Monty Python At 50 - Terry Gilliam Introduces Ernie Kovacs

As the title implies, this one featured a personal appearance by an actual Python. Terry Gilliam was on hand to introduce this screening and talk a little bit about how, as an American, his influences were slightly different to the other Pythons who had grown up with The Goon Show and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. 

The Screening
Shown:- A compilation of clips from various shows and a complete special

I was particularly interested in this one as I had never heard of Enrie Kovacs before - a surreal and absurd American comedian who died tragically in a car accident at the age of only 43. He’s relatively unknown in this country and what he is known for are a smattering of film roles. That obscurity isn’t helped by the fact that a lot of his material was wiped under similar circumstances to much of the pre-Python stuff - studios saving money by re-recording over videotape. It’s only through the efforts of his widow Edie Adams to buy back a lot of that material that any of his stuff really survives.

From the sketches and special that were shown, it was easy to see why Kovacs was such an influence on Gilliam. He’s got a strong visual style with lots of absurdist gags - one particular segment that was free from dialogue featured the character Eugene walking past famous statues making the noises appropriate to their poses -  a kissing statue making kissing sounds, the Thinker making humming noises; all very much the sort of thing you;d see in a Gilliam animation. There was a similarity to Spike Milligan so you can see why Gilliam connected with the other Pythons in a humour sense but the thing it made me think of most was probably The Muppet Show; that combination of humour, props/puppetry and sound/music that Jim Henson was so fond of.

It’s always difficult to know with someone else’s formative comedy influences that you yourself didn't grow up whether it’s going to be funny or not. Fortunately, this did hold up. There’s a rough and ready anarchic feel to a lot of the sketches (alongside some technically tricky stuff that must have required a lot of planning) along with an infectious joyn in the silliness of what’s being done that still carries forward today. If you can seek out some of his stuff, I’d recommend it.

The Intro
Gilliam talked a bit about how this alongside things like MAd magazine were an influence upon him as well as discovering that Kovacs spent a lot of time with the Mad magazine creators so there was definite crossover there. He cited a specific example of an Ernie Kovacs sketch which had inspired a sequence in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and which he only realised was an inspiration after the fact. Gilliam was also fortunate enough to meet Edie Adams, Kovas’ widow, at the Aspen Comedy Festival where he was attending with the other Pythons (including Graham Chapman “in urn form”). Following the intro, he joined the audience to giggle his way through the screening (and it’s a distinctive giggle!).