Monty Python's Flying Circus: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:44, 23 January 2025

Revision as of 16:52, 23 January 2025

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Many Python sketches were linked together by the [[Cutout animation|cut-out animations]] of [[Terry Gilliam]], including the opening titles featuring the iconic giant foot that became a symbol of all that was 'Pythonesque'.<ref>{{cite book |title= The Designer's Dictionary of Color |author= Sean Adams |publisher= Abrams |year= 2017 |isbn= 9781683350026 |page= 104}}</ref> Gilliam's unique visual style was characterised by sudden, dramatic movements and deliberate mismatches of scale, set in [[surrealism|surrealist]] landscapes populated by [[engraving]]s of large buildings with elaborate architecture, grotesque [[Victorian era#Technology and engineering|Victorian]] gadgets, machinery, and people cut from old [[Sears Roebuck]] catalogues. Gilliam added [[airbrush]] illustrations and many familiar pieces of art. All of these elements were combined in incongruous ways to obtain new and humorous meanings.

The surreal nature of the series allowed Gilliam's animation to go off on bizarre, imaginative tangents, features that were impossible to produce live-action at the time. Some running gags derived from these animations were a giant [[hedgehog]] named Spiny Norman who appeared over the tops of buildings shouting, "Dinsdale!", further petrifying the paranoid [[Piranha Brothers|Dinsdale Piranha]];, and The Foot of Cupid, the giant foot that suddenly squashed things. The latter was appropriated from the figure of [[Cupid]] in the [[Agnolo Bronzino]] painting ''[[Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time]]<ref>Terry Gilliam in an interview in ''[[The Comics Journal]]'' #182.</ref>'' and appeared in the opening credits of every series to crush the show's title when it appeared on-screen.

Notable Gilliam sequences for the show include Conrad Poohs and his Dancing Teeth, the rampage of the cancerous black spot, The Killer Cars and a giant cat that stomps its way through London, destroying everything in its path.