3. Eric and Tania have seperate bedrooms with the reasoning that Eric likes to be tidy, and Tania is more messy.
4. Eric has two dogs, a beagal named Bagel and a German Shepherd named Shadow. The beagal eats everything and the shepherd is very picky.
5. Eric doesn't really like rain and prefers sunshine.
6. A couple of Eric's closest friends are John Du Prez, Billy Conolly, Robin Williams, Eddie Izzard, and Steve Martin.
7. Eric's son, Carey, now lives in Australia.
8. Eric very much enjoys fantasy and science fiction.
9. Eric's song "The Bright Side Of Life" was re-released in 1991 as a single and was #3 on the charts.
10. Eric was good friends with former Beatle George Harrison. They even wrote a song together called "The Pirate Song."
11. Eric changed the rules of the Footlights Comedy Group back when he was president so that for the first time ever women could join.
12. Eric lived in France for a few years. It was while living there that he wrote "The Rutles".
13. Eric defeated Dana Delaney and Wayne Brady on a celebrity episode of Jeopardy in 2002.
14. He was the only member of Monty Python who wrote alone.
15. Eric believes that the most amazing place in the world that he's ever visited before is Zion National Park in southern Utah.
16. Whenever Eric is doing a female part, or a female voice, he is impersonating one of his four aunts.
17. His play, Spamalot, is the most successful play to hit Broadway since The Producers. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2005.
18. He hates Hummers.
19. Early songs that he and the other boys at his school used to listen to and play were African American songs of the black slaves, because the songs of hopelessness reminded the boys of their own lives.
20. He is currently the voice-over on all of the Aquafina commercials.
21. During the 80's, for eight years Eric lived in a little countryside shack in Provence, France, and it had no running water nor electricity.
22. Though Eric now lives in California, he still owns a house in London and a farmhouse in Provence.
23. For exercise, Eric likes to swim 20 laps every morning and walk between two to three miles a day.
24. His mother was a nurse, and his father had been part of the RAF.
25. Eric's original contract to work on Suddenly Susan was for six years.
26. Eric can do a splendid impersonation of a trumpet being played, and he has used that on his CDs to save on spending for actual musicians. One example where he has done this is with the Rutland Isles.
27. Eric does not have a middle name, and says jokingly that the reason for this was that he 'could not afford one.'
28. Eric was the original founder of the official Python website, Pythonline, and had envisioned it to become the 'Python Superhighway' with links to Python-related sites all over the web.
29. Eric proposed to Tania while performing live at the Hollywood Bowl with the rest of the Pythons.
30. Eric helped to write parts of the script of Nuns On The Run to change it from an American-based story to England.
31. Not The Messiah was the world's first comedy-based oratorio.
32. Eric, an animal lover, is a member and supporter of the Best Friends Animal Society.
33. In London in Trafalgar square, 5,567 people gathered to play "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" with coconuts, as lead by a group of performers from Spamalot. It is the current holder in the Guiness book of world records for the world's largest coconut orchestra.
34. In college, Eric studied English.
35. At one point, Eric was all set to play the time-traveling Doctor Who in a new version of the series set for the United States. However, it never came to be.
36. Eric had scripted a screenplay for a film that was to be called "The Remains Of The Piano" and had gathered a star-studded cast with actors like Geoferry Rush and Orlando Bloom, but the production company lied and never actually had the funds or plans to produce the film, so it flopped dead.
37. At one point, there was the possibility of a Rutland Isles television show.
38. Eric moved from England to California because of the nicer weather, because of the far better work oppurtunities, and because it was better for his family.
39. Eric has joked that if he ever did another tour, it would be titled "Fuck Me, I'm British."
40. Eric's most 'political' movement came from his "FCC Song" which caught the online media's eye for its vivid statements and rude lyrics.
41. In honor of Spamalot, the Hormel SPAM company has put out two different Spamalot-themed SPAM flavors - Golden Honey Grail for the States, and Stinky French Garlic for England.
42. Carrie Fisher, the actress who played Princess Leia in Star Wars, stayed in Eric's house while filming "The Empire Strikes Back" (during which Eric filmed "The Life Of Brian").
43. Nowadays, Eric prefers doing voice animation over live action filming.
44. Eric is sometimes mistaken for original Willy Wonka actor Gene Wilder.
45. One day Marcia Strassman, the actress who played Wayne Szalinski's wife in 'Honey I Shrunk The Kids' invited Eric for lunch. Through her, he learned that the actor who was originally set up to play Nigel Channing for the new Disneyland 3D motion adventure ride "Honey I Shrunk The Audience" had come down very ill. She offered the idea that he take the role instead, brought him to the set, and he signed on for the project.
This is nothing more or less than a small list of some of Eric's favorite books, foods, music, sports, etc. If you have anything to add to the list, or know of something that needs to be changed, please send me a note!I will add to this as I discover and learn more.
Favorite Monty Python Character To Play: Bruce the Philosopher
Favorite Movie Being Filmed In: The Rutles
Favorite Piece of Music: Brahms' 2nd Piano Concerto
Favorite Naughty Word: Fuck
Favorite Shop To Stare At Through Their Display Window: Victoria Secret
Favorite Song He's Written: The Galaxy Song
Favorite Sport: Soccer (Or If You're Being British About It, Football)
Favorite Time Of The Day To Write: Very Early In The Mornings
Favorite TV Program: Larry Sanders
Favorite Type of Food: Chinese and Seafood
Favorite Type of Music: Classical
Favorite Books:
2002
When The Women Come Out To Dance
(By Elmore Leonard)
Power And Greed: A Short History of the World
(By Philippe Gigantes)
The Book of Illusions
(By Paul Auster)
Paris to the Moon
(By Adam Gopnik)
Farewell My Lovely
(By Raymond Chandler)
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill- Visions of Glory, 1874-1932
(By William Manchester)
Gardener To The King
(By Frederick Richaud)
Platform
(By Michelle Houellebecq)
Any Human Heart
(By William Boyd)
The Reader
(By Bernhard Schlink)
The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars
(By Stephen O'Shea)
A Way of Life, Like Any Other
(Darcy O'Brien)
The Long Firm
(By Jake Arnott)
He Kills Coppers
(By Jake Arnott)
Testaments Betrayed
(By Milan Kundera)
2000
The Cry of The Owl
(By Patricia Highsmith)
The Talented Mr. Ripley
(By Patricia Highsmith)
Ripley Under Ground
(By Patricia Highsmith)
Ripley's Game
(By Patricia Highsmith)
The Boy Who Followed Ripley
(By Patricia Highsmith)
Ripley Under Water
(By Patricia Highsmith)
The Mordecai Trilogy
(By Kyril Bonfiglioli)
Those Who Walk Away
(By Patricia Highsmith)
Mistress Anne
(By Carolly Erickson)
The Two Faces of January
(By Patricia Highsmith)
The Princes in the Tower
(By Alison Weir)
The Tremor of Forgery
(By Patricia Highsmith)
The House of Medici
(By Christopher Hibbert)
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
(By Alison Weir)
Sweet Smell of Success
(By Ernest Lehman)
The Godfather
(By Mario Puzo)
The Sicilian
(By Mario Puzo)
George the 3rd
(By Christopher Hibbert)
The Children of Henry VIIIth
(By Alison Weir)
The Life of Elizabeth the 1st
(By Alison Weir)
That Great Lucifer
(By Margaret Irwin)
The Great Mordecai Mystery
(By Kyril Bonfiglioli)
Napoleon The 3rd
(By Felton Bresler)
Cowboys are my Weakness
(By Pam Houston)
1996
Napoleon and Josephine
(By Evangeline Bruce)
Putting On The Ritz
(By Joe Keenan)
What Am I Doing Here?
(By Bruce Chatwin)
Coming Through Slaughter
(By Michael Ondaatje)
Cross Channel
(By Julian Barnes)
My Other Life
(By Paul Theroux)
"As long as there are innocent nickels to be made from the gullible, Python-starved public, I shall be out there dressed in silly frocks and singing filthy lyrics. I'm coming your way in search of ancient dollars."
"Bear in mind the simple rule, X squared to the power of two minus five over the seven point eight three times nineteen is approximately equal to the cube root of MCC squared divided by X minus a quarter of a third percent. Keep that in mind, and you can't go very far wrong."
"The Minister of Transport issued this appeal to motorists: Can anyone give him a lift to Leicester?"
"I'm very much against the news: 'Here's ten more things to upset you. Film at 11.'"
"If you really want to attract attention, release a comedy CD just as America goes to war. I won't say my CD did badly, but weapons of mass destruction were easier to find..."
"Incidentally, did you know that the first draft of the Canadian national anthem "Oh Canada" was originally "Oh Sorry"?"
"Gilliam stayed home and did his own thing since we soon got tired of listening to him trying to explain in words what he was doing."
"No day of my life passes without someone saying the words 'Monty Python' to me. It's not bad. People stop me on the street and say, "Hello, Mike." They congratulate me on the Travel show and they say how much they enjoyed A Fish Called Wanda. And whenever I'm mistaken for Michael Palin, I always say, "Yes, I am him. Now fuck off you ugly old bastard!" because I want to help destroy his reputation for niceness."
"My name is Eric Idle. If you think you're here to see Billy Idol, you can fuck off now."
"Sadly, this is still the Bush era. If you're going to try to impose democracy on somewhere weird, filled with lots of foreigners, why not start with Florida?"
"I am the nicest of the six old Monty Python boys. Well, Mike is probably the nicest, but I'm certainly the second nicest. Actually, Terry Jones is pretty nice come to think of it, but I am definitely the third nicest. You know, Terry Gilliam can be very nice, especially at parties. Perhaps too nice at parties. So I'm the... Graham Chapman was a very nice man and even John Cleese is a lot nicer than he used to be. So I guess I am the sixth nicest of the old Pythn group. ....What's so fucking great about being nice, anyway?"
"I sometimes wonder why my songs are so filthy, and then I look at you lot."
"I love the fact that 'SPAM' has come to mean unwanted garbage on the Internet. Every day I receive four or five offers to add three or four inches to my penis- all of which I accept. So now I have a nine-foot penis."
"I'm a happily married man- if that's not an oxymoron. My favorite sexual position is the Male Marital Position: flat on your back with your wallet wide open."
"When I was born in England in World War Two, Adolf Hitler was trying to kill me. I don't think it was personal."
"I'm just trying to earn enough to get my daughter through college and my wife through collagen."
"O Death, O Death, thou art so unfair! To take away Sonny, and still leave us Cher!"
"I like the French. Someone should be doing the job of the Democrats."
"I'm a limey bastard as you can tell. I'm married to an American. I like to think I've been invading America for almost thirty years. In fact, I've trained my wife to yell out, 'The British are coming, the British are coming!'."
"All religions seem to dislike breasts, but it's just the opposite with me."
"When my first marriage broke up, I went off to Australia. It's where English people go to have emotions. It's summer in the winter and there are beautiful half-naked sheilas on the beaches. George Harrison said to me, 'You're going to Australia?' 'Yes.' 'That's pretty heavy,' he said. 'I'm going to give you something.' So I'm on my way to the airport and a beautiful package arrives with a peacock feather- and it says, 'Not to be opened until over India.' Wow! So ten hours into the flight, I look down and there's this huge brown land mass and I think, right, it's time. So I take down the package and I'm thinking this is great: the meaning of life from the spiritual Beatle- and I open it up and pull out a little card and there, in George's handwriting, it says, 'Shag a sheila for me!'"
"People are always asking if there is going to be anything new from Monty Python- and the answer is no. We have discovered that the less we do, the more you pay."
"Recently, I met a lady who discovered the G-spot. She said she'd show me how to find it. She curled my fingers into an ), inserted two fingers into the first, and from inside pushed real hard on the fleshy part of my palm. 'That,' she said, 'is the G-spot.' And I was surprised, because I'd always thought it was in the vagina. So be very careful, ladies, the next time you shake hands with me."
"I think it's interesting that women never went to the moon. I think it's because the moon controls their periods, and if they were on the moon, they'd have a period all the time."
"I live in California. I have a stretch Prius. I send all my garbage to Ed Begley. And now we have the Governator: the man who popularized the sport of waitress lifting."
"By the way, I know Victoria's secret: she's a slut."
"I'm an Alzheimer's agnostic. I can't remember whether I don't believe in anything or not."
"You know you've been on the road for far too long when you find yourself gazing into the window of Victoria's Secre for far too long."
"At seven I was sent to a bleak English boarding school in Wolverhampton. That's not quite the end of the world, but you can see it from there. I was there for twelve years. You get less for murder."
"I'm very much in favor of gay marriage. I think it's about time they suffer, too."
"I liked your President Clinton's attempt to introduce a slightly gayer army. I like the idea of a much better dressed army that marches to Barbara Streisand records. An Armani army. You could have Queer Eye for the Straight GI."
"My wife came to visit me here in San Francisco. I had to run out to Victoria's Secret and buy lots of sexy lingerie: a thong, a black Teddy, and some long black stockings. ....It's amazing what I have to put on these days to attract her..."
"When I check into a hotel, I always go under the name Mick Jagger. I find I get a better class of wrong number."
"If you have enjoyed us half as much as we have, then we have enjoyed ourselves twice as much as you!"
"Once when filming, a British middle-class lady came up and said, 'Oh, Monty Python; I absolutely hate you lot.' And we felt quite proud and happy."
"The Python veto, which exists, is largely for business purposes, to prevent a majority vote going against individual rights, and it operates like the UN (with about the same results)."
"We were always getting on to Michael for talking too much."
"I love being shown new technology and fucking about with it. When we got into TV, nobody had mined it for silliness, so we were given the toys and allowed to play. That's what I find exciting about the Web; we're just playing with the toys. And there are no executives, which I really find refreshing."
"When you make an audience laugh thay love you, they really do love you, and thats one of the nicest things about being a comedian. When you make people laugh, usualy you've touched them at a time when they need some kind of reassurance or they wanted something or they were feeling depressed and then you made them feel better. So there is a sort of healing thing in it."
"If the studios payed the artists, how would they ever be able to afford the executives?"
"John Cleese once told me he'd do anything for money. So I offered him a pound to shut up, and he took it."
(On gay marriages) "It's about time they suffered too."
(On favourite sexual position) "Flat on my back with my wallet open."
"I remember we toured Canada in 1973, in Winnipeg, and when the curtain went up, the whole of the front row was dressed as a caterpillar."
"With our low ticket prices I figured out that you will actually save money if you spend 90 minutes in SPAMALOT. And if you sleep during the show you can save on a room."
