Monty Python Pays Tribute to Terry Jones: Watch Their Montage of Jones’ Beloved Characters in Action

The actor, come­di­an, direc­tor, and medieval his­to­ri­an Ter­ry Jones passed away last week, but Mr. Cre­osote will nev­er die. Nor will any of the oth­er char­ac­ters por­trayed by Jones in his work with Mon­ty Python, the cul­ture-chang­ing com­e­dy troupe he co-found­ed with Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Gra­ham Chap­man, and Ter­ry Gilliam. You can get a sense of Jones’ range as a comedic per­former in the three-minute com­pi­la­tion above, which fea­tures a range of Jones’ char­ac­ters includ­ing the crunchy frog-deal­ing can­dy-shop own­er, the avi­a­tor-hel­met­ed Span­ish Inquisi­tor, one of the four York­shire­men, and of course, the Bish­op.

My own intro­duc­tion to Jones’ work came through the Spam wait­ress, a Mon­ty Python char­ac­ter beloved of many chil­dren not yet born when Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus, the troupe’s BBC series, first ran in the late 1960s and ear­ly 70s.

Set in a din­er where near­ly every dish involves Spam as at least one ingre­di­ent, the sketch pokes fun at the cheap tinned meat’s per­sis­tence on British tables well after the aus­ter­i­ty of the Sec­ond World War, and more sub­tly at the even deep­er and longer-last­ing per­sis­tence of the British wartime mind­set. I nat­u­ral­ly knew lit­tle of all this when first I saw the Spam sketch, and had nev­er once tast­ed Spam itself, but Jones’ com­mit­ment to his char­ac­ter — and that char­ac­ter’s blithe seri­ous­ness about the word “Spam” — got me laugh­ing.

Gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren and adults alike will con­tin­ue to enjoy the Spam wait­ress, as well as all of Jones’ oth­er char­ac­ters and their often absurd inter­ac­tions with those played by the rest of the Pythons. And the more they learn about the troupe and its work, the more they’ll appre­ci­ate Jones’ spe­cial con­tri­bu­tions to its lega­cy. After co-direct­ing Mon­ty Python and the Holy Grail with Gilliam, he sin­gle­hand­ed­ly direct­ed the next two Python fea­tures, Life of Bri­an and The Mean­ing of Life. It was in that last film that Jones man­aged to bal­ance his direc­to­r­i­al duties with those of play­ing the colos­sal­ly obese, fre­quent­ly vom­it­ing Mr. Cre­osote, whose sheer glut­tony results in his explo­sion. So yes, tech­ni­cal­ly, Mr. Cre­osote did die — but every time we watch The Mean­ing of Life he lives, and we laugh, once again.

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Ter­ry Jones (RIP) Was a Come­di­an, But Also a Medieval His­to­ri­an: Get to Know His Oth­er Side

The His­to­ry & Lega­cy of Magna Car­ta Explained in Ani­mat­ed Videos by Mon­ty Python’s Ter­ry Jones

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es: “The Philoso­phers’ Foot­ball Match,” “Philosopher’s Drink­ing Song” & More

Ter­ry Gilliam Reveals the Secrets of Mon­ty Python Ani­ma­tions: A 1974 How-To Guide

Mon­ty Python’s Eric Idle Breaks Down His Most Icon­ic Char­ac­ters

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.


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