Palin Tome

I recently read Michael Palin's Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years. What would interest me most, and what I get the least of, is the making of the original series--three seasons, thirteen episodes a piece. It's what started it all. Much of the diary deals with its ramifications--movies, stage shows, more TV, albums, books, lawsuits. This stuff Palin goes into at great length.

Part of the reason the original show gets short shrift is Palin was simply so busy getting it done. Also, he was just starting out with his diary, and he even lost an early volume.

But another factor is he didn't know how important Monty Python would be. It was an exciting project, but he couldn't have figured it's what would define him. As far as I can tell, at the very least, the first two season were over before he had a clue the series would be legendary. It only started to dawn around the third season that this was something different (completely different).

PS I should add that Palin comes across as the nice, sensible guy you always thought he was. I get the feeling the troupe would have flown apart without him. Writing partner Terry Jones was stubborn. Terry Gilliam, an American and an animator, was the odd man out. Graham Chapman was an alcoholic. Eric Idle, the one without a writing partner, was the hardest to pin down. And John Cleese was a prickly character who refused the do the six-episode fourth season, and didn't even want to do the third.

PPS Palin claims the show was known as the Gay Boys Dragon Hour in Japan.