"Look, do you or do you not wish to join The Worshipful Order of The Pencil?"
"No!"
"Oh, alright then… But you have seen our most sacred shrine, and must therefore have both eyes gouged out with an orange pencil, your lead removed, and a giant propelling pencil inserted right up-"
"Sorry, sorry, did I say 'no'? I meant…

Yeah, McGivern was Prefect in the radio version.

"Mrs Miggins, there's nothing intellectual in poncing about Italy in a big shirt trying to get laid."

Erogenous ZOOOONE!

…No, didn't get a word of it.

A thing about the "Michael Ellis" episode people often miss: The point of the "It is now Chris Quinn week" joke is supposed to be that Idle's character is actually called Chris Quinn. Except that he's never referred to by that name out loud in the episode, so the joke only works if you've read the script.

"Even through the tiger is in a cage, and even though the animal looks pretty low-key and relaxed about its situation, its still a living beast, and a living beast that isn’t completely under the control of the Pythons."
Oh Christ, there's a wasp in here! STOP IT BEFORE IT GETS ON THE TIGER!

After it ended, Rees did some writing for Huffington Post and his own blog, and started an artisanal pencil-sharpening service—a flight of fancy that speaks pretty sharply to his personality.


"Insufferable Twat"?

I've always liked Mollie the Prostitute getting a crush on Baldrick.
"Aren't you going to introduce me, then?"
"…Well all right, but I think you're making a mistake."
—-
"My goodness me, you're a one, aren't you? When you should be whispering sweet conversational nothings like 'Goodness me, something twice the size of the…

Bloody explorers, ponce off to Mumbo Jumbo land, come home with a tropical
disease, a suntan and a bag of brown lumpy things, and Bob's your uncle,
everyone's got a picture of them in the lavatory.

"Oh, honestly, it's absolutely pointless trying to do this if you're going to
cheat…"

This became known as the Waste of Time Theory, and was abandoned in 1956.

"Cleese or Palin could’ve done the same bit and it would been okay, but Idle is the One Who Talks Too Much."
I believe it was Cleese who said that the way to tell who wrote what in Python was that anything with angry shouting or long lists of things was him and Chapman, anything that got so involved with words it…

I was very amused by a phone-filmed clip someone uploaded to youtube (that I managed to catch before it was taken down) of Cleese and Palin doing a version of Dead Parrot that suddenly changed direction halfway through…

Those who enjoy Idle's Philip Jenkinson impersonation should know he breaks it out again in Rutland Weekend Television.

I believe it was Roger Wilmut who observed that Mr Pither is basically a kind of super-intelligent gumby, which makes him a very very stupid human being.

Also, remember you won't be able to fill up your car with 'gasoline' - We call it 'diesel'.

I love how Jones character is so into his dramatic anecdote that he carries on even after they've dismantled the set and everyone else stops acting to discuss where they're filming The Horse of the Year Show ("I'm not having that Harvey Smith jumping over MY binette.")

Another thing that makes that sketch work: Idle's character seems genuinely upset he's not going to prison.

As this is the appropriate episode, I must mention my Python claim-to-fame-by-proxy: My step-father is one of the extras playing German guards in The Trim-Jeans Theatre version of The Great Escape.