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The story behind Michael Palin and Terry Jones’ comedy classic ‘Ripping Yarns’

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Poor Terry Jones, what a fucking dreadful way to go. Dementia—which sick fucker came up with that one? Death’s a right evil bastard. My old man had dementia and Alzheimer’s and a whole load of other shit, and I tell you it is not pleasant to watch anyone go through that disabling, destructive, and utterly horrendous disease. If that ever happens to me, well, I’ll be getting the shotgun out, so long as I can remember where I put it…

Terry Jones was an immensely talented, genuinely funny, intelligent, cuddly man, who along with his cohorts in Monty Python changed comedy as the Beatles changed music. With his long-term writing partner, Michael Palin, Jones produced some of the best comedy sketches and series and movies of the past sixty years. My word, that’s a helluva a long time.

One of the highlights that Jones and Palin devised, wrote and made was Ripping Yarns. Now, there were three series that came out of Monty Python that had an equal revolutionary effect on television comedy. Firstly, and only in order of broadcast not in order of success, there was John Cleese with Fawlty Towers (co-written with Connie Booth); then Eric Idle’s god-like series Rutland Weekend Television—from which came the Rutles; and thirdly, Palin and Jones’ Ripping Yarns, which planted its flag on the map first long before The Comic Strip Presents….
 
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After the Pythons went their separate ways, there was an idea idly passed around the controllers at the BBC over lunch and in the club that maybe there should be a Light Entertainment show with that lovely Michael Palin. It seemed a winner. Palin was approached but no one had the right idea what The Michael Palin Show should be. Only Palin was certain it should be different, original, and breaking new ground. Though the BBC seemed to only want to work with Palin, he was determined to work with his writing partner Jones. The two writers came up with a new kind of comedy series called Ripping Yarns, with a different story, a different genre every week, and no repeating characters. It was a bold move. The BBC tested out the writers’ idea with pilot called Tomkinson’s Schooldays.

Loosely based on Palin’s own experiences at school, Tomkinson’s Schooldays was a tremendous hit with both the public and critics alike, and the BBC immediately commissioned a series. Each episode presented a mini-comedy drama in 30-minutes. Tales of derring-do from a bygone age, well, really from the Boy’s Own stories popular when Palin and Jones were lads. The first series contained six episodes. A second series was commissioned, but due to production costs the BBC lost its nerve and cancelled the show after three episodes. A great loss, which also had a detrimental effect on the writing partnership of Palin and Jones who drifted apart after the series.

Over ten years ago, I was fortunate enough to produce a documentary strand for the BBC called Comedy Connections, which examined the stories and connections behind classic British TV comedy shows—just like the title suggests. I had a shortlist of what I wanted to make for the series, but had to drop some favorites like Rutland Weekend Television and The League Gentlemen in favor of programs like Sorry! I know, you’ve never heard of it either. Anyway, thank fuck I didn’t have to do Duty Free or The Brittas Empire. However, I did squeeze in quite a few faves, including Michael Palin and Terry Jones’ brilliant Ripping Yarns. Now, run VT.
 

 
More from ‘Ripping Yarns,’ after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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01.29.2020
08:57 am
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Eric Idle’s brilliant, nearly forgotten comedy classic ‘Rutland Weekend Television’


 
“Saddlebags, saddlebags,” was an utterance that could be heard around my local school yard during the mid-1970s. We used it to signify someone talking absolute bollocks or, as an extended form of et cetera, et cetera whilst channeling your best Yul Brynner. More importantly, it was the demarcation line between those who grew-up with the Norwegian Blue of Monty Python and those who fell under the influence of Rutland Weekend Television from whence the term “saddlebags” came. Of course, part of the reason for this generational shift was age and viewing access—Python had kicked-off on very, very late night TV in 1960s, while Rutland Weekend bounced into my life at the sensible and dare I say, neatly turned-out time of nine o’clock in the evening.

Rutland Weekend Television was a spin-off from Python, the brainchild, creation and vehicle for the multi-talented Eric Idle. The Pythons have often (rightly) described themselves as being like The Beatles of comedy. There’s John Cleese and Graham Chapman as the sarcastic and ambitious John Lennon; Michael Palin and Terry Jones as the nice but bossy Paul McCartney; Terry Gilliam as a kind of hybrid Ringo Starr (with a possible hint of Keith Moon); and Eric Idle who is the George Harrison of the band—which probably explains why Harrison and Idle were such good friends. (Harrison made a guest appearance on the RWT Christmas special as a pirate.)
 

 
After the final TV series of Monty Python in 1974, each member had gone off to make their own solo “album.” Cleese had left just before the fourth series, which certainly imbalanced the show’s dynamic, to make Fawlty Towers. While Jones and Palin devised the delightful Ripping Yarns; Gilliam moved into movie-making with Jabberwocky; and Idle published his brilliant and often pant-wettingly hilarious novel Hello Sailor (apparently first written in 1970) and the series that certainly opened my eyes to the potential of television comedy and the genius of Eric Idle, Rutland Weekend Television.
 
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Idle’s concept for Rutland Weekend Television was brilliant but simple: a TV broadcast station in Rutland (a tiny—but real—landlocked English county in East Midlands) from where a continuity presenter introduces a series of films, musical numbers, documentaries, light entertainment and chat shows. The format gave creator and writer Idle to show-off his incredibly inventive magpie-like talents with which he lampooned every kind of TV and film genre—and many of his ideas would later be reused by other (lesser) talents.

From its opening credits and introduction from mine host, a cloying, simpering, insincere idiot as you can imagine, I was hooked. This was comedy gold that tapped into a generation who had been weaned on TV and understood the inventive and playful way in which Idle spoofed the format and language of television. In the opening episode, the sketch that confirmed (for me) this was definitely classic and important TV featured Eric Idle and Henry Woolf speaking nothing but gibberish:

Eric Idle: Ham sandwich, bucket and water plastic Duralex rubber McFisheries underwear. Plugged rabbit emulsion, zinc custard without sustenance in Kipling-duff geriatric scenery, maximises press insulating government grunting sapphire-clubs incidentally.

(It’s the “incidentally” at the end that makes this quote seem all too plausible, especially in a decade where language was being mutated by Marxist sociologists into into utterable, alienating, dystopian bilge, incidentally.)

This was literate intelligent comedy that destroyed the whole artifice of television interviewing and its use of intonation to express thoughts and emotions in one fell swoop. This was also the sketch where “saddlebags, saddlebags” came from, as you can imagine. It was like watching a great scene by Harold Pinter or Samuel Beckett. Indeed, Henry Woolf who was one of RWT‘s regular cast members was the very man who had original produced and directed Pinter’s first play and was friends with the playwright from his early years.
 

 
Not only was there Idle and Woolf but the genius of Neil Innes from the Bonzo Dog Band (who had previously worked with Idle, Jones and Palin on the legendary children’s series Do Not Adjust Your Set), David Battley and Gwen Taylor. The series was made on a miniscule budget (knowing the BBC probably a bus pass, a table and chairs and some paint), but the lack of funds hardly stifled Idle’s startling invention. If ever there was a man deserving to be called the heir to Spike Milligan then it is certainly Mr. Idle—though this two bit typist believes Eric is greater than Spike for a variety of reasons. Of course, the most famous spin-off from RWT was The Rutles—Idle’s mockumentary All You Need Is Cash—which grew a life of its own with Neil Innes’ brilliant songs.

Alas, RWT only lasted two series and a spin-off book and album (which I still proudly own), and has (to the best of my knowledge) never been repeated by those anonymous controllers at the BBC. Worse no DVD has ever been issued, which has nothing to do with Mr. Idle (I have personally been assured) but all to do with the Beeb. Thankfully, some absolutely delicious bastard has uploaded the whole series onto YouTube, so you can now see what you’ve been missing, as you can imagine.
 
More from Rutland Weekend Television, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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01.19.2015
12:28 pm
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Neil Innes: ‘Urban Spaceman’ revisited

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Neil Innes performs two of the quickest versions of his hit song “Urban Spaceman”.

The first is accompanied by “Testing” and is taken from Late Night Line-Up - a kind of late night BBC arts show that kicked-off in the 1960s and was revived in the 1980s. The second is from the brilliant series Rutland Weekend Television, which spawned The Rutles.

Innes is a favorite at DM, for his brilliant musical talents and his incredible back catalog as Bonzo, Python, Rutle and Book of Records. Like the dear olde Ginger Geezer, he is one of the few artists I return to with an obsessional passion. Indeed, m’colleague Richard and I have had phases when we’ve played nothing but the Bonzos for weeks on end.

My earliest memory of “Urban Spaceman” is looped to clips of playing space walks and moon landings with my brother on summer-lit lawns, at my grandparents’ house. Of wearing cardboard space helmets given away free with tasty fruit pastilles called Jelly Tots, and watching the Bonzos on Do Not Adjust Your Set. It was also the first time I learned the lyrics to a song, and became fascinated with its meaning. Who was this “Urban Spaceman”? And why didn’t he exist?

Later, in the 1970s, Innes starred, wrote and performed 3 series of The Innes Book of Records, one TV’s truly brilliant and original shows. Sadly, the BBC has been loathe to rescreen or even release this classic piece of musical culture since. But thankfully there is a petition up-and-running to get the Beeb to pull its finger out and do something useful about it ASAP. So, if like me, you want to see Neil Innes’ genius show, then please click here and sign the petition. Thank you!
 

 
More from the fabulous Neil plus bonus clip of when a Bonzo met The Beatles, after the jump…
 
With thanks to NellyM
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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08.22.2012
07:45 pm
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George Harrison sings on Eric Idle’s ‘Rutland Weekend Television’

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Who needs Martin Scorsese’s documentary on George Harrison, when you can have this roughly cobbled together sequence of prime cuts of Pirate George causing mayhem on Eric idle’s Rutland Weekend Television Christmas Special.

So, here’s one somebody prepared earlier.
 

 
Previously On Dangerous Minds

Rutland Weekend Television: Eric Idle’s nearly forgotten comedy classic


 
With thanks to Neil McDonald
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.06.2011
06:14 pm
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Rutland Weekend Television: Eric Idle’s nearly forgotten comedy classic
11.17.2010
10:32 pm
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Rutland Weekend Television was the post-Monty Python series written by Eric Idle, with music by Neil Innes (of The Bonzo Dog Band fame). While many Python-related shows have been released on DVD (Do Not Adjust Your Set, Not the 1948 Show, Ripping Yarns, and of course, Fawlty Towers) it seems incredible that Rutland Weekend Televison—it’s where The Rutles came from, for god’s sake—has never seen the light of day. (At least on a retail level, because it’s quite easy to download on the Internet and there are entire episodes out there for streaming, too.)

Legend has it that John Cleese came up with the title (meant to evoke a tiny, tiny television network) and Eric Idle bought it from him for one pound. The show’s pretense to being made on a tight budget was no pretense, as Idle and Innes had been granted the smallest of budgets by the BBC. Much of the show was shot in the same threadbare studio and jokes often revolved around how low budget the entire affair was.

Idle told the Radio Times in 1975:

“It was made on a shoestring budget, and someone else was wearing the shoe. The studio is the same size as the weather forecast studio and nearly as good. We had to bring the sets up four floors for each scene, then take them down again. While the next set was coming up, we’d change our make-up. Every minute mattered. It’s not always funny to be funny from ten in the morning until ten at night. As for ad-libbing, what ad-libbing? You don’t ad-lib when you’re working with three cameras and anyway the material goes out months after you’ve made it.”

After the second series of Rutland Weekend Television, Eric Idle, of course, went on to mostly make a bunch of really shitty movies and “Spamalot.” Neil Innes went on to the marvelous Innes Book of Records TV series (also not on DVD but easy to download), children’s television and continues to make great, funny music.

It might be heresy to say this, but I actually find Rutland Weekend Television, generally speaking, to be a bit funnier than Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Maybe that’s just because I am over-familiar with the Monty Python material and Rutland Weekend Television is fresher-seeming to me. Maybe it’s because of what Neil Innes brought to the table (I’m a huge. huge Bonzos fanatic). In any case, I’m sure it will get battled out in the comments.

Below, Eric Idle barters his soul with a uncooperative Satan.
 

 
More Rutland Weekend Television after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.17.2010
10:32 pm
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