Bowel Stretching Time

Terry Jones was recently diagnosed with cancer. Luckily it’s at an early stage and very treatable. Could Spam be a carcinogen?

Within Monty Python, Jones was the leading romanticist pushing for the anarchic free-form structure of Flying Circus with sketches flowing in and out of each other or ending abruptly. He loved exotic film locations, vulgar characters and lots of visual clutter. In counterpoint was John Cleese’s classicism of straightforward comic premises—a cheese shop with no cheese—word play and slapstick.

When Cleese left to do Fawlty Towers both shows suffered. Flying Circus became messier and long-winded. Sketches grew to almost the length of an entire episode and risked tedium. Meanwhile Fawlty Towers was funny but boringly traditional. Farcical to the point of predictability, it lacks a good dose of the weird.

Here's to balanced health and holistic comedy.