Category: All Posts

Pythons before Monty

If you poke around the videos that show up after the Bonzo Dog Band skit-song I used in my last Neil Innes post, you’ll find this amazing video.

http://youtu.be/-VxV0ZjOcQg

Keep in mind this was before Monty Python’s Flying Circus. And these are cartoons that Terry Gilliam did for the programme.

http://youtu.be/edsgfNFjLYw

As I pointed out years ago, Gilliam had met John Cleese in New York in 1965, and they collaborated on a somewhat notorious magazine project. Later, at the same time when Palin, Idle, and Jones were being very silly with Innes and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Cleese and Graham Chapman were working with Marty Feldman.

http://youtu.be/DAtSw3daGoo

So, in a way, Gilliam was the bridge between the two camps — Palin-Idle-Jones and Cleese-Chapman — and Neil Innes was the de facto seventh Python.

And, of course, they just have to knock Belgium, don’t they? 😉

Japan’s K3?

I have been told by a K3 fan that the equivalent of K3 in Japan is a girl group called Perfume.

http://youtu.be/NBCAPakjr8k

Interesting, but no other Pop act in any culture or language can match this. K3 rules!

http://youtu.be/pBEK2h8QuIY

K3’s usual target audience is kids, but they branch out — Karen Damen in particular, who was in a play called Taxi, Taxi.

This is Karen in a TV show that was on, yes, Nickelodeon. Standards are a bit different in Europe!

Innes much as Ron’s Nasty

From Neil Innes last Saturday I got a typically nasty autograph from his Rutles alter ego, Ron Nasty.

After Innes and the Bonzo Dog Band were in Magical Mystery Tour with the Beatles, they were on a BBC TV show for kids called Do Not Adjust Your Set, where they met Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam.

http://youtu.be/AI4ekBi5Hhc

During A People’s Guide to World Domination last Saturday night, Innes sang the “Brave” Sir Robin song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail…

… but he didn’t do the famous Knights of the Round Table song, for which he wrote the tune but not the words, which were by Cleese and Chapman.

http://youtu.be/sGAYk5VWkTw

A People’s Guide to World Domination is a wonderfully funny and engaging show, mixing British music hall humor with social satire. When Innes was in town he did this interview, and on his way up to Boston he stopped at the NPR music studios in Washington, for a Tiny Desk Concert. When I saw Innes he didn’t play Urban Spaceman, a Bonzo-era favorite, but you’ll hear it here.

A tip o’ the virtual toupee to Samjay, for spotting a Rutles song in the credits when he saw The Robber last weekend. It’s I Love You, from the Rutles second album, Archaeology.

Web TV returns

I have a couple of posts that are almost done, but I have to sit at my desktop computer to finish them. For one there’s audio work to do, for the other there’s scanning. But right now I’m neither there nor in my usual 11-12 weeknight spot on the porch, I’m downstairs in front of the projector screen. The Daily Show is playing in the corner while I type this. I never had a use for picture-in-picture, the most oversold feature in TV’s of a bygone age, but being able to browse the web while having TV in the corner, while sitting on the couch ten feet from a 65-inch image, is surprisingly better than having a netbook in my lap and having to look up at a regular TV. For a web TV player I prefer the Roku, but it is neat having the Logitech Revue combine online video with cable TV and web browsing.