Eric Idle
Eric Clapton Asked Permission to Steal George Harrison's Wife (And 6 Other Things I Learned from the HBO Documentary)

While the film doesn't reach the sublime heights scaled by the director's Bob Dylan movie, 'No Direction Home,' it does paint a moving and nuanced portrait of the guitarist, songwriter and spiritual seeker, who succumbed to lung cancer on November 29, 2001. But you don't care about that: You want the facts! So here they are -- all seven of them.
Have some Spam in honor of Monty Python's 40th anniversary
One of the world' most quotable and iconic comedy shows made its television debut 40 years ago today. Monty Python's Flying Circus first appeared on British television on Oct. 5, 1969, a show that branched into four feature length films, launched the careers of six very funny dudes and inspired millions of countless nerds to quote their most famous lines to death (myself included).
I'm sure everyone with a working set of eyes and a television set remembers the first time they saw Monty Python. What's your earliest memory of the show and more importantly, did it include any images of nude ladies?
BAFTA to honor Monty Python
BAFTA (The British Academy of Film and Television Arts) will be honoring Monty Python on the group's 40th anniversary. The surviving members of Monty Python will receive a special award for outstanding contribution to film and television in October. The event will be co-hosted by the Independent Film Channel and take place in New York.Excuse me. What? An awards event hosted by a British organization for a British group is taking place in New York? Isn't that somewhat counter-intuitive? Unless IFC is picking up the whole check (which is a distinct possibility), this should be moved to London.
Sketch Comedy Saturday: Monty Python's Flying Circus

I was going to save this extra-classic show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, for the later part of the Sketch Comedy Saturday series, but I just had to do this in light of recent, super-exciting news. As I hope most of you know, Monty Python will be having a reunion. Sure, John Cleese and Graham Chapman won't be there (for two, completely different reasons) but it will still be nice to see Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam get back together, right? Magic always happens when there's more than one Python guy around. Except that time John Cleese and Michael Palin tried to do "The Parrot Sketch" on Saturday Night Live a few years ago. That was just weird.
Monty Python finally does something with this YouTube stuff - VIDEOS
Hey, want to know something super-sad? For most of seventh grade, I came home every day from school and, before doing anything else, watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail from beginning to end. I also spent a great deal of middle school reading everything I could about the troupe, filling my brain with pointless trivia about Sam Peckinpah's "Salad Days" and Spam.This not only caused me to develop a type of hardcore social awkwardness that was extremely rare outside of the 70s and 80s, but forever instilled in me a deep love for Monty Python. Since the boys are very busy with their individual projects these days, it's a thrill to see any new Python stuff to come around, even when it's in the form of an extra-short YouTube clip and they're never actually shown to be in the same room together.
The Flying Circus comes to BBC America
May as well starting laughing now! On May 26, BBC America will air a 10-hour marathon of Monty Python's Flying Circus. The network has just snagged all four seasons of the legendary comedy series, including a couple of specials they did for German TV. As every fan of great comedy knows, the Monty Python troupe consisted of Michael Palin, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman and Terry Jones. Monty Python's Flying Circus debuted on BBC on October 5, 1969, and over the years the shows have been shown over and over again, becoming classic. Now that they are coming to BBC America, it's a chance for fans -- new and old -- to watch them one more time -- and DVR them if you're smart. Unless you already have the DVDs.
The Simpsons: Springfield Up
(S18E13) I didn't love it, and I didn't hate it -- for the most part, this week's episode was "just okay" in my opinion. It was nice to see Eric Idle return as the snooty muck-raking journalist Declan Desmond (first seen in the episode "Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky"), but the episode felt like two different episodes battling for the same thirty-minute space.
I always enjoy it when the writers come up with ways to incorporate all the secondary and tertiary characters into an episode ("22 Short Films About A Springfield" is a good example), but this one tried to tack on the bit about Homer being depressed with what he's become in life, leading he and his family to take over Burns' summer home and pretend it's their own.
Fast Food Nation "steals" line from The Simpsons
So I was sitting in my recliner a moment ago, flipping through the channels, smoking my Meerschaum pipe and playing cribbage with the men from my hunting club when a commercial came on for Richard Linklater's new movie Fast Food Nation, based on the excellent book by journalist Eric Schlosser. At the end of the commercial, the tagline for the movie flashed across the screen: "Do You Want Lies With That?"
"Holy God!" I yelled, leaping to my feet and knocking over my musket.
Monty Python star Terry Jones has cancer
Terry Jones, one-sixth of the Monty Python troupe, has recently been diagnosed with bowel cancer. However, his doctors believe that they caught it at an early enough stage to treat it. Jones will be having an operation soon but he's in high spirits, according to his agent.I'm not gonna lie, I definitely got chills when I initially read the headline. I don't think I'm ready to lose my first Python (Graham Chapman died from cancer back in the late 80s, but I was too young to know what was going on). Here's to hoping Mr. Jones has a speedy recovery.
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