Michael Palin reunites with his Monty Python co-stars John Cleese and Terry Gilliam to celebrate his 81st birthday
Michael Palin reunited with his friends and Monty Python co-stars John Cleese and Terry Gilliam as he celebrated his 81st birthday on Thursday.
The comedy legend joined his old friends John (84) and Terry (83). The trio are all part of the iconic comedy group that formed in 1969 – starring Graham Chapman, Eric Idle and Terry Jones.
The three friends seemed to be having the time of their lives, laughing and giggling as they celebrated their friend’s special day.
John shared a photo from their lunch, where he and Terry showed off bright smiles.
Meanwhile, the birthday boy looked up at the moon while holding a dessert plate with chocolate icing that read: “Happy Birthday.”
Michael Palin reunited with his friends and Monty Python co-stars John Cleese and Terry Gilliam as he celebrated his 81st birthday on Thursday
The comedy legend joined his old friends John (84) and Terry (83). The trio are all part of the iconic comedy troupe formed in 1969 – starring Graham Chapman, Eric Idle and Terry Jones (pictured in 2015, L-R Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle, John Oliver and Terry Jones)
John captioned the photo: ‘A 21ft Python celebrates Pallin’s 181st birthday and 195th travel book. Photo taken in cafe at the top of Kilimanjaro
John captioned the photo: ‘A 21ft Python celebrates Pallin’s 181st birthday and 195th travel book. Photo taken in a cafe at the top of Kilimanjaro.’
Longtime fans of the British comedy group were excited about the trio’s reunion.
“My dad introduced me to Monty Python as a kid in the 1970s and said I’m going to love you guys because you have ‘silly humor,’ and I was already in the Carry-On Gang. Daddy’s gone now, but I still look at you every chance I can get. Lots of love and respect’;
‘The 2000th book and the TV series will be just as good! Legends. Absolute legends. We are honored to have been entertained by ‘you’ for the past 50 years!’; ‘You stupid gentlemen…you are responsible for a lot of laughter and giggles in my life. Happy Birthday Michael’;
‘Looking good Michael’; ‘Beautiful gentlemen’; ‘Congratulations, Michael!’;
John recently claimed that ‘literal-minded’ people have ruined comedy by not understanding ‘metaphor, irony and exaggeration’ and missing the point.
Ahead of the launch of his stage adaptation of the classic British comedy Fawlty Towers, he revealed the difficulties he had getting the script off the ground, with concerns over how some of the language would be received by viewers.
John explained that some of the original dialogue used in the two-hour play, which merges three popular episodes into an overarching storyline, has been edited to remove “racial slurs” due to changing perceptions in society.
The comedy group also included Graham Chapman, Eric Idle and Terry Jones (pictured together in 1976 in New York)
Longtime fans of the British comedy group were excited about the trio’s reunion
“I think there was a scene where Major (Gowen) used some words that you can’t use now, racial slurs that they would fall under, so we took that out,” he told reporters last week.
“You see, there’s always a problem with comedy, that you’re dealing with literal people.”
The play is based on episodes from the two series of the sitcom, entitled The Hotel Inspector, Communication Problems and The Germans, which originally included a scene in which the character Major Gowen uses offensive language about the West Indies cricket team.
In 2020, the episode was briefly removed from BBC Studios-owned UKTV’s streaming service due to its “racial slurs” before later being reinstated with additional guidance and warnings highlighting “potentially offensive content and language.”
John said of the challenges of writing comedy, “Any time you make comedy, you’re dealing with the literal mind, and the literal mind doesn’t understand the irony.
“And that means that if you take them seriously, you lose a lot of the comedy, because the literal people don’t understand the metaphors, they don’t understand the irony, and they don’t understand the comedic exaggeration.
“The result is that if you listen to them, these are people who, as far as understanding what other people are saying and doing, are not playing with a full deck of cards.”
John recently claimed that ‘literal-minded’ people have ruined comedy by not understanding ‘metaphor, irony and exaggeration’ and missing the point