Stephen Fry plays God...

[onager]

FADE IN - Judean Desert

Thru the shimmering heat, a tall bearded white guy walks toward us and speaks in ARAMAIC:

TALL GUY: Hi, my name is Jesus. Most of what you are about to see never actually happened.

It's largely made up. Like the Bible.

ERIC IDLE: That's a bit controversial, isn't it?

JESUS bends over and unleashes a giant fart in Eric Idle's face...

Try to imagine THAT playing on any American TV show. And DU would need 6 new servers just to handle the flood of outraged posts in The Other Group. About "lack of respect" etc.

Well, in 2011 that did play on BBC-Four in the UK. It's the opening scene of the mockumentary "Holy Flying Circus."

This is a mostly made-up story about the controversy surrounding "Monty Python's Life of Brian." Except for the dialogue from a TV interview show with Cleese and Palin, which was taken verbatim from the transcript of that show.

Since this was made in 2011 but deals with events taking place in 1979, the show uses actors to play the younger Pythons, which mostly works pretty well.

Recommended viewing for blasphemy, extreme rudeness toward cherished beliefs and general hilarious religion-bashing.

Part of the fun is the way more modern events are mixed in with the 1979 story, like references to "Danish cartoons."

"Holy Flying Circus" was SUPPOSED to play on the Ovation network recently, so we 'Mericans could be outraged. But since nobody at the Ovation network has learned how to tell time or something, it did NOT show in the scheduled time slot. I had to go find it via alternative sources.

And Stephen Fry really does play God, in a small cameo at the very end. I only wish he had played a Bishop. So my SUBJECT line for this post could be "Stephen Fry Flogs The Bishop."

ON EDIT: Link to the Wikipedia article about the show:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Flying_Circus

[deucemagnet]

1. I'll have to check that out.

BTW, the 1979 interview show is available on youtube.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. And an excellent parody that came out the week after

[deucemagnet]

5. I've never seen that before.

Thanks for posting!

[AlbertCat]

2. You can watch it for like $10

on Amazon instant video I noticed.

I must be available elsewhere online. And of course there're DVDs.

[mr blur]

3. I remember watching that interview "live" in 1979.

The sheer common sense from Cleese and Palin, the pompous self-righteous drivel from Muggeridge - awful man. If I remember rightly Cleese and Palin showed far more respect than was deserved.

[onager]

6. They were really disappointed with Muggeridge.

According to the Cesspit Of Lies (Wikipedia), they were surprised and disappointed at Muggeridge's reaction. The Pythons respected him as a satirist, at least until that interview when they got a personal dose of his arrogance and religiosity.

As it turned out, Muggeridge missed the first 10 minutes of "Life Of Brian." So he missed the part that made clear Brian and Jesus were 2 different people. That was supposedly one reason he came off as such a dick in that interview, insisting the Pythons were attacking Jesus personally.

The Wiki article mentions that Muggeridge was accepted into the Catholic Church late in life, after he got a recommendation from Mother Teresa - the subject of a fawning book written by Muggeridge.

For some reason, that reminded me of the Simon Pegg movie "How To Lose Friends and Alienate People." Where Megan Fox's character, an especially vacuous and dim-witted starlet, ends up playing Mother Teresa in a Major Hollywood Movie.

If I believed in such things, I'd be pretty sure that's making Muggeridge spin in his grave.

[awoke_in_2003]

7. Even had he seen the first 10 minutes...

he would have still probably been a dick about it. LOB is my favorite Python movie, BTW.

[AlbertCat]

8. the pompous self-righteous drivel from Muggeridge

He's like a character..... from a Monty Python skit. Hysterical!