Monty Python's The Meaning Of Live: Ultimate Edition

"It was the only studio picture we did, which means it will never go into profit." - Eric Idle.

SYNOPSIS: Following on from Universal's tradition of releasing not-very-good films on two disc sets (The Mummy Returns, American Pie, Notting bloody Hill), they've finally decided to release something worth the distributrion costs. This under-rated Monty Python film contains some of the Python teams finest sketches, including Every Sperm Is Sacred and Mr Creosote. There's everything in this movie, everything that fits. From the meaning of life in the universe, to girls with great big tits.

EXTRAS: Disc One contains a commentary by director Terry Jones in which the last hour is taken up with him saying "The thing about Python is...", and the first half-hour is taken up with him saying "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllll...". Disc Two contains: three deleted scenes (The Adventures Of Martin Luther, The Hendys Check In, and Diane The Waitress); an all-new half-hour documentary with new and archive interviews with the Pythons and alternate takes of scenes from the film; script pages of cut or altered scenes from an early draft; promotional materials (reprintings of lobby cards, promotional booklets, 'The Poem And The Budget', and UK and international posters); and lots of trailers (including ones for Life Of Brian and The Holy Grail).

CURRENT STATUS: On DVD, yes. With extras, no. It's a shame, because with one phone call to Terry Jones, Universal would have automatically got hold of a director's commentary, deleted and alternate scenes, and anything else he has in his vast personal archive. A special edition Holy Grail is coming out soon, so good news there. [Incidentally, an early draft of the Meaning Of Life script can be downloaded HERE and only here. Er, and here.]

The Adventures Of Martin Luther: At the moment you can only see this by completing a computer game.

Police Squad!: All Six Episodes

KINGPIN: "Who are you, and how did you get in here?" FRANK DREBIN: "I'm a locksmith. And I'm a locksmith."

SYNOPSIS: Before The Naked Gun trilogy of movies there was this brilliant and often inspired television series, axed after only six shows because it was required 'too much attention' from the viewers. The complete run of all six episodes are available uncut and on DVD for the first time. Starring Leslie Nielsen, Alan North, Peter Lupas, Ed Williams and William Duell, and guest-starring Lorne Greene, Georg Stanford Brown, Florence Henderson, William Shatner, Robert Goulet, William Conrad "and Rex Harrison as Abraham Lincoln".

EXTRAS: Continuing the success of their commentaries on the DVDs of The Naked Gun series and Airplane!, Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker have recorded a three-hour commentary for all six episodes of Police Squad!. Also included is the previously unseen "Guest Starring..." intro featuring John Belushi, who died shortly before the show aired.

CURRENT STATUS: Well, all the Naked Gun discs have been selling well so surely Paramount Home Video will see sense and release the original shows. Please, Paramount, see sense! And don't call me Shirley.

Rutland Weekend Television: The Complete Series

"It's never run in the States because I always had the American rights. They wouldn't pay me any money, so I insisted I had the American rights, and I wouldn't let them use it." - Eric Idle.

SYNOPSIS: Broadcasting from the county of Rutland (the smallest county in the British Isles) comes the weekend's best, most innovative and cheapest programmes in the world. A collection of spoofs, songs and skits all written by Monty Python's Eric Idle and The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band's Neil Innes, this double disc set contains every episode, unedited, available to own for the first time.

EXTRAS: Disc one contains all six episodes of series one plus the "Christmas At Rutland Weekend Television" special, featuring an appearance by George Harrison. Also included is an alternate edit of episode one. Disc two contains all seven episodes of series two plus a 'Christmas compilation' special and a more recent hour-long compilation. Also featured on the discs are stills and extracts from The Rutland Weekend Songbook and The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book, and a 'Shrine to The Rutles' which contains The Rutles recent Shangri-La video, and Neil Innes singing two songs on Saturday Night Live: Cheese And Onions and Shangri-La. Both discs include a Song-Only option, and a brand new commentary from Eric Idle, who really doesn't give a toss.

CURRENT STATUS: Eric Idle certainly has the power to get this released, and the BBC certainly has all the rights, so this double DVD box set could come out tomorrow if they wanted. It wouldn't have all the extras on though. Not unless they got a decent researcher in. Which they won't. Bastards. Although if it does come out and sells well, it could lead the way to all sorts of Pythonesque shows being released on DVD: The Innes Book Of Records, Do Not Adjust Your Set, Not The Nine O'Clock News, At Last The 1948 Show, The Goodies, even the Flying Circus itself. Ah, just imagine what rare Python-type things could be released... Speaking of which:

Python Rarities

"Is anybody really going to be better off going on about this damn comedy show than reading War and Peace again?" - John Cleese.

SYNOPSIS: A compilation of Monty Python-related rarities, either deleted or previously unavailable on video. Includes: all existing rushes of the shows and the films; all existing rehersal footage of the shows and the films; all existing footage pre-Python work such as The Compete And Utter History of Britain, Do Not Adjust Your Set, At Last The 1948 Show, We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh, The Frost Report, Doctor In The House, and more; footage from such post-Python TV shows as The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, Afterschool Special: William, Comedy Playhouse: Elementary, My Dear Watson, Doctor At Large, Secrets, Laughter - Why We Laugh, The Do-It-Yourself Animation Show, In Vision, Rutland Weekend Television, Fawlty Towers, Three Men In A Boat, Who Do You Do?, Ripping Yarns, Out Of The Trees, The Royal Television Society Awards for 1976, To Tell The Truth, Saturday Night Live, The Punch Review, The Strange Case Of The End Of Civilisation As We Know It, Three Piece Suite: Every Day In Every Way, The Muppet Show, Prince Of Denmark, The Pythons documentary, Hollywood Squares, Film 79, Not The Nine O'Clock News, The Big Show, The Taming Of The Shrew, Great Railways Of The World, Laverne And Shirley, Paperbacks, Live From Two, The Innes Book Of Records, Steve Martin's Best Show Ever, Whoops Apocalypse, Faerie Tale Theater: The Tale Of The Frog Prince, Film 83, Standby... Lights! Camera! Action!, Stricty Private, The News Is The News, Comic Roots, The Young Ones, Options, Faerie Tale Theater: The Pied Piper Of Hamylin, The 1985 BAFTA Craft Awards, Film 86, Jackanory, East Of Ipswich, The London Evening Standard Film Awards, Cheers: Simon Says, Still Crazy Like A Fox, The Grand Knockout Tournament, MTV Halloween Costume Party, The Mikado, HBO Entertainment News: Feature Story A Fish Called Wanda, Beyond The Screen, Funny People, Around The World In Eighty Days (both of them), Half Hour Comedy Hour, Film 88, John Cleese's First Farewell Performance, Number 27, Don't Just Sit There, Nearly Departed, The Art Of Travel, The Film Club, Walkie Talkie, The Film Life Of George, GBH, So This Is Progress, Pole To Pole, Full Circle, Hemingway Adventure, The Human Face, and the whole of Python Night; extracts from films including The Magic Christian, The Cry Of The Banshee, The Best House In London, The Rise And Rise Of Michael Rimmer, Doctor In Trouble, The Statue, Who's There?, The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins, Rentadick, The Love Ban/It's A 2'6" Above The Ground World, The Miracle Of Flight, Romance With A Double Bass, Jabberwocky, Crackerbox Palace, True Love, All You Need Is Cash, The Odd Job, Away From It All, To Norway: Home Of Giants, The Great Muppet Caper, Time Bandits, The Missionary, Private On Parade, Yellowbeard, Group Madness: The Making Of Yellowbeard, A Private Function, The Dress, Silverado, Brazil, Labyrinth, Clockwise, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Spies Like Us, Personal Services, The Transformers: The Movie, The Dangerous Film Club, The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, A Fish Called Wanda, American Friends, Nuns On The Run, The Big Picture, Erik The Viking, American Friends, Too Much Sun, The Fisher King, An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West, Mom And Dad Save The World, Splitting Heirs, and lots of post-1993 things I can't be bothered to look up; interviews from such shows as Parkinson, Late Night Line Up, A.M. America, Today, Festival 40, Midnight Special, Good Morning America, The Tonight Show, Night, Dick Cavett, Good Morning America, Merv Griffin, Friday Night, Saturday Morning, Late Night With David Letterman, Good Morning New York, Wogan, Good Morning Britain, Sunday, Sunday, Tim Rice, Entertainment Tonight, Live At Five, Latenight America, Take 30, There's Life, 20/20, Hot Properties, Newsnight, Pebble Mill At One, CBS Morning News, Breakfast Time, The South Bank Show, Nightlife, West 57th Street, This Morning Programme, Larry King Live, MacNeil-Lehrer, CBS News Newswatch, The Big Picture, Showbiz Today, Showbiz Today, Crook And Chase, Hersey's Hollywood, Aspel And Company, Public People/Private Lives, Sunday, Sunday, Saturday Night At The Movies, Live With Regis and Kathie Lee, Clive Anderson Talks Back, TFI Friday, and more; all John Cleese's Video Arts training films, along with some other Monty Python in-house training films for Birdeye and Harmony hairspray; and adverts for British Gas, General Accident, Magnavox, Compaq, WXRT 93 fm, Yellow Pages, PBS promos, Sainsbury's, and American Express. Also included is The Monty Python Montreux Special, the two Fliegender Zirkus German shows, clips from all the Amnesty shows, Party Political Broadcasts, and a heavily edited ABC's Wide World Of Entertainment, three episodes of Monty Python running at 66 minutes. Y'know, for research.

EXTRAS: What, you want extras too? Ok, there's: a photo gallery; a 'Pytharchive' of memorabilia, printed adverts and posters, book extracts, articles and press clippings; a 'Spam Radio' section of rare records, singles, radio ads, documentaries, and audio interviews; and biographies, filmographies and discographies. Happy? You bloody well ought to be.

CURRENT STATUS: There are currently two chances of this being released: 'No' and 'fat'.

Saturday Night Live presents: The Best Of Michael O'Donoghue

"The only difference between television and a lava lamp is that television has slightly better audio." - Michael O'Donoghue (1940-1994).

SYNOPSIS: Following on in Saturday Night Live's "The Best Of..." DVD compliations, NBC Home Video present a tribute to writer/actor Michael O'Donoghue. This compilation consists of Michael O'Donoghue's most popular sketches, which include: Godfather Group Therapy; Jaws II; Lifer Follies; The Norman Bates School Of Motel Managment; all of Mr Mike's Least-Loved Bedtime Stories; The Antler Dance; and the classic The Last Voyage Of The Starship Enterprise. Also making an appearance: John Belushi; Dan Aykroyd; Garret Morris; Gilda Radner; Chevy Chase; Laraine Newman; Elliot Gould; Candice Bergen; Peter Cook; and Anthony Perkins.

EXTRAS: Includes a trailer for Scrooged, and perhaps the funniest Saturday Night Live sketch ever, 'Mr Mike Meets Uncle Remus':

UNCLE REMUS: An den dey threaten to skin him alive but dat crafty ole rabbit, he say "Skin me alive; do anything you want, but don't throw me in de briar patch!" So dey throws him in de briar patch an' he gits away.
MR. MIKE: No, not quite Uncle Remus. In my story, they respect his wishes and skin him alive. I mean, it's all very amusing to talk about being skinned alive in some children's book, but can you imagine it actually going down? Towards the end, when they were cutting his ears away from the sides of his skull, he was screaming: "Throw me in the briar patch; throw me in the molten glass furnace; anything but this!"
UNCLE REMUS: But, but, Mr. Mike, what am de moral of your fable?
MR. MIKE: There's no moral, Uncle Remus, just random acts of meaningless violence.

CURRENT STATUS: This will never come out, unfortunately, due to the non-bankability of O'Donoghue's name. Unlike the self-selling SNL discs that are currently out, featuring such no-talents as Adam Sandler, Dana Carvey, and that fat cunt who died of a David Spade overdose. On the plus side, It's Pat: The Movie isn't out on DVD, and probably never will be! Hooray!

Michael O'Donoghue does his impression of Mike Douglas having large steel needles plunged into his eyes on live television.

The Young Ones: The Complete Series

"The Young Ones is not the most structurally disciplined show on earth." - Ben Elton.

SYNOPSIS: Once in every lifetime comes a show like this. The birth of alternative comedy, The Young Ones tells the everyday story of four now-legendary students, Rick, Vyvian, Neil and the other one, along with their pet hamster Special Patrol Group [Special Patrol Group was the name of the hamster, Rowland Rivron, how could you not know that, you giggling cretin? You were in The Young Ones, for Cliff's sake! And you let Gaby Roslin of all people humiliate you on national TV. With your suit and hair. You used to write B-sides for Nigel Planer, now what do you do? I've seen you on your Virgin Airline promotional videos, doing the jobs Jonathan Ross turns down. Yes, I've seen you on Holiday, kite-flying in Torquay with your Midwich Cuckoo of a son. And I've seen you singing about sweeping up the floor on Cat's Eyes. No amount of Steve Nallon puppetry can detract from the fact that you've gone from doing Groovy Fellers with the keyboardist from Squeeze to doing programmes for schools with someone from the Carry On films. You probably don't know what they are either. And to think you were once Doctor Scrote.] *ahem* Anyway, continuing the BBC's Two Disc Set collections, this box contains all twelve of the original 35-minute versions of the BAFTA-winning series. None of that Paul Jackson re-editing nonsense here.

EXTRAS: The highlight of these discs is the new commentary track, which reunites Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmonson, Nigel Planer, Chris Ryan, and Ben Elton. And it pisses over The League Of Gentlemen's commentary track. Also included are: original and repeat trailers; promo materials such as interviews and Radio Times entries; extracts from Bachelor Boys: The Young Ones Book, The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book, and various records, including Living Doll; the Living Doll video and live performance from the first Comic Relief show; the BBC talking-head documentary Best Of British: Ben Elton; clips of Filthy Rich And Catflap, Happy Families and The Comic Strip Presents... (all of which should be available complete on DVD anyway); and a two-hour long outtake compilation.

CURRENT STATUS: The complete Fawlty Towers is out now on DVD, as will the complete I'm Alan Partridge. Blackadder is out in full also. Surely The Young Ones can't be far behind. Sadly, they probably are, and don't call me Shir-... oh, I've already done that joke, sorry.

No, hold on, I'm not sorry, it's a great joke. I'll do it again. *ahem* "And Don't Call Me Shirley!". Aye thang yew.

jam: The Special Edition

"It's a cliché that's worth repeating: 'You can only do that on radio'." - Chris Morris, 'Publish And Bedazzled' interview, Friday 5th June 1998.

SYNOPSIS: This exclusive, three-hour version of jam has been re-edited by Christopher Morris himself. It contains all the controversial sketches from the non-award winning series and absolutely none of the funny ones, almost eliminating David Cann's performances completely. The alternate angle button will take you to an extended version of jaaaam, with every relatively staid sketch replaced with twenty minutes of blank screen, to make it even 'darker'.

EXTRAS: A commentary by Chris Morris, in which he remains silent for the full three hours. Fans of Morris will want to listen to it over and over again, paying special attention at 2'17 when Morris coughs slightly. Dark, surreal, disturbing, this cough is clearly the work of a comedy genius. Or just a man with a bit of a sore throat. An secondary alternate audio track is near identical, but this time the cough has been slowed down so as to last nearly three seconds. Also included is the 1955 Tex Avery/Walter Lanz cartoon Crazy Mixed-Up Pup. Y'know, just to cheer everyone up a bit.

CURRENT STATUS: Jam on DVD? There's more chance of the Brass Eye Special being shown at the Daily Mail's Christmas party.

Out Of The Trees: 25½th Khanniversary Edition

"There is no situation that a healthy shouting of 'Dinsdale!' can't improve." - Jim Yoakum.

[That's enough fictional DVDs, surely. - Ed.]

What a terrible way to end a webpage. And don't call me Shirley.

Back to

or