Monty Python at 50 - Official Press Release

[ramsobot]

Also nothing. Been checking consistently.

[neveragain]

Gone off this now. £100 is just a bit too much.

[dr_christian_troy]

When someone asked for an estimated time of availability today, their response in quotation marks was "I told you once". A cunty and unfunny response to a reasonable query.

I'll never understand how social media managers / departments of retail companies are under the assumption that they serve any other purpose beyond promotion, answering questions clearly and assisting in resolving issues - not the whole "let's be on brand and edgy" bollocks. Just answer the question and if you don't have an answer then provide a reasonable time frame to provide a response, and commit to it. Not a big ask.

[mjwilson]

So... that's it? Or is that just the version in a pretty box and the discs will get released in a slightly less limited edition later?

[neveragain]

I believe the series discs are being released later (probably without the Pixley books).

[PinkNoise]

I checked the site earlier, saw the pre-order details, ordered my box at the full £100... and then four minutes later received an email offering me a 10% discount. Judging by the furore on Roobarb's, I wasn't the only one.

Still - the list of stuff on there is very exciting - although the Network site seems to down.

[Revelator]

I received an email from Network less than an hour ago, offering the pre-order link (https://networkonair.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=39e50a4be75baf0b22aef04ec&id=634856d289&e=519136ed91) and a check-out code (WHIZZOBUTTER2019). But when I click "add to cart" nothing happens. Nevermind, something happened the third time around.

[Pinball]

I bought it for £90 too. Some good stuff on the Network site. Still waiting for NTNOCN though...

[Mr_Simnock]

Just ordered mine now, looking forward to it

[Gurke and Hare]

Clearly you've never been in the Penderel's Oak's toilets pre-refurb. 

The 100 Club, surely?

(I too have a photo that I can't find, and I've never been to the Penderel's Oak.)

[Replies From View]

Here's a preview of the HD restoration of Flying Circus. Lookin' good!

Am I right in thinking it's easier for them to make the animation look good than the sketches?  Depends on the quality of the existing film stock I suppose.  In my mind they did a recent restoration of the animations for their Personal Best compilations but maybe I'm mistaken.

[dr_christian_troy]

Anyone else booked any tickets for the BFI Python season in September?

[Ambient Sheep]

The 100 Club, surely?

(I too have a photo that I can't find, and I've never been to the Penderel's Oak.)

Nope, definitely The Penderel's Oak.  We were having a CaB meet there and it was noticed that in the toilets somebody had written "The Monty Python Rushes do exist!"  There was even a photo of said bit of graffiti posted here in the meet thread.  Unfortunately the thread seems to have dropped down the search hole.

Later rumour had it that it was actually a certain member of this board that had written it in the first place, from inside knowledge that he wasn't otherwise allowed to share.

I take it that the same thing was in the toilets of The 100 Club, then?

[Gurke and Hare]

I think it's "The Monty Python Rushes still exist!" in the 100 Club,

[Ambient Sheep]

That was the wording in The Penderel's Oak too, come to think of it.  Sorry.

[Replies From View]

No it is impossible for some identically-worded graffiti to appear in two separate locations, I'm afraid.

[the]

Oak's toilets

     

[Registering to lurk]

I think it's "The Monty Python Rushes still exist!" in the 100 Club,

That message also crops up in the closing credits to one of the Organ Gang animations from This Morning With Richard Not Judy because, I think, one of the SOTCAA pair was involved with the artwork.

[Ambient Sheep]

     

You beat me to it, lovely piece of synchronicity. :-)

(For anyone who doesn't know, it's just been found here in the CaB 10th Anniversary Meet thread, referred to from here in the current 20th Anniversary Meet thread.  See also here a couple of pages earlier.)

By the way, that's hosted on Photobucket, so no guarantees how long hotlinking it will let it survive.  Might be better to rehost it if poss.

[Revelator]

Am I right in thinking it's easier for them to make the animation look good than the sketches?

Yes, as long as they're working from 16mm prints of the originals, which can be scanned in HD, unlike the videotaped studio material.
Network says for the entire series it's using "the best available materials – from first generation 2-inch videotape masters to surviving negative and print film material, scanned in 2K. The wildly varying picture sources have been graded scene-by-scene and intensively cleaned up. State of the art upscaling of Standard Definition videotape has been deployed with careful use of noise reduction for both video and film grain, resulting in a vastly improved viewing experience all round on Blu-ray High Definition format."

I'm optimistic that even the upscaled SD studio sketches will look significantly better than the existing DVD copies. I just hope the noise reduction is indeed careful for the outdoors sketches.

[shh]

From the mail on sunday on the british library exhibition

One lost scene featured a waiter at The Last Supper trying to seat Jesus and his Disciples, telling them: 'I can do you two tables for two and two threes.'

In another excised moment, Jesus's embarrassed father Joseph struggles to explain the Virgin Birth to a group of his male friends.

Several key figures from the Gospels who were noticeably absent from the film were considered for inclusion.

One note describes how 'John the Baptist's severed head keeps talking' while another described King Herod as 'the world's worst babysitter'.

Herod was also shown pondering how best to deal with the threat posed by the infant Jesus.

As an alternative to the massacre of the Innocents, a courtier suggests: 'Why don't we offer a reward to anyone who brings the Messiah to us?' Brian did not meet Jesus in the film, but that was not the case in the early version, in which he is the '13th Apostle'.

Palin's handwritten notes depict the title character as a religious figure in his own right, with references to 'St Brian', 'St Brian's Gospel', 'Brian Setting up the Catholic Church' and 'St Brian the only Martyr to die of old age'.

One suggested ending included a reading from 'The Martyrdom of St Brian which charted his early life; his sexual antics with some "Maidens of The Orient" and his eventual ascent to Heaven where he "dwelt amongst the Heavenly host".' The Pythons were also advised to abandon plans to portray Brian's mother Mandy as a virgin.

[robprosser]

The Martyrdom of St Brian is rehashed as the Martyrdom of St Victor on Contractual Obligations isn't it?

[Jake Thingray]

Anyone else booked any tickets for the BFI Python season in September?

Have done for Gilliam's presentation on Ernie Kovacs, At Last the 1948 Show, always a BFI/NFT favourite, Do Not Adjust Your Set which has a discussion afterwards, the pre-Python selection and both screenings of Oddities and Rarities, can do without seeing the films again and the Influences screening looks like too much of Milligan going tee hee nicky nacky noo, though.

[Bennett Brauer]

looks like too much of Milligan going tee hee nicky nacky noo, though.

Perhaps you're thinking of needle nardle noo, or even ning nang nong. Nikky nokky noo was Ken Dodd.

I'm so lonely.

[Spiny Norman]

Rushes = film. The obvious conclusion is that this refers to the Life of Brian rushes, which were said to have been junked late last century when Handmade Films was sold.

Well, we've got the Otto bit, so what else would we need? Would more be better?

Although, I've seen versions of the script that went even further with the Otto line of thought. Possibly the Otto scene that we have today had already been toned down.

[Bad Ambassador]

Could be location rushes from the series.

[Spiny Norman]

Could be location rushes from the series.

Those are called filmed inserts, and the ones that are known to exist, contain almost nothing of interest.

[Replies From View]

Those are called filmed inserts, and the ones that are known to exist, contain almost nothing of interest.

I thought "rushes" meant all the film used for any sequence(s), complete with multiple takes, outtakes and so on.  Wouldn't "inserts" be edited sequences, ready for dropping into the episodes?

[Spudgun]

The rushes are your unedited raw footage. I've definitely heard the word used to refer to recordings of videotaped shoots, even if that wasn't the original meaning.

[Replies From View]

The rushes are your unedited raw footage.

This is what I meant, really.

To highlight your point, "footage" originally referred to the length of physical film used during a filming process.  I think it might be considered pedantic if someone suggested it couldn't refer to material recorded in another medium.