All Seasons

Season 1

  • S01E01 Eric Idle's Personal Best

    • February 22, 2006
    • PBS

    Reporting live from the Bollywood Howl [sic], a newscaster (Eric Idle) introduces his interviews with several people about what they thought about Eric Idle, including Idle's mother and a former Nazi soldier living in South America (both also played by Idle). Throughout the segments, the reporter confuses the members of Python with The Beatles, an homage to Idle's work on All You Need Is Cash, a parody film featuring The Rutles.

  • S01E02 Graham Chapman's Personal Best

    • February 22, 2006
    • PBS
  • S01E03 John Cleese's Personal Best

    • March 1, 2006
    • PBS

    The show begins with a plaintext "memorial" to the "late" John Cleese. It then cuts to a fairytale starring the troupe ("The Princess With The Wooden Teeth" from Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus), which then cuts to a poolside interview of a cranky, senile old man (Cleese) by Dayna Devon, a reporter. The supposedly 96-year-old Cleese usually answers her questions in the raunchiest manner possible, culminating in his "death" (by heart attack, apparently) at the end of the show. This caused an Internet crisis, with many Python fans asking on sites whether Cleese had actually died.

  • S01E04 Terry Gilliam's Personal Best

    • March 1, 2006
    • PBS

    The show begins with Gilliam claiming Monty Python's Flying Circus was originally to be his show alone, with animations only. The "viewer" flips a switch that turns on the lights to reveal that Gilliam and his workshop are really animations. General pandemonium ensues as the episode shows a vast collage of Gilliam's famously neurotic animations.

  • S01E05 Michael Palin's Personal Best

    • March 8, 2006
    • PBS

    The show is a pseudo-documentary about fish-slapping, with Michael Palin playing the same character he played in the original sketch hosting the show. The sketches are supposedly added because the show originally introduced the world to fish-slapping. Michael Palin "travelling" to the original filming location of the Fish-Slapping Dance jokingly references his current popularity as a travel documentarian.

  • S01E06 Terry Jones' Personal Best

    • March 8, 2006
    • PBS

    From his lavish home, Jones discusses how he conceived Monty Python as a showcase for his own considerable talents, how he reluctantly let the other members join and that 'Monty Python' is an anagram of 'Terry Jones'. Several sketches are personally (and often inaccurately) introduced by Jones.

Additional Specials