't know,
it's just makes me feel better

in a whole moral and spiritual way,"
he says. [laughs]

"No, I don't think that's proper in the
RAF, you shouldn't, you know,

this is not really...
we're on a bomber mission.

Alright, of course, I don't mean we should
touch him or anything, I just think,

Isn't it nice to have someone who's such a
peach at the back of the aircraft today?"

[laughing]

And it turns out he's an angel.
They've got an angel in the back.

And then they say, "Wait a minute,
if there's an angel in the back,

did we just die?"

-[all laughing]
-That's clever.

Very clever, we should put that in a film.

[Idle]
There's some smashing stuff in that thing.

We also had an idea at one point that
a spacecraft was going to arrive,

and everyone surrounded the spacecraft
to see what was coming in

because they were people
from another planet.

And they came out and they explained that
they were much more evolved than we were.

They were going to teach us how to live
peacefully together,

and we were all very, very excited,
the crowd outside,

and then the turn around and the door
of their spacecraft had closed on them.

[all laughing]

And they couldn't get back in
and they started to bitch at each other.

[all laughing]

-Do you remember that?
-No.

-I do remember.
-You do remember?

Yeah, yeah. There must be box files
a mile high with all this stuff.

But we also, Graham and I wrote some
stuff about a mad ayatollah.

-Do you remember any of this?
-Yeah.

And I just remember two things:

First, was he was
going into constant rants

about these disgusting
and decadent Western devices,

like toilet paper, you know.

And the other thing was,
I remember there were British troops

that were caught at some point,

and I remember they were all
going to be tortured to death.

And I remember the regiments
and sergeant major come out of the offices

and saluting, and they said,
"Yes, regimental sergeant major.

Permission to panic, sir?"

[all laughing]

That's a very good memory.

No, but we all remember different things.
If anything, extraordinary.

But, I mean, it's interesting,
'cause you were saying

we perhaps rushed into it,
writing The Meaning of Life,

yet I remember we wrote an awful lot
of stuff over a very long period.

-Very long period.
-But maybe you're right.

Maybe we did start it too early
after Life of Brian.

Well, we didn't have a theme.
We didn't have an idea.

I mean, we didn't have a theme,
that was the problem.

-We were writing to find a theme.
-[Idle] We were just writing sketches.

-Yeah.
-And then trying to find the subject

for reading out the sketches,
'cause there was that long expedition

to the Himalayas in search
of the meaning of life.

In search of the meaning of life, and that
was sponsored by Benson and Hedges...

-...cigarettes.
-[all laughing]

This was an idea ahead of its time,
where you get, literally,

people to sponsor things.
Not just product placement.

Smoking a Benson and Hedges.

That's what I thought
was absolutely brilliant,

we could've just paid for the whole film
with all these sponsorships.

Just do it blatantly.

Don't lie, don't be clever about it,
just do it.

But we had that,
remember we wrote a thing ages before,

-I think based on that.
-Yeah, yeah.

It was a BBC Comedy Hour,
or something like that,

all based on the idea there was
sponsorship everywhere in the UK,

including the monarchy;
became the Sony Royal Family.

-[laughing]
-And every year, one member of the public

would become a member of the Royal Family
if they sort of tick the right boxes

and became the Sony Princess
or something like that, just for a year,

and then they go back
to being ordinary again.

You know, it's an idea ahead of its time.
And now, of course,

Back to The Meaning of Life, I remember
reading the script we'd written

on the plane, going over, and we,
I think it was based on Buñuel's...

Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

And it was repeated,
it kept on repeating, and I just thought,

"No, this is not going to work."

It was Henry Jaglom at Cannes who,
when Meaning of Life played in Cannes,

I remember Henry Jaglom,
remember Henry Jaglom?

-Vaguely.
-He made several films,

he was also sort of the amanuensis
of Orson Wells in his latter days.

And Henry came out saying it was
the finest work Python had done,

the best work.
I remember sitting in the car,

I think a couple of others
were in there, arguing,

"What are you talking about, Henry?"

But he was so convinced
that the bad bits worked brilliantly

because they amplified the great moments.

And he thought it was just
a perfect balance.

And it was the only film of ours that
ever won anything at Cannes, wasn't it?

-[all agreeing]
-Grand Prix du Jury.

Well, actually, I remember that very well
because I went to Cannes

I think with you, Terry,
and John Goldstone,

you got up on stage
and you announced that, right there,

right at the opening conference, that you
were confident we were going to win

because we bribed the jurors.

And this was in all the French papers.

It would be announced, it would get
the payoffs just as soon as we won.

Well, the chairman of the jury was
the person who was releasing our film.

-[laughing]
-Oh, no, seriously?

-Yes.
-Oh, how wonderful.

All right, enough of that.

And at the end, no, but at the end when we
won, Terry got on stage to thank the jury

and told them that their money was taped
behind the pipes in the gentleman's room.

[all laughing]

And John and I had "Eat more pork,"
on our...

A stained shirt, brown coats, yeah.

There still is that great,

Isn't that the picture
of all of us on the beach,

-with our breasts...?
-Oh, right, yes.

-That was a previous year, I think.
-Was it?

That's when I had my big breasts.

-Was Graham there?
-Yeah, Graham was there.

With a knotted handkerchief
I seem to remember.

-That's right, yeah.
-Quite small breasts.

I do remember that, really,
A Fish Called Wanda came out of it

because I felt that some of the stuff,
like the liver donor,

you know, which is wonderfully funny.

I mean, just as good as anything we did.

It was fantastic, yeah.

And some of it was great, but I felt there
was a whole lot of it that wasn't good,

and I thought there was better material
that had not got in the film,

and I remember thinking,

"Well, I now want to do a film where
I have at least 40 percent of the say

and not a sixth of the say."
Do you see what I mean?

That's when I sat down
with Charlie Crichton,

who I met many years before,
and we started to knock together the plot,

but it came out of that feeling of,

that I didn't want
to be out-voted anymore from...

I do think that Meaning of Life had,
really had some of our very best things.

-Oh, absolutely.
-Just what we didn't have

was that kid of narrative which kind,
of the knights chasing, or...

Brian being chased, which kind of held it
all together during the quieter bits.

I think I figured out at one point that
we were short of at least one rewrite,

and if we had taken the idea
of the meaning of life

and put on it the seven ages of man,
we could've gone from birth to death

using the same character, even though
we'd gone backwards in time, in and out.

We could've told the story
of one person

and there was a possibility
of some kind of plot.

If you don't have some sort of a story
or narrative holding it together,

it sort of rises or falls
on the quality of every single scene.

-Yeah.
-So that the bad stuff

sticks out much more.

[overlapping dialogue]

What do you call the bad stuff?

I never thought we did the World War I,

presenting the clocks and watches,
I never thought that was very well done.

I didn't think it was a very strong idea.

-Oh, yeah.
-And then that strange fishy thing

I thought was weird without being funny.

-But that's an icon.
-That's an image, that's iconic.

It turns up on YouTube and everything,
and on the web, always.

-It's huge.
-There's something about that

that is just so surreal,
so inexplicable.

People just find it wonderful,
it's interesting that one.

That basic thing about
The Meaning of Life,

as opposed to all our other films,
is it's a musical.

It actually has eight numbers in it,

which is already more that any usual
picture would normally have.

There's nothing better than,
"Every Sperm is Sacred."

Just the way it's shot and filmed

-with song and dance.
-Yeah, that's true.

It's just an extraordinary moment.

It was voted
the best film musical number...

-Really?
-...by Rotten Tomatoes, I think it was.

It was nominated for, we rarely got
nominated for anything at BAFTA,

but it was nominated
for best song at BAFTA,

and they played
the three songs that were winners.

And when "Every Sperm is Sacred,"
little clip came on,

the place just erupted,
it was wonderful,

and then, "The winner is,
'Up Where We Belong,'

from Officer and a Gentleman."

So the same theme, but you could hear
the sort of total groan in the audience.

It was just, you know, it was just...

Well, maybe we should do
The Meaning of Life, Part Two,

with all the stuff that wasn't good enough
to put in the other shows.

I think we made a big mistake,
I think we tried to write in Jamaica.

I think we should just
sit on the beach and film in Jamaica.

Or maybe read the sketches
in the situation where they were.

A little bit of deck chairs. You know,
little cocktails with umbrellas on.

I think that could be
a very nice location.

You would go back to St. Ann's Bay,
remember then?

And all those carved phalluses
they used to bring around. You remember?

-The what?
-[Idle] Weren't they real?

-Uh, sorry, that was just mine.
-[laughing]

-Also, along with the weed,
-What?

-they brought great carved...
-Lemon...

...carved phalluses.
"You want one of these?" Remember?

-Want a dick?
-Card?

-No, "carved" phalluses.
-Oh, carved.

-[Gilliam] I thought you said "card."
-Oh, sorry.

-I thought he said "card."
-Teeth.

-Carved phalluses. Do you remember now?
-No.

Because you bought one.
You bought that huge shape.

[all laughing]

'Cause I remember you could get
BBC 2 and BBC 1.

No, I do remember them.

I still got mine at home.

Watch, I'm sitting on it.

My wife won't give it up.

[all chuckling]

They didn't vibrate in those days though,
did they?

They should unpack all the boxes
of all that old material.

I mean, because it's obviously
some good stuff.

Some of the stuff Eric was remembering
I'd completely forgotten.

Well, the fish film is very good,
John Goldstone gave that to me.

If you read that,
you'll have a lot of laughs.

And some of it was in the movie
and some of it wasn't.

And I guess it was our first draft
called, it was called

Monty Python's Fish Film.

Because there's much, much more material
written for Meaning of Life

-and not used,
-Oh, absolutely.

Probably about three times
as much as we put in.

I found a wonderful cricket sketch.

I think it might've been the last,
he must have written it.

[imitating gibberish]

-Someone nudges him, "Oh, sorry."
-That's right.

It's, and Eric's doing
Peter West, I think.

Graham and I wrote "A Fish Song."

"I'd really rather care for fish,

in fact they are my favorite dish.

I lunch on tench and I dine on cod,

and I break my fast on a gastropod."

[all laughing]

There you are, that's good.

So do you think
we should do another film together?

I think we should sit on the beach
at St. Ann's Bay together.

I think we may agree with that.

We'll ask for a studio
that will give us...

a month on the beach
somewhere nice next February,

and if a movie comes out of it,
the studio can have it.

I'd need to pay off my mortgage,
so I'd love to do another film.

I think we should get Graham,
somehow or other.

This should be the challenge
for the scientific community.

-To recreate Graham.
-We could get someone to channel him.

-That'd be wonderful.
-No, but that's...

Or we take it with you.
Take a medium with us.

The remake of Holy Grail
with the holy relics.

Let's take the great idea.

Because there's enough
recorded material of Graham

that he could always be there speaking.

I like the idea of having a medium

who just has no sense
of comic timing at all.

It's got Graham's voice,
"Oh, hello."

But not able to do anything funny.

Poor Graham.

If it's Graham's sense of timing,
he won't show up.

No, no,
[laughing]

That's right, that's very funny.
He'd be late for meetings, wouldn't he?

"No, he's coming in a minute.
All right, he'll be down shortly."

"He'll be here in a minute."

And when the medium
started to go like this,

you would know it was
finally channeling Graham.

[all laughing]

And the medium,
"Oh, I've got Norman Wisdom by mistake."

[makes funny noise]

If we did anything,
I think it would have to be about death.

Because I spent three years writing
"Death: The Musical,"

and had to stop it
because nobody wanted it.

It's really a Python subject, death.

-It's a very big one, you know.
-Yeah.

[overlapping dialogue]

As a tax write-off, too,
you know, obviously.

I like this idea. I think a month on
the beach writing a movie would be fun.

Or in prison or something like that.

-[all laughing]
-Somewhere where we can be secure.

We have to be there, no one could leave.

Because people always
leave meetings early.

It should be a short prison sentence.

I'm always surprised at how much
good material there is around,

that you suddenly remember
that it was not done.

I mean, I remember Graham
and I wrote a sketch

which was originally intended
to be in The Holy Grail.

And if I remember correctly, ten percent
of the first draft of The Holy Grail

actually made it into the final movie.

And this sketch was done in
the final six programs that I wasn't in.

-Oh, yes.
-Yeah, yeah.

-Buying an ant.
-Buying an ant, yes.

So it's extraordinary
what material is lying around.

Next question.

[all laughing]

That was a wonderful pause.

Right there we'd run out, hadn't we?

"Yes, now the other thing,"
[mumbling]

Our growing years were dreadful,
we had rationing,

you know, it was freezing,
there wasn't enough food,

and, you know, it was cold.

But then, it gradually, bit by bit...

I remember having ice on the walls,
inside walls, in my bedroom.

-[gasps]
-Not just on the window pane, but ice.

You were lucky, we never had ice at all.

[overlapping dialogue]

-We had ice right up our legs.
-Literally.

We lived in a fridge
in the middle of the road.

And to think after every major war there's
a time when there's sort of a, you know,

a renaissance, if you like.
People come in and change things.

You know, it happened in the 20s
after the first World War.

There was people... dance and there's
people going, "Have a good time."

They want to throw off warfare and being
in the army and all the dullness.

We were a very fortunate generation

and we just came along
from all over England,

and people were doing various things
we didn't know,

but all our contemporaries like,
Floyd and the Stones,

and, you know, Beatles.

That was all going on at the same time
as we were doing our thing,

which was being comedy.

But there was an enormous amount
of great comedy,

and a lot of it came out
of those concert groups,

-what were they called? ENSA.
-ENSA.

Well, a lot of the great comedians
of the 50s, 60s, 70s

had actually been
traveling around the world

entertaining British troops,
and we all had an enormous affection

for musical,
as it was called in those days.

You know, the Frankie Howerd's
and the Morecambe and Wise's.

The Goon Shows came out of the
second World War.

They all sort of, well, Milligan, Secombe,
I think fought together.

So in the middle of all this awfulness,
humor was sort of really important.

There was a kind of resentment,
wasn't there, of the governing class,

feeling that they were idiots
and scheming idiots?

And that came out
in The Goon Show.

It was a time, and that was just a time,
when Beyond the Fringe happened.

So that you had the great old
musical tradition,

and the best people there, Max Wall,
you know, it was wonderful.

Tommy Cooper,
the funniest man they'll ever be.

You had that, and you suddenly had
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

and Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller
and John Bird and John Fortune

and Eleanor Bron,
so they're all coming in at the same time,

-so it was an extraordinary...
-They came about 15 years

after the war ended, wasn't it?

Forty-five, and Beyond the Fringe
was 1960, something like that?

-Sixty-two, I think.
-'Cause after the first World War

everything suddenly went wild,
you know, immediately afterwards.

It was almost as though, I think
our generation, my parent's generation,

was so bruised by two World Wars
and a major depression

that they just didn't, you know,

didn't know what to do
after the second World War.

Very nervous of any sort
of expression of how you were feeling,

anything like that was dug in,
austerity, keep quiet,

you know, let's hope
nothing awful happens.

The biggest change is, of course,
the arrival of television,

which made an enormous difference.

I mean, it meant that the Vaudeville
people couldn't carry on.

You could do your acts in Vaudeville
for the rest of your life.

But one night on television they say,
"What you doing next week?"

So there was a whole change over
of types of comedian,

and it made it possible
for people like us to get in there.

It's very strange because in England,
unlike the rest of Europe,

television is what people wanted to be in.

If you were Italian or if you were Spanish
or if you were French,

then you wanted to be in movies.

And the television
was considered rather second rate,

and sort of people, politicians got
their friends into easy sinecures there.

Right? So television in this country
was always that heart of our arch.

But the style of humor changed,
and I think that had to do with education,

university.
People suddenly going to university.

So there was one kind of comedy,
it was like the musical comedy.

And suddenly this wave after the war,
it happened in America the same thing,

suddenly, after the war,

You know, suddenly there's Mort Sahl,
Lenny Bruce, intellectual comedians,

and that's where, you know,
Beyond the Fridge came out of.

But oddly always
with this great respect for the old.

Oh, totally.

And Python was so lucky,
I hadn't realized that we were

on the first, the first week
that BBC went into color.

Yeah, we were very fortunate.

-And we would...
-Is that so? I never realized that.

It's absolutely true.

Yeah, the first,

so we would've been made in black and
white if, you know, for BBC 1.

Someone said to me the other day
about Silly Walks.

How could we write something like that?

And their point was,
that it now would seem very offensive

-to people with disabilities.
-That's right.

My point was that the way you did it
was just, it was a wonderfully,

it wasn't, it wasn't sort of awkward,
it was incredibly smooth.

So you're absolutely,
actually, rather athletic.

Wonderful, the bottom half
of the body only moving.

When other people came in,
like the lady who served the tea,

and the tray all shook, then it did
look like you were sort of

-making a joke about disability.
-I remember John and Graham

ringing us up and,
we were writing together,

and John and Graham rang us up and said,

"We're having this problem
with this sketch,

'The Ministry of Silly Walks,'
would you like to write it?"

-Really?
-Yes.

And so we wrote them
"Ministry of Silly Walks."

I know you did.

I think you knew that you were
going to do such a grotesque walk,

that everybody would laugh at it
and nobody would listen to the script.

[all laughing]

It's extraordinary how
we remember things differently.

I always assumed that you two
had written that sketch,

and I remember practicing
the movements in the corridor

of my little flat which,
believe it or not,

was in Basil Street, extraordinary fact.

And I remember, you know,
figuring out the movements.

And I also remember, vis a vis,
what Mike just said,

that the week after it went out
and everyone thought it was so funny,

I was walking along Oxford Street
and I bumped into a guy called

Con Mahoney, who was the head
of BBC Radio Light Entertainment,

and he talked about the sketch
and was I not worried...

-Ah.
-...that we were making fun of people

with physical disabilities, seriously?

And I suddenly thought,
"This is so weird to have this objection."

But Mike's saying that people
would be more concerned about it now.

I think that's the problem,
it's so easy to cause offense now.

At least it was a bit more difficult
when we were doing Python.

The thing is you could get away
with what's going on in Syria,

we can't stop that.

But we can stop people using certain words
like I read when I got back recently,

I read a piece in The Spectator,
and he was talking about the fact

that someone had got into trouble
by talking about a transsexual

because transsexual persons like to be
called transsexual persons,

and not being called transsexuals.
Do you see what I mean?

There's an extraordinary sensitivity
to a single word or phrase,

meanwhile, the most appalling things
are going on all over the world

-that nobody can stop.
-Yes, well they can't really help that.

At least we can stop people
saying the N-word.

That's something, you know,

but what would we do about serious,
rather, indefinite at the moment.

-We're hoping for developments.
-Would comedy help in that situation?

-Sorry,
-[all laughing]

That was like what we did
in Life of Brian,

when Brian says,
"I'm not a Roman, I'm a Jew,

kike, sheeny, Red,"
we used every word you could use.

And said, "And I'm proud of it."
I mean, I thought that was really great.

And that's the problem
with what goes on now with language,

it's people are so uncertain of which
words cause offense and which don't,

so people tiptoe around
language all the time.

Am I right in thinking
that the word "homosexual"

is now thought of
as being vaguely unpleasant?

[coughing]

It's rather serious.

I think, I think just the act, John.

[all laughing]

I think the word itself
is perfectly innocuous.

You could be on television.

Oh, he is on television.

He is on television.

Satirizing the modern world
is really complex, I think.

Because it's so diffused.

It's so unfocused, everything, you know,

where there's a class system.

There's no class system
in the way there was before

where you could actually aim
very clearly at things.

It's so undefined,
and that's what I think is interesting.

A year ago I was talking to Stoppard.

We were talking about, "Oh, is there
a way of doing another Brazil?"

Because Brazil is the now-now,
even though it was done in '84.

And it's like, he said, "I don't know
how to get to grips with it.

What is it you actually start
dealing with it?"

And I think that's one
of the big problems,

it was easier when
the class system was clearer,

when everything was in its place.
Then you can pull it apart.

That's why I've always thought, you know,
a medieval film, like Brian, is very good.

You've got a king,
you've got a knight, you know,

-You know where you are.
-There's archetypes, stereotypes,

and you can deal with them.

-Now it's really hard and it's...
-But don't you think that's to do

with us being younger?

I mean, when you're young, you do
write sketches.

You have a very simple
black and white view. That things...

Whereas when you get older
everything becomes grayer,

because you can't really, you have to be
nice about other people, their viewpoints.

Whereas when you're young,
you're really,

you know, really know good people
and bad people.

You're on the side of good things
and anti bad things.

Yeah, yeah.

And as you get older, it all becomes
a bit more mixed up, you know.

-You like people.
-The question is,

what do you make fun of?
Because when we grew up in,

let's say the 50s, all right,
we were at school, right.

And it seemed at that time that we lived
in a relatively stable society,

but a lot of it was obviously stupid.

And it was great, great fun
making fun of the stupid bits

because you thought, "Well, eventually,
people will see how stupid they are,

and they'll sort things out."

Now we have a very fractured society.

I don't think anyone understands
what's going on.

I had dinner with somebody
who was in the world of marketing

a few months ago, and I said,
"Explain it to me,"

and he said, "You know, the present
developments, they make no sense.

There's no logic to them. It's very hard
for anyone to understand what's going on."

And, you know,
comedy's about knocking things down

because they're ridiculous
and need to be improved.

What do you start with now?

I mean, we know that the BBC is a mess,

we know the national
health service is a mess,

that politicians have never been held
in such low regard. I mean...

You know, the invasion of Iraq was a con.

I mean, what about Family Guy,
do you ever watch Family Guy

or South Park at all these days?

-[Palin] No.
-'Cause Family Guy is funny.

Family Guy does some very funny stuff,
and as indeed, South Park.

But I think what you were saying earlier

is it's very hard to get any kind of grip
on a thing

because it all seems to be falling apart
and nobody seems to have any solutions,

so what can you make fun of?

I mean, they sort of just deal
with very small things,

-you know, relationships, all that.
-Yeah. Yeah.

I think you can do daily life
and the way people act together,

the way people are just in ordinary,
everyday life.

That's still good ground for comedy.

[Gilliam]
It's not really what Python did though.

No, we never did anything
that approached sitcom

or anything about domestic life at all.

It was always on the level of absurdity
if we went into it, you know.

I think that's one of the great
appeals of Python, it's ideas lead.

You know, if you're doing a sitcom,
then it has to be Attila the Hun

coming home, saying,
"Honey, I'm home," you know,

it's always had a very bright,
you know,

encyclopedic sense of ideas
coming from it.

I think people felt a little bit
more intelligent when they watched it,

even though we were being banal at times.

Yes, absolutely.

Somebody said 20 years ago,
and I thought it was true,

that the world seemed to be getting
madder and madder,

and trying to exaggerate the madness,
or make fun of it now,

the world was ahead of us.

And I read something in the papers
about two weeks ago,

and it was a guy in England
who was a burglar who'd been imprisoned.

And he went to the European Court
of Human Rights

to say that this imprisonment

was depriving him of his human right
to have a family life.

And he got out.

[laughing]

I mean...

There's a woman PC
that's just suing this garage owner

because she was called
to the site of this robbery,

and it was at night,
and she tripped over the curb.

And she's now suing the victim
for not lighting that curb properly.

Now what's interesting
is her head constable is saying,

"We're not actually
agreeing with this woman,"

but the organization above that

that looks after police people
all over the country,

they're backing her.
I mean, unbelievable.

-So you got a world where the victim...
-The Python sketch.

...is, is, actually, Victimization
is what the modern world is about.

And if you can be a victim,
you got a halfway decent chance, I think.

Works in marriages, as well.

[all laughing]

I think if we can show
that John is a victim of a predatory woman

who has destroyed his...

-He is a serial victim.
-Exactly.

We can take a class action against,
how many is it, three or four?

He's a marital recidivist.

[all laughing]

Very good. Very good.

It's what I hear
from all the young comedians now,

is that there's an executive class

that has never written,
performed, or directed comedy,

that thinks that by some mystical process

they know what is funny and what is
not funny, and they've never done it.

Never done it in their life.
If somebody who'd never flown a plane

started telling pilots
how to fly planes...

-It's like so obvious.
-It's insane.

Where as in the old days, the good people,
they'd come through floor managers,

you know, directors.
They worked on comedy for years,

and they kind of absorbed this strange
thing that we do to make people laugh.

It infuriates me now to hear young people
say that they don't want to go to the BBC

in particular because they're gonna want,
not just the pilot script,

they're gonna want detailed outlines
for all the other episodes.

And I just want to say to them,

"When Michael Mills trusted us to produce
something because he thought we had talent

we were able to do that."
Sometimes you won't.

But there's no fall, fail safe program.

There's no way you can be absolutely sure
you're going to produce something.

No, no, you have to take the risk
that it's not going to be very good,

but you have to take that risk.

He was good. There were a lot of other
people at the BBC in executive positions,

we said earlier, who didn't like it.

I thought, "Why are we doing this?"

There was a confidence, wasn't there?

They knew things would flop, but there was
a confidence that they were worth trying.

The executive class
didn't exist as it does now.

That's simply what's happened everywhere.
Not just the BBC, but everywhere.

Television, cinema, everything.

It's all risen up, so you've got this
layer of people that sit on the top

who are the gatekeepers,

that are the ones who decide
what the public will or will not like.

And as you say, none of them
have any particular talent or skill.

But why is it that so much good stuff

is coming out of America now
in the comedy line?

-Why is that...
-Yeah.

-...did you say?
-Do you agree with the statement?

Yeah, I think there's
a lot of great comedy here.

I think television's in
a very good state here.

I don't see a lot of it
coming in the movies,

I think television,
things are funnier by and large.

But I think there's so much of it,
I think there's plenty of room

for people, now, to get in on a low level
and get good.

I don't find network television
very funny.

But I would say this, I would say that
I don't think any network

could still put on Python...

-...after all these years.
-Yeah, yeah.

I think we'd have to do it in Salford.

[laughing]

We're still cable, you know.
We are still cable.

But that's what happened in America,
was cable TV came in, HBO and all,

and suddenly there were subscribers,
and the money was in a pot,

and that's when things started happening,
'cause Simpsons, South Park,

all of it came out of, basically,
a new system that suddenly appeared.

The networks couldn't do it.

And they're, HBO, Showtime
are still doing the best work.

-Yes.
-Because there's real freedom with it,

and is much freer,

television is much, much freer
than the Hollywood studio system now.

-Yeah.
-I mean, to get films through

is really difficult, but more
and more people are going on to HBO.

My ex-son-in-law, Ed Solomon,
who wrote Men in Black,

he said that writers are much more
respected in American television then

if they're working in television
than if they're working in film.

And that's why
they've gravitated to television,

and now a lot of ex-writers are producers,

and they are working with writers
and guiding them.

Not perhaps writing themselves anymore,

and that that's why the programs
are so much better.

But it seems to me that breaking
television up in this country

into all these very small audiences
has done nothing for the quality of it.

What do you think?

Yeah, maybe right.
I sort of agree.

-I don't watch a lot of comedy anymore.
-No.

But I think that Python was,

I mean, at the time we didn't think
it was a groundbreaker.

We didn't even know
it was going to last another year.

You know, shows weren't repeated much.

And that was it.
Then we'd go on to the next thing.

But it just was,
and we look back at it now,

we were dealing with things,
and, you know,

churning out material that people
wouldn't be able to do nowadays

with the kind of exuberance that lasted
for two-and-a-half series.

It was six people making the decision.

It was within us, there was nobody else.

There was no outside influence.
If it'd make us laugh, it went in.

And, you know, sometimes we were right
and sometimes we were wrong.

That's what always intrigued me,
some of the stuff

that we thought was really funny,
in the end, we look back, it was not.

And I think the great thing in those days
were, there were always a lot of people

-who didn't know what they were doing.
-Yeah.

But there was this
extraordinary number of people at BBC

at that time who did know
what they were doing,

and they did not want to be stars.

It's all changed now,
it's all so individualistic.

Do you remember?

People in the old days, it was quite
something to get a byline in a newspaper.

Now you have a photograph
of the journalist.

-Right, yeah.
-Do you see what I mean?

And what you have now is executives

who want to be thought
of as famous executives.

This was unheard of.
Michael Mills is completely forgotten

except when we thank him
for making Python possible.

But they want to be stars now, and that's
why they want to control everything,

so it has their name on it
rather than the name of the talent.

How did we do with the BAFTA awards?

I mean, the strange thing about Python
was that, from the very beginning,

a lot of the most important people
just didn't like it.

Tom Sloan accosted Ian MacNaughton
in the lift and said,

-"What the hell are you doing?"
-Yeah.

And then The Independent newspaper,
under this Freedom of Information

got some minutes out about four years ago,

and all the heads of department, I think
there were about eight heads of department

and six of them condemned Python,

and these were not cosmonauts
or matadors or plumbers.

These were people whose job it was
to understand what was good television,

and six out of eight of them
couldn't see they had something

under their noses that was
actually rather interesting.

-And I think that kind of...
-Yeah.

-But thank God they put it on, you know.
-Oh, well, that's Michael Mills.

But then when it came to film,
I remember Alexander Walker,

who was the leading critic at that point,

he did a book on British films
of the, I don't know, 60s, 70s,

and Python was a footnote,
that's all it was.

Where you went,
I remember going to Brussels

and all they talked about
was Python films.

-And yet, we didn't exist.
-[Idle] But, Terry, Terry,

-Yeah?
-We had lampooned the piss out of him

-in one of the episodes, if you remember.
-[Gilliam] There was that.

We did Alexander Walker,
and he had this hair which was funny,

and as I talked, his hair got bigger
and bigger and bigger,

-and bigger and bigger!
-Yeah, I know.

Normally, he would like that,
any attention Alexander would love it.

He was Canadian.

[chuckles] But it was interesting if you
actually read books on cinema of the 70s,

we're not-- or 80s, whenever it was
we were, we don't really exist there.

It's very strange, it's as though the
British film industry thought of us

as a kind of a separate unit that
didn't really count as a British film.

My recollection,
and I ought to check this,

is that Life of Brian
got one nomination...

-Did it?
-And that was for costume design.

-What, for BAFTA?
-Yeah.

Sheets.

[all laughing]

Did Python, did Python ever get
an Academy Award for anything?

-No.
-No.

-No.
-No Emmys.

[all] No.

-No Grammys.
-No. Not that we're bitter.

[all chuckle]

We're at-- Badge of courage.

It was puzzling, actually,
I think that's the main thing.

I don't feel angry by that,
I'm just kind of puzzled.

I remember being frustrated that the
summary of when we made The Holy Grail

and The Life of Brian, the summary
of that year of film didn't include,

in the papers, didn't include anything.
No mention of the, of the...

We always thought
we were doing something right.

It was supposed to be...
[overlapping dialogue]

I'm happy in our attitude because, I mean,

we were very,
dismissive of awards.

-Do you remember?
-Yeah.

We did actually do a send up, didn't we?
Of BAFTA.

Oh, yes.
Crying, the onions.

You did Dickie Attenborough, didn't you?

Yes. We did Dickie Attenborough
and we brought on David Niven's fridge,

-Yes.
-That's right, yeah.

To accept the award.

'Cause David couldn't be here tonight
so he sent his fridge.

And this is the fridge in which David
keeps all his cheese, his vegetables.

It was his second best fridge,
or was it the best? [chuckles]

Yeah, we did show
a certain amount of contempt for them.

-Yeah.
-I think it's fair.

-It was returned in, in spades.
-[all laugh]

It's funny because, you know,
sometimes people were a little bit upset,

even when it was quite affectionate.

For example, every time that
I ever met Alan Whicker,

he always talked about Whickerida,
which was actually an affectionate parody.

It was as though it somehow
got under his skin. And people--

So, it-- it got under his skin?

-Yeah.
-It was an affectionate parody.

Exactly. People are very...

We did another film critic,
we made fun of.

-Philip,
-Oh, Gavin Millar.

-Yes.
-Gavin Millar.

-[Idle] You made fun of him.
-Yes, I-- [indistinct] and I wrote that.

I think the fact was that we were so
obviously not kowtowing,

not obviously wanting to belong
to any particular group,

and that without quite realizing it
we got the natural response to that.

Which is that we're not
bothering about you,

but we're not saying
it's really at a conscious level.

You'd think that film critics were rather
pleased to be in Python.

I mean, they're usually ignored.

I remember once, I mean,
this is absolutely true,

when we did Fish Called Wanda,

and I was in LA

and they wanted to link

so that I would appear
in the BAFTA awards.

And I wasn't particularly keen

because none of us had ever been
that crazy about awards.

And I remember they said,
"You have won something,"

and I thought, "Oh, really.
Well, that's nice, I suppose,"

then I go to appear and I assumed
that I'd won the writing prize.

And when they announced the writing prize
and said somebody else's name,

-My face went, "What?"
-[all laughing]

Because I realized
that I'd won Best Actor.

And to get Best Actor for that role
of Archie is ridiculous.

It's a good comedy performance
but it's hardly up there with Gandhi.

[all laughing]

Though, were you up against Gandhi?

No, no, we weren't up against,

But I remember the film
that got the Best Script,

nobody's ever heard of it again.

It's never been mentioned
since that evening.

Why are fish funny?

Very good question.
Because they are.

Are they?

Well, they are.
We did a lot of fish stuff.

The fish license,
"License my pet fish, Harry."

"How do you know my name is Harry?"

-That's right. Very good.
-[all chuckle]

I think animals were always
a theme with us.

There's something funny about animals,
and there's something funny about eating.

An awful lot of our sketches had something
to do with one or the other of those.

Do you agree?

-No.
-No.

-That's just a quick thought.
-Next.

I mean, "Fish Slapping Dance," would not
be any better with cats, would it really?

-[all laughing]
-[Idle] Well,

[Palin]
I think we got the thing right there.

-[makes cat screeching noise]
-Big cat, [screeches]

The cat was in Holy Grail
with the old woman.

-Oh, yes.
-Beating the cat on the wall.

Sort of thrown away, that was.

I don't even remember it.

[all mumbling]

-Beating the...
-[cat screeching noises]

-[Jones] It was very funny.
-Come on, now. Sorry.

We got chatting there.
What have you got to say?

No, I, what? About the what?

Amuse us. You're a very
funny man, and we love you.

No, no, I'm, Look, I may be funny,
but it's four in the morning, you know.

-[all laughing]
-I don't really play this late.

This is the latest gig I've done.

Professor Brian Cox, I had a dinner
with him, a couple of dinners with him,

and when I dined with him
about a month later, I said,

"So has the universe expanded enormously
since our last dinner?"

And he said, "Actually,
the surprising thing is it's quite small

because it's so big
the expansion is may be fast,

but the percentage in which it expanded

during a very small
period of time, is very, very small.

-There you are.
-So, it has expanded, but...

Well, it is expanding all the time,
even during this short program.

-It's just expanding... [laughing]
-You just can't notice it, can you?

I mean, stand in the square out there,
it looks like the same size to me.

[indistinct] technically
a little bit further away.

[chuckling]

That's a nice thought.
I like that thought.

[mock yelling]

You're going away!

-I'm against it.
-Terrific.

-I think it's a great idea.
-I'm in favor of it for others,

but I'm against it, personally.

[Cleese] What was Woody Allen said?

It was not that he was frightened of it

but he didn't want to
be there when it happened.

What I'm frightened of is an afterlife.
I don't want any of that.

To think, all those virgins, all those
Muslim virgins, that are all over you,

you don't want that.

I wonder if, as you get older,
I'm going to feel, as I get older,

I get more sort of child-like in a way.

-That's called senility, Michael.
-I can relate to my grandsons very well.

'Cause it's a bit like Python, you know,
you can do any silly things with them,

and all that, why do we get sillier
as we get older, which is some hope.

Do you think so?

[overlapping dialogue]

I read a bit about this stuff and I think
there is something going on,

but I, you know, after we die.

I actually think there may be
something going on

because there's a lot of
interesting books out there

written by, not loonies or mediums
who may be very strange people,

but written by academics,
particularly in America.

And if you look at some of those stories,

I mean,
I'm most fascinated by these things,

these out of body experiences, where
people claim to have left their bodies.

I mean, there was one that was tested
in a psychological laboratory

by a guy called Charlie Tart,

Charles Tart, who was a very well known
professor of psychology,

and he discovered that the person
working for him was a sort of au pair,

said that she often left her body.

So, he checked it, and on six occasions
she just lay in the bed in the laboratory

and they placed a five-digit number
on the ledge above her bed,

which couldn't be seen except from above,

and on five occasions
she did not leave her body,

and on the sixth occasion she did,

and she was able to report
the correct number.

She'd gone up, looked it, remembered it,

and then was able to report
a five-digit number.

Now, you can say it was a coincidence,
but you kinda think,

well, if this is possible,
there are these veridical experiences

by people who've had OBEs.

In other words, they've seen things
that they could not possibly know

and report them accurately afterwards
and can be checked.

If that is going on, if our consciousness
could be separate from our body--

in other words-- if our consciousness
is like a television receiver,

the programs are not made
in the television set,

they're made somewhere else, but you have
to watch the television set to see them.

If one had a, if there was
a kind of consciousness like that

and the reductionist, materialist,
reductionist people who simply

find all the research and all
the anecdotal information so absurd

that they won't even look at it
and they sweep it under the carpet.

Which is what happens
to every scientific theory

because people become
so attached, emotionally, to the theory

that they don't want to think
that it couldn't be right.

I mean, it's always.

Your shamans have always believed
in out of body experiences,

but that's while you're alive.
That's not the afterlife.

I would rather not even think about it.
I'm not counting on it.

I'd like to be surprised.

But the idea of-- when you start
talking about the afterlife,

it's about how do you get the afterlife?

How do you get where it should be
that you can control it?

My attitude is don't even count on it.

If there happens to be something,
hunky-dory.

-But it's...
-But at least be interested in it

because what you get from
the Dawkins' and the Dennetts

and the Christopher Hitchens' is an attack
on the very worst type of religion

that no one is ever going to try
and really defend anyway.

You know, there's an enormous amount

about organized religion
that is absolute nonsense.

But underneath it all,
I think there is something going on.

It's just that
the organized church...

Organized religion was really--
Enlightenment started the whole thing

that religion has to be reasonable,
has to be scientific.

You have to explain it.

In the 19th century, all the biblical
scholars in America were, you know,

"It's, it's historically true, the Bible."

The Bible-- Religion is about myth.

Myth is not Logos. It's not real.

It's not the reason, but it is a form.

And I think that's the problem,
that people start confusing myth

with, you know,
the solid reality around us.

I mean, I learned last night,
one book I was reading,

that the Crucifixion is not mentioned
in Christian documents

until 40 years after Christ's death.

-Which is somewhere around--
-Duh.

When you think about it, you would've
thought someone should mention it.

Yeah, I know, no, that's the whole thing.

And that's been the problem
where, when, you know--

[Palin] Except it was commonplace.

-No, but I think myth is wonderful,
-[Cleese] Yeah, commonplace.

because it gives form to things.
And gives shape and gives--

explains things a different way
that words and reason can't,

-but it doesn't mean it really happens.
-No.

And I think the whole point is--
What is it, meaning of life?

It's trying to give meaning to life.
Not that there is any meaning to life.

I just think we should have
an attitude of curiosity towards it.

-Oh, yeah.
-Instead of sort of condemning it

as Richard Dawkins.
I know Richard a little bit

and I like him very much indeed,
but he kind of condemns.

He's so aggressive about anyone
who thinks anything goes on,

but be interested.

I think if you're a comedian, or whatever,
you enjoy humor and comedy.

-You got to-- Everything's up for grabs.
-[Gilliam] Exactly.

And that's what you got to be.
Certainty is our enemy.

-Yeah, that's right.
-That was very good, Mike.

-And finally, yes.
-My last words, yeah.

What are you going to have
on your gravestone then, John?

Um, "Calls referred to..."

[laughing] Yes.

I'm gonna just put:
"Gone to lunch, back soon."

Mine says, "Say no more."

-Very noble.
-[all laughing]

And hopefully when we're all dead
we'll be doing commercials,

because, you know, they'll be using us
and chopping us up

to sell vacuum cleaners, I think.

-And on that note,
-On that note.

[laughing]

Please send your contributions
to this address.

It will appear on your screen now.

Help the old unmarried
and married Pythons.

[chuckling]

-Very good.
-Thank you.

Thank you, Eric.

-Well done. Sleep well.
-[Jones] Be good.

Thank you very much.
It was great to see you all.

I miss you.
I mean, we should do this, you know,

sometime when we can
get together without the cameras.

And the great... [indistinct]

That would seem very strange
without the cameras.

-They're talk about death.
-[all laughing]

-Good night.
-Good night. Bye-bye.

Thank you, John.

[chuckling]

[Gilliam] Are we still wired up here?

[indistinct chatter]

[Gilliam] What is this for again?

[Palin] Posterity.

-[laughing]
-[Gilliam] Austerity?