Six writers built a comedy that refused punchlines
Six British comics known as the Pythons formed in 1969. Their BBC sketch series Flying Circus (1969–1974) ditched tidy setups for stream-of-consciousness links and Terry Gilliam’s cut-out animation, reshaping what television comedy could look like on screen.
The cast assembled from Oxbridge revues and London satire. Jones and Palin met in the Oxford Revue; Chapman, Cleese, and Idle came through Cambridge; Cleese met Gilliam in New York during a Footlights tour. Shared training grounds included The Frost Report (1966–1967), Do Not Adjust Your Set (with Gilliam’s cartoons), At Last the 1948 Show, and radio’s I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again. Frost’s show is often credited with first putting the British members in one creative room where styles could collide.
Two offers nearly split them: Thames pitched a late-night series to Gilliam, Idle, Jones, and Palin after Do Not Adjust Your Set, while the BBC courted Chapman and Cleese. Cleese’s account says admiration for that ITV show prompted a meeting that pooled writers instead. Director Ian MacNaughton recalled Barry Took gathering the group with John Howard Davies at Television Centre to lock the Flying Circus brief. Creative control let them junk punchlines, stretch sketches, and treat animation as the connective tissue between scenes.
Later features such as Holy Grail and Life of Brian still top comedy-film lists. In 1988 the troupe took a BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema; in 1998 the American Film Institute gave them a Star Award. A 2005 poll of hundreds of comedians and comedy figures cemented their status as a reference point for absurdist sketch craft that still shapes writers decades later.
Source: Monty Python
