3) Ripping Yarns
Who's involved: Terry Jones (writer/actor), Michael Palin (writer/actor), John Cleese (cameo).
What's it about: Words cannot express how much I love this show, which is a collection of spoofs of boys' own adventure stories. One week, it'll be about escaping from a Nazi prison, the next it'll be about fitting in at a tough boarding school. One of the best is an explorer story called "Across the Andes by Frog," in which the frogs don't entirely make it. What makes this show so great is that it celebrates as well as mocking the pulpy stories that it's spoofing. There are also two book tie-ins.
2) A Fish Called Wanda
Who's involved: John Cleese (writer/actor), Michael Palin (actor).
What's it about: A zany heist-comedy, in which Cleese plays a vain barrister and Palin plays a stammering crook. Along with Clockwise and a couple other films, this represents the best of Cleese's movie output, with pretty much every set piece being perfect and wonderful. The cast reunited for another film, Fierce Creatures, which we will never speak of again. (Apparently, Fierce Creatures
ran into huge trouble because audiences didn't like an early cut, directed by the director of Splitting Heirs — so a year later, they did massive reshoots with a different director.)
1) All of Terry Gilliam's Early Films
Who's involved: We're compressing Jabberwocky, Time Bandits, Brazil and Baron Munchausen into one category because otherwise this list would be dominated by Gilliam films. Palin is in Jabberwocky, Brazil and Time Bandits (which he co-wrote), Eric Idle is in Munchausen, Cleese is in Time Bandits, and Jones is in Jabberwocky.
What's it about: These films are brilliant, and you should see them. Especially Brazil, a bleak dystopian comedy. And Time Bandits, a surprisingly savage film about time-traveling little people who take a child with them. Seriously, marathon these films over the holiday weekend.
So...what did we leave out?
onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com 12 Monty Python Side Projects, Ranked from Worst to Best