CLEVELAND, Ohio — George Harrison, never one to hide his spiritual side, once said that the creative spirit summoned by the Beatles didn’t perish when the Fab Four disbanded. It passed, he said, into the Monty Python comedy troupe. He said this to Terry Jones, Michael Palin and other key conspirators in the inspired lunacy that was Monty Python.
One may quibble with how precisely the spirit of the Beatles matches the spirit of Monty Python, although the timing is intriguing. The Pythons got rolling in 1969, the year that the Beatles were drifting apart, heading inexorably toward the official split in 1970.
Jones, who died Tuesday, Jan. 21, at 77, perfectly personified that spirit. His brilliant comedy mind was, by turns, smart, silly, surreal, slapsticky, sarcastic, saucy, sly, satirical, screwy and subversive — all, of course, served up with generous portions of Spam.
And can’t you just hear Jones’ falsetto waitress voice screeching out the greasy spoon choices of “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam!”
Each of the Pythons contributed essential comedic cogs to the mirth machine that became the British series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” which led to Python record albums, movies, books, live shows and a cult following in both England and the United States.
None of the others had Eric Idle’s gift for songwriting (“Galaxy Song,” “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”). None of the others had Terry Gilliam’s talent for absurdist animation. And Graham Chapman may have been the best actor of the six team members.
Jones, however, was an incredibly versatile contributor and the Python credited with pushing the troupe toward surreal moments instead of traditional punchlines. He could play the stuffy English straight man type, as he did so memorably to Idle’s persistently pesky pub patron in the “wink-wink-nudge-nudge” sketch.
The surviving members of the Monty Python comedy troupe pose in November 2013 with co-star Carol Cleveland: left to right: Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Cleveland, Terry Gilliam and John Cleese. Matt Dunham/AP PhotoAP
He could take the lead in a sketch, as he did with a mountain of padding as the magnificently gluttonous and obese Mr. Creosote. He could don drag and play a middle-aged British woman, as he did in the “Spam” sketch (which he co-wrote with Palin, his Oxford college chum, writing partner and closest friend among the Pythons).
He was a great team player, contributing mightily to such Python group dynamics as the Spanish Inquisition (were you expecting that?) and the Upper Class Twits. He was a writer, as well as a comedian and actor. And he was acknowledged as the best director for the Python movies.
Jones and Gilliam were the co-directors for “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (1975), but their styles were not a good fit. The two Terrys, although splendidly fond of each other, frequently clashed, and it was decided that Jones be the sole director for “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” (1979), and even Gilliam has remarked on what a great move that was.
“He was far more than one of the funniest writer-performers of his generation,” Palin said in a statement released after his friend’s death. “He was the complete Renaissance comedian: writer, director, presenter, historian, brilliant children’s author and the warmest, most wonderful company you could wish for.”
I certainly can testify to both Jones’ love of history and that capacity for great warmth. You see, I’ve made it something of a goal to interview all six of the Pythons (and, thankfully, I started with Chapman, who died in October 1989). I’ve been able to add Idle and Palin, and, in 1995, the History Channel arranged for a meeting with Jones in Pasadena, California.
He was the host of a cable series about the Crusades, and, to show him how much I was taking his interest in history seriously, I was carrying the companion book Jones had written with Alan Ereira. At the end of our talk, he grabbed the book from under my arm and took out a pen.
Monty Python members Graham Chapman, left, Michael Palin and Terry Jones in New York on March 12, 1975. AP PhotoAP
I quickly told him there was a rule against asking for autographs during press events. “Is there?” he asked with a conspiratorial smile, continuing to sign the book and impishly handing it back to me. As Palin so movingly noted, you could feel the warmth.
“I have to say, it’s a far cry from Monty Python,” Jones said of “The Crusades.” “It’s a straight attempt to tell the history of the Crusades, and it has nothing to do with Monty Python. Although, having said that, as we have researched, we discovered that a lot of Crusade chroniclers and historians have clearly plagiarized some of the Monty Python material.
“One of the clearest examples is in ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail.’ We showed King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table trying to attack a castle, but they don’t have any siege equipment or ladders or anything like that, so they just attack with their bare hands and swords, hitting at the stone walls. And the defenders gather on the battlements and jeer and throw dead animals on them.
“Now, this actually happened in the First Crusade ... outside the walls of Jerusalem. ... So we’re thinking of bringing litigation against the chroniclers.”
During the run of the TV show, tall John Cleese was the Python who would get into fiery arguments with the shortest of them, Jones. They had a knack for pushing each other’s buttons, but the affection, comradeship and mutual respect endured.
When Chapman died, Cleese’s church eulogy, with the other Python’s present, got rolling with this: “Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard. I hope he fries. ... And the reason I say this is that he would never forgive me if I didn’t; if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf.”
When Jones became the second Python to pass on, Cleese took to Twitter to observe, “Two down, four to go.”
It was meant in the same spirit: the spirit of Monty Python. It’s also of a reminder of an old show business saying, that when a great comedian, clown or humorist dies, the best way to honor a funny person is to go where there is laughter.
The best way to remember Jones is by going to the Python movies and TV episodes and glorying in that great gift of laughter. That’s the way, all right. And, by George, that’s the spirit.
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Former Channel 8 anchor Denise D’Ascenzo dies at 61
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