Abstract
The legacy and influence of Monty Python on comedy and culture more generally remain profound. While the group and its various projects (Flying Circus, films, albums, live shows) have drawn admirable attention, the activities of the troupe’s members outside the group remain neglected and, more damagingly, are often seen as mere offshoots or side projects. Reinsch, in “The Whole of the Parts,” suggests that rather than regarding Monty Python as “more than the sum of its parts,” the comedy troupe may be the “same” as its parts or, better said, “other” than the whole of its parts. He argues that a careful study of the work of Python members, individually and in smaller clusters, illuminates our understanding of the group, comedy and global popular culture.
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Notes
- 1.
Rosa Silverman, “Baby boomers jazz up their funerals with Monty Python and fancy dress,” The Telegraph, Nov. 21, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/11243943/Baby-boomers-jazz-up-their-funerals-with-Monty-Python-and-fancy-dress.html, accessed July 30, 2016.
- 2.
http://www.olympic.org/videos/bright-side-of-the-olympics-monty-python, accessed July 22, 2016.
- 3.
The definition directly references the TV series (which also has its own entry), but does not limit the meaning to the program alone: “Relating to, characteristic of, or reminiscent of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a popular British television comedy series of the 1970s, noted esp. for its absurd or surreal humor.” “Pythonesque,” OED Online (Oxford University Press, June 2016). Web, accessed June 24, 2016.
- 4.
Robert Kapsis’s Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992) tracks these conflicts and Hitchcock’s active (though not necessarily effective) role in these debates. See chapters 3 and 5 especially.
- 5.
Richard Dyer, Stars, New ed. (London: BFI, 1998), 3. For a thorough overview of the field see Martin Shingler, Star Studies: A Critical Guide (London: BFI, 2012).
- 6.
The most insightful remains Marcia Landy’s monograph Monty Python’s Flying Circus (Detroit, MI: Wayne State UP, 2005).
- 7.
Gary L. Hardcastle and George A. Reisch, editors, Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think! (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2006).
- 8.
Darl Larsen, Monty Python, Shakespeare and English Renaissance Drama (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003).
- 9.
Tomasz Dobrogoszcz, editor, Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition: Cultural Contexts in Monty Python (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014).
- 10.
Brian Cogan and Jeff Massey, Everything I Ever Needed to Know About _____* I Learned from Monty Python: *History, Art, Poetry, Communism, Philosophy, the Media, Birth, Death,…Mythology, Fish Slapping, and Many More! (New York, Thomas Dunne, 2014).
- 11.
Kim “Howard” Johnson’s Life Before and After Monty Python: The Solo Flights of the Flying Circus (New York: St. Martin’s, 1993) is an important and isolated precursor to the present work. In some cases this volume’s contributors seek to build on and update the material offered by Johnson’s text. The 2007 television program What the Pythons Did Next…also offers a concise summary of their post-Python careers.
- 12.
For just one example, in a widely circulated (and almost nonsensical) quote, Steve Jobs argued for the superiority of The Beatles’ output to the individual member’s projects, stating of the group:
They sort of kept each other in check. And then when they split up, they never did anything as good. It was the chemistry of a small group of people, and that chemistry was greater than the sum of the parts. And so John kept Paul from being a teenybopper and Paul kept John from drifting out into the cosmos, and it was magic. And George, in the end, I think provided a tremendous amount of soul to the group. I don’t know what Ringo did.
Brent Schlender, “Exclusive: New Wisdom From Steve Jobs On Technology, Hollywood, And How ‘Good Management Is Like The Beatles,’” Fast Company, http://www.fastcompany.com/1829788/exclusive-new-wisdom-steve-jobs-technology-hollywood-and-how-good-management-beatles, accessed December 22, 2015.
- 13.
Ken Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative (Chichester, West Sussex: Capstone, 2011), 236.
- 14.
The 2006 “Personal Best” TV series (later released on DVD), with episodes focusing on each member, illustrates these writing clusters but also collaborations between all members, at least at the level of members performing in sketches written by others. The “Fish-Slapping Dance” appears in no less than four of the six episodes. http://www.montypython.com/tvshow_Monty%20Python’s%20Personal%20Best%20(2006)/19, accessed July 30, 2016.
- 15.
Kurt Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935), 176.
- 16.
R. F. Yeager and Toshiyuki Takamiya, editors, The Medieval Python: The Purposive and Provocative Work of Terry Jones (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
- 17.
Terry Gilliam, Gilliamesque: A Pre-posthumous Memoir (New York: Harper Design, 2015).
Bibliography
Koffka, Kurt. Principles of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935.
“London 2012—Monty Python comedy legend Eric Idle cheered up anyone who is sad that the Olympics are over for another four years with a rousing rendition of ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’. Also features nuns rollerblading.” http://www.olympic.org/videos/bright-side-of-the-olympics-monty-python. Accessed July 22, 2016.
Robinson, Ken. Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. Chichester, West Sussex: Capstone, 2011.
Silverman, Rosa. “Baby boomers jazz up their funerals with Monty Python and fancy dress.” The Telegraph. Nov. 21, 2014. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/11243943/Baby-boomers-jazz-up-their-funerals-with-Monty-Python-and-fancy-dress.html. Accessed July 30, 2016.
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Reinsch, P.N. (2017). Introduction: The Whole of the Parts. In: Reinsch, P., Whitfield, B., Weiner, R. (eds) Python beyond Python. Palgrave Studies in Comedy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51385-0_1
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