192-537: Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English actor, comedian, songwriter, musician, screenwriter and playwright. He was a member of the British comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band the Rutles . Idle studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge , and joined Cambridge University Footlights . He has received a Grammy Award as well as nominations for two Tony Awards . Idle reached stardom when he co-created and acted in
384-464: A liver from a living patient without anaesthetic and the morbidly obese Mr. Creosote exploding over several restaurant patrons after finally giving in to the smooth maître d' telling him to eat a mint – "It's only a wafer-thin mint..."). At the time of its release, the Pythons confessed their aim was to offend "absolutely everyone", adding "It is guaranteed to offend". The Liver Donor scene (in which
576-506: A protest song of sorts, the " FCC Song ", in which he lambasts the U.S. FCC for fining him $ 5,000 for saying "fuck" on national radio. The song contains 14 uses of the word. In the same year, the musical comedy Spamalot debuted in Chicago; it opened in New York's Shubert Theatre on 14 February 2005. Idle wrote the lyrics and book for Spamalot , collaborating with John Du Prez on much of
768-511: A two-man show for various reasons, including Chapman's supposedly difficult and erratic personality. Cleese had fond memories of working with Palin on How to Irritate People and invited him to join the team. With no studio available at Thames until summer 1970 for the late-night show, Palin agreed to join Cleese and Chapman, and suggested the involvement of his writing partner Jones and colleague Idle—who in turn wanted Gilliam to provide animations for
960-728: A Beatles tribute band. In 1986, Idle provided the voice of Wreck-Gar, the leader of the Junkions (a race of robots built out of junk that can only speak in film catchphrases and advertising slogans) in The Transformers: The Movie . In 1987, he took part in the English National Opera production of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Mikado , in which he appeared in the role of the Lord High Executioner, Ko-Ko;
1152-471: A British general of World War II ; requiring a "slippery-sounding" surname, they settled on "Python". On other occasions, Idle has claimed that the name "Monty" was that of a popular and rotund fellow who drank in his local pub; people would often walk in and ask the barman, "Has Monty been in yet?", forcing the name to become stuck in his mind. The name Monty Python was later described by the BBC as being "envisaged by
1344-476: A CEO and replaced by managing director Laurie Dalrymple. The new owners dismissed Kenny Jackett and brought in former Italian international Walter Zenga as head coach. Zenga was dismissed after just 14 league games and Paul Lambert appointed as his successor in November. At the end of the season, Lambert too was dismissed, with former FC Porto boss Nuno Espírito Santo replacing him. Under Nuno, Wolves won
1536-517: A Python, happy to talk about Python, happy to revisit the group's glory days. Even though he has gone on to his own work – dozens of films, plays, TV shows, albums, books and screenplays – he is perhaps the most active standard-bearer for the group. It was Idle who toured extensively in 2000 and 2003, performing Python songs with a band and back-up singers. He went on the road with the Eric Idle Exploits Monty Python Tour , then with
1728-477: A Wolves shirt for Stan Cullis , and a year later he became manager of the club. In Cullis's first season in charge, he led Wolves to a first major honour in 41 years as they beat Leicester City to lift the FA Cup , and a year later, only goal average prevented Wolves winning the league title . The 1950s were by far the most successful period in the club's history. Captained by Billy Wright , Wolves finally claimed
1920-597: A competition in exchange that McCartney knows what the competition in question is so that he can avoid it. In addition, Idle did an unmasked performance of " Always Look on the Bright Side of Life " from Life of Brian . In February 2024, Idle made headlines in the UK after revealing that he was still working at the age of 80 for financial reasons. Idle has written several books, both fiction and non-fiction. His novels are Hello Sailor and The Road to Mars . In 1976, he produced
2112-657: A demonstration at the CBC's Montreal studios. The show eventually returned, becoming a fixture on the network during the first half of the 1970s. Sketches from Monty Python's Flying Circus were introduced to American audiences in August 1972 , with the release of the Python film And Now for Something Completely Different , featuring sketches from series 1 and 2 of the television show. This 1972 release met with limited box office success. The ability to show Monty Python's Flying Circus under
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#17328724250672304-609: A feature film for Paramount Pictures , with Nicholaw directing and Dan Jinks producing. In 2022, Idle competed in season eight of The Masked Singer as "Hedgehog". He did a cover of the Beatles ' " Love Me Do " with help from the USC Trojan Marching Band . When eliminated in the first episode alongside William Shatner as "Knight" and Chris Kirkpatrick as "Hummingbird", Idle mentioned to Nick Cannon that he had to get approval from Paul McCartney to do "Love Me Do" for
2496-492: A film lampooning the New Testament era in the same way Holy Grail had lampooned Arthurian legend. Despite sharing a distrust of organised religion, they agreed not to mock Jesus or his teachings directly. They also mentioned that they could not think of anything legitimate to make fun of about him. Instead, they decided to write a satire on credulity and hypocrisy among the followers of someone [Brian] who had been mistaken for
2688-519: A football by their headmaster Harry Barcroft. The team played its first game on 13 January 1877 against a reserve side from Stafford Road , later merging with the football section of a local cricket club called Blakenhall Wanderers to form Wolverhampton Wanderers in August 1879. Having initially played on two strips of land in the town, they relocated to a more substantial venue on Dudley Road in 1881, before lifting their first trophy in 1884 when they won
2880-579: A full-time job and bringing up a child, so when Idle was seven, she enrolled him in the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder . At that time the school was a charitable foundation dedicated to the education and maintenance of children who had lost one or both parents. Idle said: "It was a physically abusive , bullying , harsh environment for a kid to grow up in. I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at
3072-421: A good concept to apply to the series: allowing sketches to blend into one another. Palin had been equally fascinated by another of Gilliam's efforts, entitled "Christmas Cards", and agreed that it represented "a way of doing things differently". Since Cleese, Chapman, and Idle were less concerned with the overall flow of the programme, Jones, Palin, and Gilliam became largely responsible for the presentation style of
3264-401: A great satire on closed minds and people who follow blindly. Then you have them splitting into factions...it is a wonderful satire on the way that Jesus's own teaching has been used to persecute others. They were satirising fundamentalism and persecution of others and at the same time saying the one person who rises above all this was Jesus". Monty Python performed four consecutive dates at
3456-479: A modern all-seater stadium. With work completed in 1993, Hayward redirected his investment onto the playing side in an attempt to win promotion to the newly formed Premier League . Despite substantial spending, neither Graham Taylor nor Mark McGhee could fulfil this, both managers leading the team to play-off defeats at the semi-final stages in 1995 and 1997 respectively. It was not until 2003 that Wolves were promoted, when they defeated Sheffield United 3–0 in
3648-633: A modified single-leg quarter-final played in a neutral venue in Germany due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe . Wolves replicated their previous season's 7th-place finish in the Premier League in 2019–20 but with two more points and only missed out on a return to continental competition, both on goal difference and Arsenal winning that season's FA Cup . In the 2020–21 season , Wolves lost striker Raúl Jiménez to
3840-480: A new and exciting direction." —BBC profile for Monty Python's Flying Circus . They enjoyed Cook and Moore's sketch show Not Only... But Also . One problem the Pythons perceived with these programmes was that though the body of the sketch would be strong, the writers would often struggle to then find a punchline funny enough to end on, and this would detract from the overall sketch quality. They decided that they would simply not bother to "cap" their sketches in
4032-425: A paramedic appears at the door of a living man to take his liver) is a satire on bureaucracy, a common Python trope. Besides the opening credits and the fish sequence, Gilliam, by now an established live-action director, no longer wanted to produce any linking cartoons, offering instead to direct one sketch, " The Crimson Permanent Assurance ". Under his helm, though, the segment grew so ambitious and tangential that it
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#17328724250674224-410: A performance of it was taped by Thames Television for broadcast, directed by John Michael Phillips, and subsequently released on DVD by A&E. In 1989, he appeared in the U.S. comedy television series Nearly Departed , about a ghost who haunts the family inhabiting his former home; the series lasted for six episodes as a summer replacement series. "Idle has always, it seemed, been happy to have been
4416-573: A practice that the Football League disapproved of but did not prohibit. When league football resumed after the Second World War, Wolves suffered yet another final day failure in the First Division. Just as in 1938, victory in their last match would have won the title but a 2–1 loss to title rivals Liverpool meant that Liverpool were crowned champions instead. This game had been the last in
4608-576: A rather pompous manner, make the formal and determined announcement "And now for something completely different.", which later became the title of the first Monty Python film . The Python theme music is the Band of the Grenadier Guards ' rendition of John Philip Sousa 's " The Liberty Bell " which was first published in 1893. Under the Berne Convention 's "country of origin" concept, the composition
4800-460: A result, a meeting was initiated by Cleese between Chapman, Idle, Jones, Palin, and himself at which it was agreed to pool their writing and performing efforts and jointly seek production sponsorship. According to their official website, the group was born from a Kashmir tandoori restaurant in Hampstead on 11 May 1969, following a taping of Do Not Adjust Your Set which Cleese and Chapman attended. It
4992-532: A season-ending injury (a fractured skull) in November, and subsequently struggled for goals for the remainder of the campaign, finishing 13th. Espírito Santo left "by mutual consent", and was replaced by former Benfica head coach Bruno Lage . In 2021–22 , the club finished 10th. Wolves dismissed Lage on 2 October 2022 after eight games of the 2022–23 season with only one win and just three goals scored. Former Real Madrid , Spain and Sevilla manager Julen Lopetegui replaced him. Despite being in 20th place in
5184-518: A separate individual, Brian Cohen, born at the same time, and in a neighbouring stable. When Jesus appears in the film (first, as a baby in the stable, and then later on the Mount , speaking the Beatitudes ), he is played straight (by actor Kenneth Colley ) and portrayed with respect. The comedy begins when members of the crowd mishear his statements of peace, love, and tolerance ("I think he said, 'Blessed are
5376-571: A series of midweek friendlies against teams from around the globe. In the days prior to the formation of the European Cup and international club competitions, these games were highly prestigious and gained huge crowds and interest with the BBC often televising such events. When the Molineux Street Stand failed to meet new safety legislation, the club began building a new replacement stand behind
5568-620: A set on Top of the Pops in October 1991. The following month Idle, accompanied by opera singer Ann Howard , sang the song at the Royal Variety Performance . He recorded a special version for Mayo's own use on air ("Come on Simon, get another song on now; why don't you put on a nice Cliff Richard record?") and changed the line "life's a piece of shit" to "life's a piece of spit" in order to get daytime airplay on radio. In 2004, Idle recorded
5760-445: A single leaping wolf, which later became three leaping wolves in the mid-1970s. Since 1979 the badge has consisted of a single "wolf head" design; the current badge was last redesigned in 2002. In May 2019, the club won a legal challenge by Peter Davies, a 71 year old retired building industry manager, who claimed he drew the wolf head motif as a schoolboy in the 1960s and entered it in an art competition. Mr Davies said he came up with
5952-403: A sketch show on BBC2 with music by Neil Innes . RWT was 'Britain's smallest television network'. The name was a parody of London Weekend Television , the independent television franchise contractor that provided Londoners with their ITV services at weekends; Rutland had been England's smallest county, but had recently been 'abolished' in an administrative shake-up. To make the joke complete,
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6144-426: A slow pan across countryside and impressive music was Mike and Terry's, and anything that got utterly involved with words and disappeared up any personal orifice was Eric's". Gilliam's animations ranged from the whimsical to the savage (the cartoon format allowing him to create some astonishingly violent scenes without fear of censorship). Several names for the show were considered before Monty Python's Flying Circus
6336-504: A spin-off book to Rutland Weekend Television , titled The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book . In 1982, he wrote a West End farce Pass the Butler , starring Willie Rushton . During his Greedy Bastard Tour of 2003, he wrote the diaries that would be made into The Greedy Bastard Diary: A Comic Tour of America , published in February 2005. Idle also wrote the book and co-wrote the music and lyrics for
6528-592: A total of 24 minutes from each, in part to make time for commercials, and in part to avoid upsetting their audience. As the judge observed in Gilliam v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. , where Monty Python sued for damages caused by broadcast of the mutilated version, "According to the network, appellants should have anticipated that most of the excised material contained scatological references inappropriate for American television and that these scenes would be replaced with commercials, which presumably are more palatable to
6720-456: A variety of colours used, including black, blue, teal, purple and maroon. When first founded the club used a field on Goldthorn Hill in the Blakenhall area as its home, which could accommodate some 2,000 spectators. In 1879 they relocated to John Harper's Field on Lower Villiers Street where they remained for two years before a short move to Dudley Road , with the new ground situated opposite
6912-499: A win in the side's last game away to Sunderland would have clinched things, but in the event Wolves lost 0–1 and thus ended the campaign one point behind the eventual champions, Arsenal . One of the things Major Buckley and his Wolves side attracted a lot of attention for in the last two full seasons prior to the suspension of league football during the Second World War was Buckley's insistence that his players be injected with monkey gland extract to enhance their stamina and performance,
7104-407: Is a first cousin of Canadian conductor Peter Oundjian and Nigel Wray, former chairman of Saracens Rugby Club. David Bowie made Idle godfather to his son, film director Duncan Jones . Idle is an atheist , but does not like using the term and is quoted as saying "I don't like that word, it implies that there's a God not to believe in." In 2019, Idle was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer . He
7296-548: Is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton , England. The club competes in the Premier League , the top tier of English football . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's traditional kit consists of old gold shirts and socks with black shorts. Since 1979, the kit has also featured the club's "wolf's head" logo. Long-standing rivalries exist with other clubs from
7488-523: Is a songwriter with about 150 songs to his credit. He composed and performed many of Pythons' most famous comic pieces, including " Eric the Half-a-Bee ", " The Philosophers' Song ", " Galaxy Song ", " Penis Song " and, probably his most recognised hit, " Always Look on the Bright Side of Life ", which was written for the closing scene of the Monty Python film Life of Brian , and sung from the crosses during
7680-534: The Previous Record album. After the success of Python in the early 1970s, all six members pursued solo projects. Idle's first solo work was his own BBC Radio One show, Radio Five (pre-dating the real Radio Five station by 18 years). This ran for two seasons from 1973 to 1974 and involved Idle performing sketches and links to records, playing nearly all the multi-tracked parts himself. On television, Idle created and wrote Rutland Weekend Television (RWT),
7872-514: The 2017–18 EFL Championship title and returned to the Premier League after a six-year absence. Wolverhampton Wanderers finished 7th on their return to the Premier League , their highest position in the top division since finishing 6th in 1979–80 , earning a spot in the qualification rounds of the UEFA Europa League , thus invoking their first continental campaign since 1980–81 . They lost to that season's eventual winners Sevilla 0–1 in
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8064-561: The ABC special Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time . and viewers in a Channel 4 poll placed it sixth. Following the success of Holy Grail , reporters asked for the title of the next Python film, though the team had not even begun to consider a third one. Eventually, Idle flippantly replied "Jesus Christ – Lust for Glory", which became the group's stock answer to such questions. However, they soon began to seriously consider
8256-527: The Charisma Records label, for which the Pythons recorded their comedy albums). The backers of the film wanted to cut the famous Black Knight scene (a Sam Peckinpah send-up in which the Black Knight loses his limbs in a duel), but it was eventually kept in the film. "Tis but a scratch" and "It's just a flesh wound…" are often quoted. Holy Grail was selected as the second-best comedy of all time in
8448-657: The FA Cup for the first time in 1893 , and again as a Second Division team in 1908 following the club's relegation two years previously. They fell to the third tier in 1923, but went on to win the Third Division North in 1923–24 and the Second Division in 1931–32 . The team was crowned English League champions three times – in 1953–54 , 1957–58 and 1958–59 – all under the management of Stan Cullis . Wolves also won another two FA Cup finals, in 1949 and 1960 . Relegated in 1965, after 26 consecutive seasons in
8640-599: The Flying Circus series, in which disparate sketches are linked to give each episode the appearance of a single stream-of-consciousness (often using a Gilliam animation to move from the closing image of one sketch to the opening scene of another). The BBC states, "Gilliam's unique animation style became crucial, segueing seamlessly between any two completely unrelated ideas and making the stream-of-consciousness work." Writing started at 9:00AM and finished at 5:00PM. Typically, Cleese and Chapman worked as one pair isolated from
8832-596: The Footlights smoker , and that led to me discovering about and getting into the Footlights, which was great. Idle started at Cambridge only a year after future fellow-Pythons Graham Chapman and John Cleese . He became Footlights President in 1965 and was the first to allow women to join the club. He starred in the television comedy series Do Not Adjust Your Set co-starring his future Python castmates Terry Jones and Michael Palin . Terry Gilliam provided animations for
9024-782: The Greedy Bastard Tour , which was documented extensively on the Python website he launched in 1996." —Dave Eggers in The Guardian , September 2006. Idle received good critical notices appearing in projects written and directed by others – such as Terry Gilliam 's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989), alongside Robbie Coltrane in Nuns on the Run (1990) and in Casper (1995). He also played Ratty in Terry Jones' version of The Wind in
9216-759: The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in September 1980 during preparations for Meaning of Life . The performances were filmed and released in the concert film, Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (directed by Terry Hughes ), with the Pythons performing sketches from the television series in front of an audience. The released film also incorporated footage from the German television specials (the inclusion of which gives Ian MacNaughton his first on-screen credit for Python since
9408-460: The League Cup for the first time by beating Manchester City 2–1 in the final . Despite relegation again in 1976 , Wolves bounced back at the first attempt as Second Division champions under manager Sammy Chung , and then under manager John Barnwell , the turn of the decade saw them finish in the top six in the league and win the 1980 League Cup , when then-record signing Andy Gray scored
9600-791: The Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Idle contributed a cover of Buddy Holly 's " Raining in My Heart " for the tribute album Listen to Me: Buddy Holly , released 6 September 2011. He also wrote and sang a variant of the "Galaxy Song" for Professor Brian Cox 's show Wonders of Life , as well as
9792-583: The Molineux House built in the area by Benjamin Molineux, a local merchant, in the 18th century and whose grounds were later developed to include numerous public leisure facilities. When the Northampton Brewery Company purchased these grounds in 1889, they rented their use to the city's football club, who were seeking to find a home more befitting a Football League member. After renovating the site,
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#17328724250679984-521: The Premier League 2 during the current season, following relegation from the highest level after the previous season was curtailed and decided on a point-per-game basis. The team qualifies as an entrant in Premier League 2 by virtue of Wolves's academy holding Category 1 status. Although the league is designed for players aged 23 and below, three overage players may also feature. Home games are primarily staged at Kidderminster Harriers ' Aggborough home. Originally founded in 1975, Wolves Women became
10176-724: The Second Division for the first time. After struggling during the years either side of the First World War to regain their place in the top division (a period that was punctuated by another FA Cup Final appearance in 1921 ), the club suffered a further relegation in 1923 , entering the Third Division (North) , which they won at the first attempt . Eight years after returning to the Second Division, Wolves regained their top-flight status as Second Division Champions under Major Frank Buckley after twenty-six years away. With Buckley at
10368-570: The Spanish Inquisition in a suburban front room), while the Cambridge graduates' sketches tended to be more verbal and more aggressive (for example, Cleese and Chapman's many "confrontation" sketches, where one character intimidates or hurls abuse, or Idle's characters with bizarre verbal quirks, such as "The Man Who Speaks In Anagrams "). Cleese confirmed that "most of the sketches with heavy abuse were Graham's and mine, anything that started with
10560-561: The Third Division title in 1988–89 . After fourteen seasons in the second tier between 1989 and 2003, Wolves reached the Premier League , founded in 1992, for the first time with victory in the 2003 play-offs , though they were relegated after a single season in the top division on this occasion. Wolves won the Championship in 2008–09 to return to the Premier League, but endured relegation in 2011–12 , followed by relegation again (to EFL League One ) in 2012–13 . The club then returned to
10752-647: The West Midlands , including Aston Villa , and Birmingham City but the main one being the Black Country derby contested with West Bromwich Albion . Since 2016, the club has been owned by the Chinese conglomerate Fosun International . Formed as St. Luke's F.C. in 1877, the club changed name to Wolverhampton Wanderers two years later and became one of the founding members of the Football League in 1888 . They won
10944-569: The contemporary film certificates ) and stripped of his prefecture , though by that time he was head boy . Idle had already refused to be senior boy in the school cadet force, as he supported the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and had participated in the yearly Aldermaston March . He says there was little to do at the school, and boredom drove him to study hard and consequently win a place at Cambridge University . Idle attended Pembroke College, Cambridge , where he studied English . At Pembroke, he
11136-540: The first League and FA Cup 'double' of the 20th century in English football. They were pipped to the league title by a point on the final day of the season by Burnley . Despite that bright start to the decade, the 1960s saw Wolves begin to decline. After finishing as league runners-up in 1959–60 and a creditable third-place league finish in Tottenham Hotspur 's 'double'-winning season , the team faded and Cullis himself
11328-430: The sketch comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus , which aired on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Their work then developed into a larger collection that included live shows, films, albums, books, and musicals; their influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles ' influence on music. Their sketch show has been called "an important moment in the evolution of television comedy". Monty Python's Flying Circus
11520-484: The sketch series Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974) and the films Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life (1983) with John Cleese , Michael Palin , Terry Gilliam , Terry Jones , and Graham Chapman . Known for his elaborate wordplay and musical numbers, Idle composed and performed many of the songs featured in Python projects, including " Always Look on
11712-420: The title sequence and theme music. On several occasions, the cold open lasted until mid-show, after which the regular opening titles ran. Occasionally, the Pythons tricked viewers by rolling the closing credits halfway through the show, usually continuing the joke by fading to the familiar globe logo used for BBC continuity, over which Cleese would parody the clipped tones of a BBC announcer. On one occasion,
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#173287242506711904-422: The "Messiah", but who had no desire to be followed as such. Terry Jones adds it was a satire on those who for the next 2,000 years "couldn't agree on what Jesus was saying about peace and love". "We are three wise men." "Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o'clock in the morning? That doesn't sound very wise to me." —Early scene from Life of Brian . The focus therefore shifted to
12096-476: The 1930s. Before the 1960s a darker shade of gold was used, known as " old gold ", which is still often cited in the media as the club's colour. Like most English teams, their earliest shirts usually only featured a badge on special occasions such as cup finals. The first such badge to be worn on Wolves shirts was the coat of arms of Wolverhampton City Council . In the late 1960s, Wolves introduced their own club badge that appeared on their shirts consisting of
12288-579: The 2012–13 season , raising the current official capacity to 31,700. The proposed second stage concerned the rebuilding of the oldest stand at the stadium (built in 1979 as the John Ireland Stand and renamed the Steve Bull Stand in 2003) to increase capacity to around 36,000, but this and any further work was shelved when it became likely that the club would be relegated from the Premier League in 2012. Ground redevelopments were once again placed on
12480-409: The AFI Star Award by the American Film Institute . Holy Grail and Life of Brian are frequently ranked on lists of the greatest comedy films. A 2005 poll asked more than 300 comedians, comedy writers, producers, and directors to name the greatest comedians of all time, and half of Monty Python's members made the top 50. Jones and Palin met at Oxford University , where they performed together with
12672-430: The American NTSC standard had been made possible by the commercial actions of American television producer Greg Garrison . Garrison produced the NBC series The Dean Martin Comedy World , which ran during the summer of 1974. The concept was to show clips from comedy shows produced in other countries, including tape of the Python sketches "Bicycle Repairman" and "The Dull Life of a Stockbroker". "When [Monty Python] hit
12864-416: The American public." Monty Python won the case. With the popularity of Python throughout the rest of the 1970s and through most of the 1980s, PBS stations looked at other British comedies, leading to UK shows such as Are You Being Served? gaining a US audience, and leading, over time, to many PBS stations having a "British Comedy Night" which airs many popular UK comedies. In 1976, Monty Python became
13056-442: The Audience! , which was an attraction at the Imagination Pavilion at Walt Disney World 's Epcot from 1994 until 2010 and at Disneyland from 1998 until 2010. The film also stars Rick Moranis and other members of the cast of the 1989 feature film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids . In 1999, he reprised the role in the short-lived second incarnation of the Journey into Imagination ride at Epcot, replacing Figment and Dreamfinder as
13248-478: The BBC Television Centre. The Pythons had a definite idea about what they wanted to do with the series. They were admirers of the work of Peter Cook , Alan Bennett , Jonathan Miller , and Dudley Moore on Beyond the Fringe —seminal to the British " satire boom "—and had worked on Frost , which was similar in style. "The 1960s satire boom opened up the way for a fresh, inventive generation of young comedy writer-performers to flourish on TV and to take comedy in
13440-451: The Bright Side of Life ". After Monty Python's Flying Circus he created the sketch show Rutland Weekend Television (1975–1976), and hosted Saturday Night Live four times (1976–1979). He has also acted in films, including The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Nuns on the Run (1990), Splitting Heirs (1993), Casper (1995), An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (1997), Ella Enchanted (2004), and Shrek
13632-430: The Club Hall of Fame: Major Frank Buckley and Graham Turner . Turner oversaw two successive divisional championship wins in the late-1980s, winning the Fourth Division title in 1987-88 and the Third Division title the following season . Bill McGarry and John Barnwell both won the League Cup for Wolves in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 21st century, Dave Jones , Mick McCarthy and Nuno Espírito Santo have led
13824-485: The English top flight in 1967 heralded another period of relative success under Bill McGarry , with a fourth place league finish in 1971 qualifying Wolves for the newly created UEFA Cup . En route to the UEFA Cup final , they defeated Juventus and Ferencváros before losing to Tottenham Hotspur 3–2 on aggregate; a 2–1 home defeat in the first leg proving decisive. Wolves lifted silverware two years later when they won
14016-536: The Fighting Cocks Inn. It was here that they played their first FA Cup tie in 1883 and their first Football League fixture in September 1888. Although the site could only hold 2,500 spectators at first it was eventually developed to be capable of 10,000. In the summer of 1889 the club moved to its permanent home ever since, Molineux , in the Whitmore Reans area of the city. The stadium name originates from
14208-459: The First Division under manager Graham Hawkins , but the Bhattis' failure to invest sufficiently in the club soon saw things unravel as the team suffered three consecutive relegations through the football divisions under different managers, as well as the almost-constant threat of the club being wound-up. In 1986, with the club again in receivership, a deal saw Wolverhampton City Council purchase
14400-501: The Jack Harris Stand until 2015). Aside from the addition of a temporary seating area in the southwest corner used during Wolves' seasons in the Premier League; this redevelopment formed the stadium for almost twenty years. In 2010, plans were unveiled for an extensive redevelopment programme to enlarge the capacity and develop the facilities. The first stage of this saw a new two-tier Stan Cullis Stand become fully operational for
14592-502: The O2 Arena , London, between 1 and 20 July 2014. In December 2016, Idle was the writer and co-presenter of The Entire Universe , a "comedy and musical extravaganza with the help of Warwick Davis , Noel Fielding , Hannah Waddingham and Robin Ince , alongside a chorus of singers and dancers", broadcast by BBC Two. In 2020, it was announced that Idle would adapt his script for Spamalot into
14784-509: The O2 arena , 20 July 2014. As Ko-Ko in the 1987 English National Opera production of The Mikado , Idle wrote his own 'Little List' on " As some day it may happen ". In 1989, Idle co-wrote and sang the theme tune to the popular British sitcom One Foot in the Grave and although the series became immensely popular, the song did poorly in the charts. However, when "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"
14976-583: The Oxford Revue . Chapman and Cleese met at Cambridge University . Idle was also at Cambridge, but started a year after Chapman and Cleese. Cleese met Gilliam in New York City while on tour with the Cambridge University Footlights revue Cambridge Circus (originally entitled A Clump of Plinths ). Chapman, Cleese, and Idle were members of the Footlights, which at that time also included
15168-457: The Premier League after first winning the League One title in 2013–14, followed by another Championship title in 2017–18. After becoming one of the first British clubs to install floodlights at its home ground in 1953, Wolves arranged televised "floodlit friendlies" against leading overseas club sides between 1953 and 1956, which were instrumental in the launch of the European Cup (now known as
15360-416: The Pythons regard as their biggest influence, which also featured Peter Sellers , whom Cleese called "the greatest voice man of all time") recording his groundbreaking BBC series Q... (1969). Not only was Q... more irreverent and anarchic than any previous television comedy , but Milligan also would often "give up" on sketches halfway through and wander off set (often muttering "Did I write this?"). It
15552-402: The Pythons' satirical view of television of the 1970s which condescendingly encouraged more involvement from the "man on the street". The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) added Monty Python's Flying Circus to its national September 1970 fall line-up. They aired the 13 episodes of series 1, which had first run on the BBC the previous autumn ( October 1969 to January 1970 ), as well as
15744-705: The Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie . In recent years, Idle has provided voice work for animation, such as in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut , in which he voiced Dr. Vosknocker. He has made four appearances on The Simpsons as documentarian Declan Desmond . Idle provided the voice of Merlin the magician in the DreamWorks animated film Shrek the Third (2007) with his former Python co-star John Cleese, who voiced King Harold . He has also narrated
15936-499: The Rutles. In 1978, the Rutles' mockumentary film All You Need Is Cash , a collaboration between Python members and Saturday Night Live , was aired on NBC television, written by Idle, with music by Innes. Idle appeared in the film as "Dirk McQuickly" (the Paul McCartney -styled character of the group), as well as the main commentator, while Innes appeared as "Ron Nasty" (the band's stand-in for John Lennon ). Actors appearing in
16128-564: The Third (2007). Idle made his Broadway debut with his adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) into a musical, Spamalot (2005), which was a critical and commercial success earning the Tony Award for Best Musical , and Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album . He also wrote Not the Messiah (2009). He performed at the London 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony . Eric Idle
16320-481: The UEFA Champions League) in 1955. Wolves reached the quarter-finals of the competition in 1959–60 as well as the semi-finals of the 1960–61 European Cup Winners' Cup and the inaugural UEFA Cup Final in 1972. Following a 39-year absence from UEFA competitions, they reached the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals in 2020 . In the 2000 edition of The Rough Guide to English Football , the history section on
16512-936: The US, whose airing of tracks from the Python LPs had already introduced American audiences to this bizarre brand of comedy. The popularity on PBS resulted in the 1974 re-release of the 1972 ...Completely Different film, with much greater box office success. The success of the show was captured by a March 1975 article headline in The New York Times , "Monty Python's Flying Circus Is Barnstorming Here". Asked what challenges were left, now that they had made TV shows, films, written books, and produced records, Chapman responded, "Well, actually world supremacy would be very nice", before Idle cautioned, "Yes, but that sort of thing has got to be done properly". In 1975 ABC broadcast two 90-minute Monty Python specials, each with three shows, but cut out
16704-520: The United Kingdom, Wolverhampton Wanderers also have an international support base, with supporters' clubs in Australia, United States, Sweden, Spain, Germany, Republic of Ireland, Malta, Iceland and Norway amongst others. They have a particularly sizeable Scandinavian fanbase, due to the area's television coverage of Midlands football in the 1970s when the club were a regular top-flight team;
16896-570: The Waterloo Road side. In 1932, the club also built a new stand on the Molineux Street side and followed this by adding a roof to the South Bank two years later; this South Bank was historically the second largest of all Kop ends in the country and regularly held crowds in excess of 30,000. The stadium finally now had four complete stands that would form its basis for the next half-century. In
17088-568: The Willows (1996). However, his own creative projects – such as the film Splitting Heirs (1993), a comedy he wrote, starred in and executive-produced – were mostly unsuccessful with critics and audiences. In 1994, Idle appeared as Dr. Nigel Channing, chairman of the Imagination Institute and host of an 'Inventor of the Year' awards show in the three-dimensional film Honey, I Shrunk
17280-460: The Wolves page begins: "The very name Wolves thunders from the pages of English football history". As with several other clubs, Everton for example, Wolves had humble beginnings shaped by the twin influences of cricket and the church . The club was founded in 1877 as St. Luke's F.C. by John Baynton and John Brodie , two pupils of St Luke's Church School in Blakenhall , who had been presented with
17472-569: The World " (a sketch referenced in Google Translate ), and " Four Yorkshiremen sketch " are just a few examples. Most of the show's sketches satirise areas of public life, such as: Dead Parrot (poor customer service), Silly Walks (bureaucratic inefficiency), Spam (ubiquity of Spam post World War II), and Four Yorkshiremen (nostalgic conversations). Featuring regularly in skits, Gumbys (characters of limited intelligence and vocabulary) were part of
17664-498: The Wrekin Cup, during a season in which they played their first FA Cup tie. Having become professional, the club were nominated to become one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888, in which they played in the first round of Football League fixtures ever staged, against Aston Villa on 8 September 1888. They ended the inaugural season in third place, as well as reaching their first FA Cup Final , losing 0–3 to
17856-526: The agenda following the club's acquisition by Fosun in 2016. In contrast to previously mooted plans, it was publicly revealed in February 2019 that future plans consisting of the demolition and full rebuild of the Steve Bull Stand, followed by the redevelopment of the Sir Jack Hayward Stand, to raise the stadium capacity to 45–46,000, were under active consideration. However, in 2020 the club announced more modest plans for making gradual improvements to
18048-479: The ages of man from birth to death. Directed again by Jones solo, The Meaning of Life is embellished with some of the group's most bizarre and disturbing moments, as well as various elaborate musical numbers, which include " Galaxy Song " (performed by Idle) and " Every Sperm Is Sacred " (performed by Palin and Jones). The film is by far their darkest work, containing a great deal of black humour , garnished by some spectacular violence (including an operation to remove
18240-533: The airwaves, it really was quite shocking but it was shocking in a good way. It set you up right and opened up a whole new form of comedy. 'Pythonesque ." — Ron Devillier, PBS programming director. Through the efforts of Python's American manager Nancy Lewis, during the summer of 1974, Ron Devillier, the programming director for nonprofit PBS television station KERA in Dallas , Texas, started airing episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus . Ratings shot through
18432-523: The angular design after a teacher asked him to demonstrate an understanding of Blaise Pascal 's Hexagrammum Mysticum Theorem, and entered it in an art competition advertised in the Express and Star newspaper. Mr Davies had made a copyright claim and wanted compensation. Mr Davies lost his copyright infringement claim and now faces legal fees and costs estimated to be about £450,000. Wolves' traditional away colours have been all-white, but recent decades have seen
18624-463: The audiobook version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl . In late 2003, Idle began a performing tour of several American and Canadian cities entitled The Greedy Bastard Tour . The stage performances consisted largely of music from Monty Python episodes and films, along with some original post-Python material. In 2005, Idle released The Greedy Bastard Diary , a book detailing
18816-419: The back-up support of a partner. The other Pythons usually worked in teams and Cleese admitted that this was slightly unfair – when the Pythons voted on which sketches should appear in a show, "he (Idle) only got one vote". However, he also says that Idle was an independent person and worked best on his own. Idle himself admitted this was sometimes difficult: "You had to convince five others. And they were not
19008-411: The cheesemakers ' "). Directing duties were handled solely by Jones, having amicably agreed with Gilliam that Jones' approach to film-making was better suited for Python's general performing style. Holy Grail's production had often been stilted by their differences behind the camera. Gilliam again contributed two animated sequences (one being the opening credits) and took charge of set design. The film
19200-587: The close season in 1967, Wolves played a mini-season in North America as part of the fledgling United Soccer Association league which imported clubs from Europe and South America. Playing as the " Los Angeles Wolves ", they won the Western Division and ultimately the championship by defeating the Eastern Division champions Washington Whips (import of Aberdeen ) in a final decider. The club's return to
19392-645: The club into the Premier League . Kenny Jackett took Wolves to a record EFL League One (Tier 3) points haul of 103 as they won this division in 2013–14 . Ståle Solbakken became Wolves’ first foreign manager under Steve Morgan ’s ownership, followed later by Walter Zenga , two Portuguese managers Nuno Espirito Santo and Bruno Lage , and Julen Lopetegui who is Spanish, under current owners Fosun . Wolves have also been managed by two former England national team managers in Graham Taylor and Glenn Hoddle . As well as having numerous supporters' clubs across
19584-538: The club's first overseas manager but his tenure lasted only six months before a poor run of results saw him replaced by Dean Saunders in January 2013. Saunders failed to bring any upturn, culminating in both the club's relegation to EFL League One , a level the club had not played at since 1989, and Saunders's own dismissal. Following this, Kenny Jackett was appointed in May 2013 in the retitled position of head coach, and led
19776-571: The club's official women's team in 2008. They currently play at the third level of English women's football in the FA Women's National League North . Their home games are played at the New Bucks Head Ground in Telford. Source: [1] For details on all former players, see List of Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players The club has been represented by numerous high-profile players over
19968-506: The club's record goalscorer Steve Bull , who was the last of the club's England internationals to play in a major tournament. Andy Gray , Emlyn Hughes , Paul Ince and Denis Irwin are all previous League Championship medal winners who have also represented Wolves. Joleon Lescott went on to play for England 26 times scoring once. Robbie Keane went on to become Ireland's all-time leading goalscorer with 68 goals in 146 appearances. The Wolverhampton Wanderers Hall of Fame has inducted
20160-541: The credits ran directly after the opening titles. On the subversive nature of the show (and their subsequent films), Cleese states "anti-authoritarianism was deeply ingrained in Python". "Our first rule was: no punchlines. [Some sketches] start brilliant, great acting, really funny sketch, but the punchline is just not as good as the rest of the sketch, so it kills the entire thing. That's why we eliminated them." —Terry Gilliam in 2007. Because of their dislike of finishing with punchlines, they experimented with ending
20352-493: The customer in the "Travel Agency" sketch who won't stop talking about his unpleasant experiences with holidays), and he would frequently spoof the unnatural language and speech patterns of television presenters. Idle is said to be the master of insincere characters, from the David Frost -esque Timmy Williams, to small-time crook Stig O'Tracy, who tries to deny the fact that organised crime master Dinsdale Piranha nailed his head to
20544-436: The days before seating regulations, the ground could hold more than 60,000 spectators, with the record attendance being 61,315 for a First Division match against Liverpool on 11 February 1939. The 1940s and 1950s saw average attendances for seasons regularly exceed 40,000, coinciding with the club's peak on the field. During this time Molineux became one of the first British grounds to install floodlights, enabling it to host
20736-542: The drama society's theatrical productions, are kept in the archives of the Pembroke Players . The six Python members appeared in or wrote these shows before Flying Circus : The BBC's satirical television show The Frost Report , broadcast from March 1966 to December 1967, is credited as first uniting the British Pythons and providing an environment in which they could develop their particular styles. Following
20928-458: The end of Flying Circus ) and live performances of several songs from the troupe's then-current Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album . Monty Python's four-night stint as headliners at the Hollywood Bowl set a record for a comedy act at the venue; it has since been equalled by Dave Chappelle in May 2022. The Pythons' final film returned to something structurally closer to the style of Flying Circus . A series of sketches loosely follows
21120-459: The existing one on land where housing had been demolished. This new all-seater stand – named the John Ireland Stand after the then-club president – was completed in 1979 and was the first stage of a plan to rebuild the entire stadium. The cost of the Ireland Stand escalated to over £2 million and plunged the club into a financial crisis. As a result, it was forced to enter receivership in 1982. By
21312-475: The expense of authority. Perfect training for Python." Idle has stated that the two things that made his life at school bearable were listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bedclothes and watching the local football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers . He disliked other sports, and would sneak out of school every Thursday afternoon to the local cinema. He was eventually caught watching the film BUtterfield 8 (rated as suitable for audiences of age 16 and over under
21504-443: The film included Saturday Night Live 's John Belushi , Bill Murray and Gilda Radner , as well as fellow Python Michael Palin , but also real musicians of the 1960s such as former Beatle George Harrison , as well as Mick Jagger and Paul Simon . Idle wrote and directed the Rutles comeback in 2008 for a live show Rutlemania! to celebrate the 30th anniversary. The performances took place in Los Angeles and New York City with
21696-464: The film, but Chapman took the lead as King Arthur. Cleese returned to the group for the film, feeling that they were once again breaking new ground. Holy Grail was filmed on location, in picturesque rural areas of Scotland, with a budget of only £229,000; the money was raised in part with investments from rock groups such as Pink Floyd , Jethro Tull , and Led Zeppelin , as well as UK music industry entrepreneur Tony Stratton Smith (founder and owner of
21888-531: The films Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), and The Meaning of Life (1983). Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while it has coloured the work of the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to absurdist trends in television comedy. At the 41st British Academy Film Awards in 1988, Monty Python received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema . In 1998, they were awarded
22080-449: The final of the inaugural play-offs but were denied promotion by Aldershot . Building on that, the team achieved both the Fourth and Third Division championships in the next two seasons and won the 1988 Football League Trophy Final at Wembley . Lifelong fan Jack Hayward purchased the club in 1990 and immediately funded the extensive redevelopment of a by then dilapidated Molineux into
22272-646: The final spur for Gabriel Hanot , the editor of L'Équipe , to propose the creation of the European Cup (later rebranded as the UEFA Champions League ). Wolves were one of the first British clubs to participate. In the 1957–58 season, Wolves defeated Real Madrid 5–4 (3–2 in Wolverhampton and 2–2 in Madrid) in home and away friendlies. The 1960s began with a fourth FA Cup victory and Wolves almost achieved
22464-603: The first "Double" winners, Preston North End . At the conclusion of the campaign the club relocated for a final time when they moved to Molineux , then a pleasure park known as the Molineux Grounds. Wolves lifted the FA Cup for the first time in 1893 when they beat Everton 1–0, and made a third FA Cup Final appearance in 1896 . The club added a second FA Cup Final triumph (a 3–1 win against Newcastle United ) to their 1893 success in 1908 , two years after having dropped into
22656-406: The first ever official game was staged on 7 September 1889 before a crowd of 4,000. The ground was capable of hosting 20,000 spectators, although English football crowds rarely reached that number in the 19th century. Wolves bought the freehold in 1923 and soon began a series of ground improvements under the auspices of Archibald Leitch , beginning with the construction of a major grandstand on
22848-483: The first six episodes of series 2 only a few weeks after they first appeared on the BBC ( September to November 1970 ). The CBC dropped the show when it returned to regular programming after the Christmas 1970 break, choosing to not place the remaining seven episodes of series 2 on the January 1971 CBC schedule. Within a week, the CBC received hundreds of calls complaining of the cancellation, and more than 100 people staged
23040-419: The first three seasons contained 13 episodes each, the fourth ended after just six. The name Monty Python's Flying Circus appears in the opening animation for season four, but in the end credits, the show is listed as simply Monty Python . Although Cleese left the show, he was credited as a writer for three of the six episodes, largely concentrated in the "Michael Ellis" episode, which had begun life as one of
23232-500: The floor. The second-youngest member of the Pythons, Idle was closest in spirit to the teenagers who made up much of Python's fanbase. Python sketches dealing most with contemporary obsessions like pop music , sexual permissiveness and recreational drugs are usually Idle's work, often characterised by double entendre , sexual references, and other "naughty" subject matter – most famously demonstrated in " Nudge Nudge ". Idle originally wrote "Nudge, Nudge" for Ronnie Barker , but it
23424-517: The following former players: Wolves have had 32 different (permanently appointed) managers during the club's existence. The first manager, George Worrall , was identified by the title of "club secretary", a post that continued until the appointment of a full-time manager in the modern sense was made in 1922. The club's most successful manager is Stan Cullis , whose 16-year tenure brought all three of Wolves' league championships as well as two FA Cup triumphs. Two other managers have been inducted into
23616-567: The form of Baron Manfred von Richthofen 's Flying Circus of WWI fame, and the new group was forming in a time when the Royal Guardsmen 's 1966 song " Snoopy vs. the Red Baron " had peaked. The term 'flying circus' was also another name for the popular entertainment of the 1920s known as barnstorming , where multiple performers collaborated with their stunts to perform a combined set of acts. Differing, somewhat confusing accounts are given of
23808-459: The future Goodies ( Tim Brooke-Taylor , Bill Oddie , and Graeme Garden ), and Jonathan Lynn (co-writer of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister ). During Idle's presidency of the club, feminist writer Germaine Greer and broadcaster Clive James were members. Recordings of Footlights' revues (called "Smokers") at Pembroke College include sketches and performances by Cleese and Idle, which, along with tapes of Idle's performances in some of
24000-518: The game's sequel , and composed and sang its theme song, "That's Death". In 1998, Idle appeared in the lead role in the poorly received film Burn Hollywood Burn . That same year, he also provided the voice of Devon, one of the heads of a two-headed dragon, with Don Rickles as the other head Cornwall, in the Warner Bros. animated film Quest for Camelot , and as Slyly, the albino Arctic fox in Rudolph
24192-414: The greatest comedy films. In 2006, it was ranked first on a Channel 4 list of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films . Empire magazine called it "an unrivalled satire on religion". In 2013, Richard Burridge , a theologian decorated by Pope Francis, called Life of Brian an "extraordinary tribute to the life and work and teaching of Jesus—that they couldn't actually blaspheme or make a joke out of it. They did
24384-473: The helm the team became established as one of the leading club sides in England in the years leading up to the Second World War, as they finished runners-up in the league twice in succession ( 1937–38 & 1938–39 ), as well as reaching the last pre-war FA Cup Final , in which they suffered a shock defeat to Portsmouth . In 1937–38 Wolves came within a whisker of winning the club's first English league title:
24576-502: The host. Due to an outcry from Disney fans, the attraction was reworked in 2001, reintroducing Figment into the ride while also retaining Idle's role as Nigel Channing. Idle is also writer and star of the 3-D film Pirates – 4D for Busch Entertainment Corporation. In 1995, Idle appeared in Casper opposite Cathy Moriarty and voiced Rincewind the "Wizzard" in a computer adventure game based on Terry Pratchett 's Discworld novels. In 1996, he reprised his role as Rincewind for
24768-454: The images Gilliam used were lifted from famous works of art, and from Victorian illustrations and engravings . The giant foot which crushes the show's title at the end of the opening credits is in fact the foot of Cupid , cut from a reproduction of the Renaissance masterpiece Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time by Bronzino . This foot, and Gilliam's style in general, are visual trademarks of
24960-605: The inaugural Luminato arts festival in Toronto . Idle performed live during this 50-minute oratorio, along with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and members of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir . Du Prez was also present. Shannon Mercer, Jean Stilwell, Christopher Sieber , and Theodore Baerg sang the principal parts. The American premiere was at Caramoor ( Westchester County, New York ) on 1 July 2007. Soloists were
25152-412: The league before his first Premier League game, Lopetegui guided Wolves to a 13th-place finish. He left prior to the 2023–24 season due to a dispute over the transfer budget, and was replaced by Gary O'Neil . The club's traditional colours of gold and black allude to the city council 's motto " out of darkness cometh light " with the two colours representing light and darkness respectively. Although
25344-477: The league championship for the first time in 1953–54 , overhauling local rivals West Bromwich Albion late in the season. Two further titles were soon won in successive years ( 1957–58 and 1958–59 ), as Wolves vied with Manchester United to be acknowledged the premier team in English football at that juncture. Wolves were renowned both for the club's domestic success and for the staging of high-profile "floodlit friendlies" against other top club sides from around
25536-401: The loans taken out to fund the new John Ireland Stand, led the club to receivership and relegation in 1982. The club was saved from liquidation at the last minute when it was purchased by a consortium fronted by former player Derek Dougan . Initially this takeover, financed by two Saudi brothers, Mahmud and Mohammad Bhatti of the company Allied Properties, brought immediate promotion back to
25728-402: The many drafts of the "Holy Grail" motion picture. When a new direction for "Grail" was decided upon, the subplot of Arthur and his knights wandering around a strange department store in modern times was lifted out and recycled as the aforementioned TV episode. Songwriter Neil Innes contributed to some sketches, including "Appeal on Behalf of Very Rich People". The Pythons' first feature film
25920-510: The mass crucifixion . The song has since been covered by Harry Nilsson , Bruce Cockburn , Art Garfunkel , and Green Day . Idle, his fellow Pythons, and assorted family and friends performed the song at Graham Chapman 's memorial service. Idle performed the song at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games on 12 August 2012 and as the farewell song of the last show of the Python's reunion at
26112-461: The most un-egotistical of writers, either." He occasionally wrote with Cleese. Idle's work in Python is often characterised by an obsession with language and communication: many of his characters have verbal peculiarities, such as the man who speaks in anagrams , the man who says words in the wrong order, and the butcher who alternates between rudeness and politeness every time he speaks. A number of his sketches involve extended monologues (for example
26304-436: The music. The original 2005 Broadway theatre production was nominated for 14 Tony Awards and won three: Best Musical , Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical ( Sara Ramirez ), and Best Direction of a Musical ( Mike Nichols ). In 2006 he wrote, produced and performed the song "Really Nice Day" for the movie The Wild . In June 2007, Not the Messiah , a comic oratorio by Idle and Du Prez. premiered at
26496-499: The musical Monty Python's Spamalot , based on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail . It premiered in Chicago before moving to Broadway, where it received the Tony Award for Best Musical of the 2004–05 season. Idle won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics . In a 2005 poll to find "The Comedians' Comedian" (UK), he was voted 21 in the top 50 greatest comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. Idle
26688-514: The new theme for Cox's radio show The Infinite Monkey Cage . Idle has been married twice. His first marriage was in 1969 to actress Lyn Ashley , with whom he had one son before their divorce in 1975. He met Tania Kosevich, a former model, in 1977, and they married in 1981. They have an adult daughter. From 1995 they lived in a five-bedroom, 7,000-square-foot (650 m) mansion in the Hollywood Hills , listing it for sale in February 2023. He
26880-434: The only goal of the final to defeat the reigning European champions and League Cup holders Nottingham Forest . The multi-million pound rebuilding of the Molineux Street Stand in 1979 was to be the catalyst for the club's near-financial ruin during the next decade. Plunging match attendances in the early-1980s, at least partly due to recession in both the national and local economies , and consequent difficulties in repaying
27072-605: The origins of the Python name, although the members agree that its only "significance" was that they thought it sounded funny. In the 1998 documentary Live at Aspen during the US Comedy Arts Festival , where the troupe was awarded the AFI Star Award by the American Film Institute , the group implied that "Monty" was selected (Eric Idle's idea) as a gently mocking tribute to Field Marshal Lord Montgomery ,
27264-442: The others, as did Jones and Palin, while Idle wrote alone. After a few days, they would join with Gilliam, critique their scripts, and exchange ideas. Their approach to writing was democratic. If the majority found an idea humorous, it was included in the show. The casting of roles for the sketches was a similarly unselfish process, since each member viewed himself primarily as a "writer", rather than an actor eager for screen time. When
27456-420: The play-off final under Dave Jones to end a 19-year absence from the top level. Their stay proved short-lived however as they were immediately relegated back to the newly retitled EFL Championship . After former England manager Glenn Hoddle failed to bring a swift return to the Premier League, the rebuilding of the squad by Mick McCarthy rejuvenated the club with an unexpected play-off finish . The club
27648-538: The programme went out on a weekday. Other regular performers were David Battley , Henry Woolf , Gwen Taylor and Terence Bayler . George Harrison made a guest appearance on one episode. A legacy of RWT was the creation, with Innes, of The Rutles , an affectionate parody of the Beatles . The band became a popular phenomenon, especially in the U.S. where Idle was appearing on Saturday Night Live – fans would send in Beatles LPs with their sleeves altered to show
27840-430: The programme. The Pythons used the British tradition of cross-dressing comedy by donning frocks and makeup and playing female roles themselves while speaking in falsetto . Jones specialised in playing the working-class housewife, or "ratbag old women" as termed by the BBC. Palin and Idle generally played the role more posh, with Idle playing more feminine women. Cleese played female roles more sparsely, while Chapman
28032-438: The projected series. Much has been made of the fact that the Monty Python troupe is the result of Cleese's desire to work with Palin and the chance circumstances that brought the other four members into the fold. By contrast, according to John Cleese's autobiography, the origins of Monty Python lay in the admiration that writing partners Cleese and Chapman had for the new type of comedy being done on Do Not Adjust Your Set ; as
28224-528: The roof, prompting other PBS affiliates to pick up the show. Devillier states, "We got the Nielsens in and started looking at the Saturday ratings. The first night, it was a 6 rating. We couldn't believe it. We didn't know what a 6 looked like. The next week, it was a 7 and it may have taken a month but it stayed there and we started getting 8s, 9s and 10s." There was also cross-promotion from FM radio stations across
28416-598: The same as in the Toronto performance, but the accompanying chorus was made up of members of New York City's Collegiate Chorale. The show was revised and expanded for a tour of Australia and New Zealand in 2007, including two sell-out nights at the Sydney Opera House . A tour during the summer of 2008 included performances with the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts ,
28608-411: The show, and claimed that only two Cleese- and Chapman-penned sketches in the third series ("Dennis Moore" and the "Cheese Shop") were truly original, and that the others were bits and pieces from previous work cobbled together in slightly different contexts. He was also finding Chapman, who was at that point in the full throes of alcoholism, difficult to work with. According to an interview with Idle, "It
28800-412: The show. The show's cast included comic actors David Jason and Denise Coffey . Idle also appeared as guest in some episodes of the television series At Last the 1948 Show , which featured Cleese and Chapman in its principal cast. Idle wrote for Python mostly by himself, at his own pace, although he sometimes found it difficult in having to present material to the others and make it seem funny without
28992-499: The sketches by cutting abruptly to another scene or animation, walking offstage, addressing the camera (breaking the fourth wall ), or introducing a totally unrelated event or character. A classic example of this approach was the use of Chapman's "anti-silliness" character of " the Colonel ", who walked into several sketches and ordered them to be stopped because things were becoming "far too silly". Another favourite way of ending sketches
29184-460: The stadium and surrounding land, while a local developer paid off the club's outstanding debts in return for planning permission to develop the land adjacent to the stadium. The 1986–87 season saw Wolves' first campaign in the Fourth Division, where, with the guidance of new manager Graham Turner and the goals of Steve Bull , who would ultimately score a club record 306 goals, the team reached
29376-529: The stadium as the club seeks to retain its unique character, and enable prioritisation of investment in the playing side of the club. Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules . Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality. Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules . Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality. Wolverhampton Wanderers Under-23s are competing in Division 2 of
29568-519: The stoning scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian , they took the idea one step further by playing women who impersonated men. Many sketches are well-known and widely quoted. " Dead Parrot sketch ", " The Lumberjack Song ", " Spam " (which led to the coining of the term email spam ), " Nudge Nudge ", " The Spanish Inquisition ", " Upper Class Twit of the Year ", " Cheese Shop ", " The Ministry of Silly Walks ", " Argument Clinic ", " The Funniest Joke in
29760-399: The success of Do Not Adjust Your Set (which broadcast on ITV from December 1967 to May 1969), Thames Television offered Gilliam, Idle, Jones, and Palin their own late-night adult comedy series together. At the same time, Chapman and Cleese were offered a show by the BBC , which had been impressed by their work on The Frost Report and At Last the 1948 Show . Cleese was reluctant to do
29952-514: The team as the perfect name for a sleazy entertainment agent". Flying Circus popularised innovative formal techniques, such as the cold open , in which an episode began without the traditional opening titles or announcements. An example of this is the "It's" man: Palin, outfitted in Robinson Crusoe garb, making a tortuous journey across various terrains, before finally approaching the camera to state, "It's ...", to be then interrupted by
30144-514: The team back to the EFL Championship in his first season, setting a new club record points total of 103 which is also an all-time record for the most points accumulated by any team during a Tier 3 season. On 21 July 2016, Chinese investment group Fosun International bought the club's parent company, W.W. (1990) Ltd, from Steve Morgan and his own company Bridgemere Group for a reported £45 million, with Jez Moxey stepping down from his role as
30336-407: The team's original colours upon formation were red and white, adopted from the school colours of St Lukes, for much of their history their home colours have been their distinctive old gold shirts with black shorts. In the early decades of the club a variety of shirt designs using these colours were created, including stripes and diagonal halves, until the continual usage of a plain shirt design since
30528-464: The themes for sketches were chosen, Gilliam had a free hand in bridging them with animations, using a camera, scissors, and airbrush. While the show was a collaborative process, different factions within Python were responsible for elements of the team's humour. In general, the work of the Oxford-educated members (Jones and Palin) was more visual, and more fanciful conceptually (e.g., the arrival of
30720-616: The things the cast and crew encountered during the three-month tour. In 2004, Idle created Spamalot , a musical comedy based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail . The medieval production tells the story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table as they journey on their quest for the Holy Grail . Spamalot features a book and lyrics by Idle, music by Idle and John Du Prez , direction by Mike Nichols , and choreography by Casey Nicholaw . Idle's play What About Dick?
30912-410: The third and fourth series, the group decided to embark on their first "proper" feature film, containing entirely new material. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was based on Arthurian legend and was directed by Jones and Gilliam. Again, the latter also contributed linking animations (and put together the opening credits). Along with the rest of the Pythons, Jones and Gilliam performed several roles in
31104-571: The time the team dropped into the Fourth Division in 1986, only the John Ireland Stand and the South Bank terrace remained in use. New safety laws were implemented following the Bradford City stadium fire and these forced the closure of both the now-dilapidated North Bank and Waterloo Road Stand. The club did not have the funds necessary to rebuild them. Following the takeover of the club by Sir Jack Hayward in 1990, £8.5 million of funding
31296-416: The top flight, they secured promotion back to the First Division in 1966–67 . Wolves won the League Cup in 1974 and 1980 , and again won the Second Division title in 1976–77 . Wolves suffered a financial crisis during the early-1980s recession that led to the club coming close to liquidation in 1982. In the five seasons between 1981–82 and 1985–86 Wolves were relegated four times (although there
31488-569: The top rated show in Japan. The popularity of the show in the Netherlands saw the town of Spijkenisse near Rotterdam open a 'silly walks' road crossing in 2018. Believed to be a world first, the official sign asks pedestrians to cross the road in a comical manner. Having considered the possibility at the end of the second series, Cleese left the Flying Circus at the end of the third. He later explained that he felt he no longer had anything fresh to offer
31680-502: The traditional manner, and early episodes of the Flying Circus series make great play of this abandonment of the punchline (one scene has Cleese turn to Idle, as the sketch descends into chaos, and remark that "This is the silliest sketch I've ever been in"—they all resolve not to carry on and simply walk off the set). However, as they began assembling material for the show, the Pythons watched one of their collective heroes, Spike Milligan , whom they had admired on The Goon Show (a show
31872-520: The world. Wolves had become one of the first club sides in Britain to invest in floodlighting in 1953 at a cost of £10,000 (£281,308.64 at 2019 prices ). Perhaps the most famed of these friendlies saw Wolves defeat a Honvéd side including many members of the Hungarian national team that had recently humbled England twice, leading the national media to proclaim Wolves "Champions of the World". This became
32064-417: The years, most notably Billy Wright , who captained England a record 90 times and was the first player to win a century of international caps, as well as earning the Footballer of the Year Award (in 1952), an accolade also won by Wolves half-back Bill Slater in 1960. In total, 36 players have won full England caps during their time with Wolves, including the club's former captain Conor Coady as well as
32256-424: Was adopted as a football chant in the late 1980s, Idle's then neighbour Gary Lineker suggested Idle re-record and release the popular track. With help from BBC Radio 1 breakfast show host Simon Mayo , who gave the song regular airplay and also used the chorus within a jingle, it became a hit, some 12 years after the song's original appearance in Life of Brian , reaching number 3 in the UK charts and landing Idle
32448-437: Was also one promotion in 1982–83 ), meaning the club ended up in what was then the Football League Fourth Division (now EFL League Two ) for the first (and so far only) time in the club's history. However, the club immediately started a swift turn-around, and having been beaten in the inaugural Football League play-off final in 1987 , Wolves won the Fourth Division and Football League Trophy titles in 1987–88 , followed by
32640-587: Was born on 29 March 1943 in Harton Hospital , in South Shields . His mother, Norah Barron Sanderson, was a nurse, and his father, Ernest Idle, served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, only to be killed in a road accident while hitchhiking home for Christmas in December 1945. Idle said his mother "disappeared for a while into depression" and consequently he was brought up by his grandmother in Swinton, Lancashire . Idle spent part of his childhood in Wallasey in Cheshire , and attended St George's Primary School. His mother had difficulty coping with
32832-455: Was bought from Sir Jack Hayward by Steve Morgan in 2007 and two years later the team returned to the Premier League as 2008–09 Football League Championship title winners. Wolves successfully battled relegation for two seasons before McCarthy's dismissal in the 2011–12 season, which precipitated relegation under his former assistant Terry Connor , who was promoted to replace McCarthy. Following relegation, Norwegian Ståle Solbakken became
33024-498: Was clear that their new series would now seem less original, and Jones in particular became determined the Pythons should innovate. Michael Palin recalls "Terry Jones and I adored the Q... shows...[Milligan] was the first writer to play with the conventions of television." After much debate, Jones remembered an animation Gilliam had created for Do Not Adjust Your Set called "Beware of the Elephants", which had intrigued him with its stream-of-consciousness style. Jones felt it would be
33216-591: Was cut from the movie and used as a supporting feature in its own right. (Television screenings also use it as a prologue.) This was the last project on which all six Pythons collaborated, except for the 1989 compilation Parrot Sketch Not Included , where they are all seen sitting in a closet for four seconds. This was the last time Chapman appeared on screen with the Pythons. Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club ( / ˌ w ʊ l v ər ˈ h æ m p t ən / WUUL -vər- HAMP -tən ), commonly referred to as Wolves ,
33408-402: Was diagnosed early and underwent successful surgery to remove the tumour, needing no further treatment after this procedure. Monty Python Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons ) were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman , John Cleese , Terry Gilliam , Eric Idle , Terry Jones , and Michael Palin . The group came to prominence for
33600-489: Was directed by Ian MacNaughton , reprising his role from the television series. It consisted of sketches from the first two seasons of the Flying Circus , reshot on a low budget (and often slightly edited) for cinema release. Material selected for the film includes: "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", "Upper Class Twit of the Year", "Hell's Grannies", "Self-Defence Class", " How Not to Be Seen ", and "Nudge Nudge". Financed by Playboy ' s UK executive Victor Lownes , it
33792-438: Was dismissed after sixteen years in post in September 1964 after a disastrous start to the 1964–65 season . Cullis's dismissal did not prevent the season ending with relegation (the first time Wolves had known relegation since 1922–23 ) and the club's first spell outside the top division since 1932. Exile from the top flight lasted only two seasons however, as Wolves were promoted in 1967 as Second Division runners-up. During
33984-471: Was frequently paired with Jones as a ratbag woman or with Idle portraying middle-class women commenting upon TV. Generally speaking, female roles were played by women only when the scene specifically required that the character be sexually attractive (although sometimes they used Idle for this). The troupe later turned to Carol Cleveland —often described as the unofficial seventh member—who co-starred in numerous episodes after 1970. In some episodes, and later in
34176-399: Was given a staged reading at two public performances at the Ricardo Montalbán Theatre in Hollywood on 10–11 November 2007. The cast included Idle, Billy Connolly , Tim Curry , Eddie Izzard , Jane Leeves , Emily Mortimer , Jim Piddock and Tracey Ullman . The play returned on 26–29 April 2012 in the Orpheum Theatre , most of the cast returning with the exception of Emily Mortimer, who
34368-407: Was good at it, when he did it he was professional, but he'd rather not have done it. The others all loved it, but he got more and more pissed off about having to come out and do filming, and the one that really swung it, in my view, was when we had to do the day on the Newhaven lifeboat." The rest of the group carried on for one more "half" season before calling a halt to the programme in 1974. While
34560-435: Was intended as a way of breaking Monty Python into America, and although it was ultimately unsuccessful in this, the film did good business in the UK, and later in the US on the " Midnight movie " circuit after their breakthrough television and film success, this being in the era before home video would make the original material much more accessible. The group did not consider the film a success. In 1974, between production on
34752-404: Was invited to join the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club by the president of the Footlights Club, Tim Brooke-Taylor , and Footlights Club member Bill Oddie . I'd never heard of the Footlights when I got there, but we had a tradition of college smoking-concerts, and I sent in some sketches parodying a play that had just been done. Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie auditioned me for
34944-398: Was loosely structured as a sketch show, but its innovative stream-of-consciousness approach and Gilliam's animation skills pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content. A self-contained comedy unit, the Pythons had creative control that allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. They followed their television work by making
35136-413: Was made available to redevelop Molineux comprehensively. Between August 1991 and December 1993 three sides of the stadium were completely rebuilt to form a 28,525 capacity all-seater stadium that complied with the Taylor Report : the Waterloo Road Stand was replaced by the Billy Wright Stand, the North Bank terrace by the Stan Cullis Stand, and the South Bank terrace by the Sir Jack Hayward Stand (named
35328-443: Was not prepared to amend it. Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus was named after a woman Palin had read about in the newspaper, thinking it would be amusing if she were to discover she had her own TV show. Baron Von Took's Flying Circus was considered as an affectionate tribute to Barry Took, the man who had brought them together. Arthur Megapode's Flying Circus was suggested, then discarded. The name Baron Von Took's Flying Circus had
35520-431: Was on an Air Canada flight on the way to Toronto , when John (Cleese) turned to all of us and said 'I want out.' Why? I don't know. He gets bored more easily than the rest of us. He's a difficult man, not easy to be friendly with. He's so funny because he never wanted to be liked. That gives him a certain fascinating, arrogant freedom." In 2012, Jones spoke on Cleese's work in the third series and subsequent departure, "He
35712-431: Was rejected because there was 'no joke in the words'. A talented guitarist, Idle composed many of the group's most famous musical numbers, most notably " Always Look on the Bright Side of Life ", the closing number of Life of Brian , which has grown to become a Python signature tune. He was responsible for the " Galaxy Song " from The Meaning of Life and " Eric the Half-a-Bee ", a whimsical tune that first appeared on
35904-436: Was replaced by Sophie Winkleman . Russell Brand also joined the cast. The play was made available for digital download on 13 November 2012. Idle performed at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in London on 12 August, singing " Always Look on the Bright Side of Life ". He was the creator and director of the live show Monty Python Live (mostly) – One down, Five to go which took place at
36096-446: Was settled upon. Some were Owl Stretching Time , The Toad Elevating Moment , A Horse, a Spoon and a Basin , Vaseline Review , and Bun, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot . Reportedly, these names were considered for the show because the group members found it funny that the show name would have nothing to do with the actual content of the series. Flying Circus stuck when the BBC explained it had printed that name in its schedules and
36288-412: Was shot on location in Tunisia , the finances being provided this time by The Beatles ' George Harrison , who together with Denis O'Brien formed the production company Hand-Made Films for the movie. Harrison had a cameo role as the "owner of the Mount". Despite its subject matter attracting controversy, particularly upon its initial release, it has (together with its predecessor) been ranked among
36480-408: Was subject to United States copyright law which states that any work first published prior to 1924 was in the public domain , owing to copyright expiration. This enabled Gilliam to co-opt the march for the series without having to make any royalty payments . The use of Gilliam's surreal , collage stop motion animations was another innovative intertextual element of the Python style. Many of
36672-471: Was the first time all six got together, reportedly going back to Cleese's apartment on nearby Basil Street afterwards to continue discussions. According to show director Ian MacNaughton , the first discussion over the idea for the show, Monty Python's Flying Circus , was a result of BBC's comedy advisor, Barry Took , bringing the Pythons along with John Howard Davies (director of the first four episodes) and MacNaughton together into one conference room at
36864-418: Was to drop a cartoonish "16-ton weight" prop on one of the characters when the sketch seemed to be losing momentum, or a knight in full armour (played by Terry Gilliam) would wander on-set and hit characters over the head with a rubber chicken, before cutting to the next scene. Yet another way of changing scenes was when John Cleese, usually outfitted in a dinner suit, would come in as a radio commentator and, in
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