These days, they are universally acclaimed as the most influential comedy group of their generation.
- New documents show BBC bosses shock about Monty Python’s dark humour
- Archive photos were unearthed to celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary
- It came under fire for pranks about comic Sir David Frost and ‘appalling taste’
- TV executive Stephen Hearst criticised the show’s ‘nihilistic and cruel’ values
- BBC1 said show was ‘continually going over the edge of what was acceptable’
But as Monty Python celebrate their 50th anniversary today, a new archive of documents shows that BBC bosses were shocked by some of their early shows and ‘cruel’ humour.
Two sketches from the last episode in the second series from 1970 called The Queen Will Be Watching, which lampooned the National Anthem, and The Undertaker’s Sketch, starring John Cleese as a man unsure of how to dispose of his mother’s body, came under fire.
Minutes of a programme review board state: ‘Aubrey Singer [the head of features group] said that he had found parts of this edition disgusting.
‘Controller BBC1 said the programme was continually going over the edge of what was acceptable: this edition had contained two really awful sketches – the death sequence had been in appalling bad taste, while the treatment of the National Anthem had simply not been amusing.’
It added: ‘Stephen Hearst [the head of arts features] was critical of the fact that the values of the programme were so nihilistic and cruel… Bob Reid [the head of science features] felt the team seemed to wallow in the sadism of their humour.’
Monty Python’s Flying Circus, starring Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and the late Graham Chapman alongside Cleese, first aired on October 5, 1969 on BBC1 and ran for four series.
Photos of rarely-seen moments from the making of the show have also been released, including shots from the sketch ‘Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Salad Days’. It is a parody of the film director’s blood-soaked Westerns featuring members of the upper-class who suffer violent injuries from a tennis racquet and a piano.
BBC bosses also took umbrage with the pranks the quintet played on fellow comic Sir David Frost. In the Mouse Problem sketch, Cleese gave out his home phone number, while his home address was used in the Marriage Guidance Counsellor skit.
The Pythons had worked with Sir David on his hit satire programme The Frost Report so their jokes were friendly, but they caused concern for BBC executives, reported The Times.
Yesterday, Shane Allen, BBC Controller of Comedy Commissioning, said: ‘The Pythons tore up the rule book of comedy grammar, conventions and traditions, but thankfully the support for creative freedom won the day and has certainly paid off in the long run as audiences continue to celebrate and revere their enormous impact on comedy.’