Monty Python's Flying Circus: Live at Aspen

HBO special. Although billed as an awards ceremony, it's mostly a retrospective of their past work with a couple of great new little bits that remind the viewer that their humor, intelligence, and bad taste still haven't changed much through the years. All of the Pythons are there (including Graham Chapman in powdered form), and is MC'd by a surprisingly un-annoying Robert Klein. Memories of the group's past are interspersed with bits from the Flying Circus show and their movies (except for Life of Brian, which is curiously censored due to legal reasons), along with a couple of contrived - but funny - new bits to spice things up. We've seen most of this stuff before, but it still brings a smile to the face nonetheless. Flashes of the audience center mostly on the previous cast of Cheers (why? who knows). All in all, a funny and enjoyable way to blow an hour.

Robert Klein is the host for this reunion in Aspen. It is the guys sitting on stage and talking. There are plenty of greatest hit clips from the show and movies. John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin are brought in. They kick out Eddie Izzard and bring in the ashes of Graham Chapman.

Normally, I downgrade a clip show, but there is no way I would do that for Monty Python. The clips are simply superior. The boys have some good stories. For newcomers, this is a solid introduction although I don't know any newcomers. For old-timers, this is a nice time with friends.

I love Monty Python, like many Americans, but I was glad to see relative newcomer Eddie Izzard worked into the intro ('Python Imposter'). Who was it, please, who threw something at him as he was leaving the stage? Ahem! Anyway, it was a charming bit they conceived for him and I only wished there could have been more time for Eddie (it was supposed to be a retrospective for the Python Players; I know, I know...) I figured this was the reason, at least in part, that he was in Aspen in 1998 - as he mentioned in his 1998 show 'Dress to Kill'. Deductive reasoning!

This special appeared in the 90's on HBO, if memory serves, and at the time I didn't care much to watch it (mostly due to how I wasn't a Python fan at the time). But I got to see it finally as part of a Live Python DVD set, and while it wasn't great, it was good to see the five (err, six of them) back in action. Robert Klein hosted, with Eddie Izzard appearing in a bizarre cameo at the start of the show (I wonder if the audience, many celebrities, knew who he was at the time), and it was really half clips from the show and films (sans Life of Brian) and half recollections. The clips are fairly standard, although for myself having barely dipped toes into the Flying Circus sketches it was a grand sight to see anyway. I loved how when they were asked how they got together they started all talking at once, and also the very abrupt and suddenly improv form of comedy that comes forth after Gilliam accidentally knocks over Graham's 'ashes'.

Nothing at all, as a given of course, is taken too seriously with the accounts of their histories (though Gilliam gives a cool tale of the first reception of 'Holy Grail' at the premiere), and there is a genuinely uproarious story of visiting a concentration camp during their trip to film the German sketch. In short, it's an hour long trip into the Python world as only they could tell it and show it, but one wishes it could've been longer; Klein could've asked some better questions as well. On the other hand, it is technically an awards show (another element Cleese and Idle and the other play with in their acceptance speech), so it's hard to really dig in like say the autobiography of the Pythons does. To put it another way, for a reunion show it could do a lot worse. Three cheers for Graham's ashes!

"Live at Aspen" reunites the five remaining Pythons (the sixth one, Graham Chapman, also "appears" in the form of his ashes - a gimmick that is both macabre and moving) on stage for the first time in about 16 years. But although it's included in the same DVD ("Monty Python Live!") with "Live at the Hollywood Bowl", it's not really a live show. It's more of a documentary / tribute. It's nice to see that the Pythons still haven't lost their bad taste and unpredictability, and their fans will no doubt enjoy the archival footage from their movies and TV shows. It's a nice tribute and a minor diversion, but I got the feeling it could (and should) have been a lot meatier. (**1/2)