By Michael Keating
Eric Idle, the man behind many of the naughtiest "naughty bits" from the original "Monty Python’s Flying Circus" television series in the late-1960s and early ’70s, is on the line for a telephone interview, calling from Toronto where his "Greedy Bastard Tour - Another Stupid Evening ..." performed to a sold-out crowd the previous night.
It’s Wednesday morning and the worldwide media is abuzz with the news that actor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been elected governor of California. Idle, a Brit by birth, lives in California with his wife, Tania Kosevich, and 13-year-old daughter Lily.
"The thing that fascinates me about American politics is how media-driven the whole (election) is," says Idle. "If a person is famous they get elected and democracy is subverted."
Serious talk from a Python. But then again, in America politics does make for good comedy - just look at the recent example of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft covering up the breasts of a statue at the Justice Department with drapes because he was offended, or perhaps a wee bit distracted.
"Ahh, yes," says Idle, "It’s the naughty bits again. You can’t get away from them."
Idle is a man of many faces who Python fans will remember looks quite dandy in a dress. He’s on the road again with a rag-tag band of friends and musicians supporting his latest comedic effort, a comedy compact disc titled "The Rutland Isles." The tour kicked off Oct. 2 in Rutland, Vt., (quite fitting) and rolls into Merrill Auditorium in Portland, Maine, on Tuesday, Oct. 14. Accompanying Idle on stage will be John Du Prez, Nigel Spasm, the Bruces, Sir Dirk McQuickly of "The Rutles," Peter Crabbe, Jennifer Julian and some mystery guests.
"It’s a lot more fun to do Monty Python than to talk about it," Idle says matter-of-factly as I pepper him with questions about the early work of the ground-breaking comedy troupe that included John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman and Terry Jones. He’s not too interested in discussing the comedic aspects of a can of Spam, the bunny with the big, nasty teeth bit from the 1975 movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," or the difference in air speed velocity between an African and a European swallow.
"There’s a new Python autobiography coming out this month, a big beautiful book that costs $60," says Idle. "I’m sure your higher-ups will let you expense it. There’s definitely $60 worth of research in there for you. Remember, you’re talking to the ‘Greedy Bastard.’"
Fear not Python fans. Following up on the 2000 tour, "Eric Idle Exploits Monty Python," the current show is sure to please. There will be plenty of gags and songs to sing-a-long with, including "The Spam Song," and "The Lumberjack Song."
"I love ‘The Spam Song,’ and I think it’s wonderful that Spam has come to mean garbage on the Internet," says Idle. "Right now we’re trying to find the balance. We’ve done three shows on this tour so far and last night on the bus we were talking and decided that the audiences definitely prefer the old stuff to the new stuff off the ‘Rutland Isles’ CD. Nudge-nudge, say no more, and all. It’s kind of like a rock ‘n’ roll tour. They want the greatest hits."
"The Rutland Isles," is a follow-up on the theme of "The Rutles," the fictitious British fab act Idle created that was "bigger than the Beatles." He jokes that it’s easier to find weapons of mass destruction than to find his new CD at a record store. "The Rutles" was followed by such Idle projects as "All You Need is Cash," and his latest "Can’t Buy Me Lunch" - a faux rockumentary in which Idle interviews famous celebrities about the impact of "The Rutles" on their lives and world history. Interviews include author Salman Rushdie and musicians such as James Taylor, Jewel and Graham Nash.
"I thought to myself, ‘This will be able to sell," says Idle. "No, no. ... Not at all. But we dragged it out for ( a recent Hollywood film festival) and it got a great response. Then they took it back and put it in a vault at Warner (Bros.). It will probably be one of the few things that survives the nuclear holocaust. Then the aliens will find it and believe it all."
Over the years, the impact of Python on the world of comedy has often been compared to that of the Beatles on pop music. It’s a comparison Idle agrees with.
"For the first time, people of that generation were allowed to make the kind of TV show that people wanted to see," says Idle. "And I think that’s what the Beatles got to do too. There was nobody telling us what to do, what not to do. The Beatles put their act together in Hamburg while we, as a group of writers and performers, had our antecedents on shows like "The Goon Show," "Beyond the Fringe," "Do Not Adjust Your TV Set" and others. These shows all leaned toward what was the most bizarre. The big difference for us was that all the writers performed."
So what does Idle think of American television comedy today, shows such as "Friends"?
"My daughter watches it, so I watch it with her because she enjoys it," he says. "But the thing with sitcoms is that they’re the same every week. I prefer something like "Curb Your Enthusiasm. ... It’s an odd hybrid, the sitcom. It tends to be rather more safe. It tends to be more sit than com. It’s polite and meant to keep you watching between commercials."
Part of the fun in watching early Monty Python when it began running on PBS in the States in the early ’70s was that there was nothing else like it on TV here at the time, unless you count Benny Hill, another British import. A variety show of sorts with a few running gags and segments, as well as oddly inventive animation, the bulk of each show was highly original, and to American audiences - completely different.
Milton Berle may have created the female impersonator genre on American television in the 1950s, but Python perfected it. I asked Idle the loaded question of whether he thought men were naturally funnier than women?
"Women have taken tremendous strides, but they just don’t have the jester’s flapping penis," says Idle. "We could get into a long treatise on why men are driven to this. Good female comedians are fabulous, but there are many who can also be tortuous - because they want to be liked. You can’t be beautiful, attractive and funny. The comedians I like best are the ones who are not trying to make people like them. ... That’s why I liked John Cleese so much when I met him at Cambridge. He just didn’t care."
Idle may also put himself out there as a just don’t care "Greedy Bastard," but don’t mistake the bit for the real thing. Unlike traditional concert performances in which the band or acts trot off stage only to return for an encore after the appropriate amount of clapping and foot-stamping, this "Greedy Bastard" is demanding payment in the form of "The Encore Bucket." People will toss in a few bucks, a few coins, a rubber chicken, an albatross perhaps.
"Last night they put some two-for coupons in the till," Idle says of the Canadians at the Toronto gig.
So what will the "Greedy Bastard" do with the extra cash?
"We’ll save it up and give it to charity at the end of the tour," he says.
Nudge, nudge, say no more.
