Monty Python: Just the Words: Vol 1 (Just the Words)

This volume includes scripts from the whole of the first series and most of the second and includes some of Python's most famous moments, not just the aforementioned parrot and the Inquisition, but the Pirhana brothers, the Lumberjack Song, the Minehead bye- election ("not much fun in Stalingrad, no"), the Ministry of Silly Walks, and a delicious range of others. Part a joyous prompt to memory, partly a wholly new experience, finishing this volume has you reaching automatically for Monty Python's Flying Circus: Jus tThe Words, Vol 2. --Adam Roberts

Reader Reviews:

It's (0/0 people found this helpful)

I've seen "Monty Python's Flying Circus" so many times that I can recite long stretches of it by memory. But due to all those weird accents and manic deliveries ("GREET! GREET!"), sometimes not everything they say is totally coherent.

Fortunately for those times, Python fans have "The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words," a series of transcripts of every sketch they did. They're lacking in detail at times, but still enormous fun and full of delightfully quotable lines ("It's probably pining for the fjords!").

Basically, ther first volume contains the first half the series, starting with the Mozart show and ending with "Long John Silver Impersonators Vs. Gynecologists. Among the classic comedy sketches: the Spanmish Inquisition, the Ministry of Silly Walks, the lethal joke used against the Germans, semprini, the Lumberjack song, the Attila the Hun show, how to defend yourself from fresh fruit, camel-spotting, Secret Service dentists, and the invasion of tennis-playing blamcmanges from the galaxy of Andromeda.

The dialogue to each one is laid out carefully, with each character identified (like "Interviewer (JOHN)"). Most of these episodes are one long continuing sketch -- ots of sketches that spill over into each other, with bare-bones descriptions of Terry Gilliam's bizarre animations. And, of course, the opening sequences, often with the "It's" man.

These guys had a rare and hysterical writing talent -- it's full of crazy glorious dialogue ("The black death, typhus, cholera, consumption, bubonic plague..." "Ah, those were the days"). Not much description of the action in places, though, especially where there is lots of action. But when necessary, they describe everything down to clothing and tear-shedding.

The problem is that this should only be read after you've seen the series, because otherwise it becomes a bewildering blur of stream-of-consciousness comedy numbers. You have a better chance of finding Ilchester in a cheese shop than of unerstainding what the heck is going on.

The first volume of "The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words" is a hilarious companion book to the legendary TV series, and an excellent refresher for all those great lines. Now, alduce me to introlow myslef!

Script - Transcript - Small mammal? (0/0 people found this helpful)

The argument of if this is a script or transcript in my opinion is totaly irrelivent!! I love monty python, and this book has the dialouge from the shows. I personaly find this an interesting read. True, they dont offer any insights into the writers thought processes, but it does say on the front cover "JUST THE WORDS"!

And now for something completley different.

Excelent source of comedic writing at it's finest (1/1 people found this helpful)

Contrary to what others have said this is not a transcript of the show. These are scripts, or at least they would appear to be so as they are not word-for-word the same as the lines spoken in the show.

These scripts will allow you to replay, in your head, all those great moments of Python. In fact, if you so wished, you could even use them to perform exerpts from the shows, although for the purposes of accuracy you would probably be better off watching the episodes again.

NOT script, but TRANSCRIPT! (2/12 people found this helpful)

As a devout fan of Monty Python, I am disappointed with this publication, as it is not what professional comedy writers (or, indeed, any writer) would properly call a collection of "scripts." It is a collection of transcripts, admittedly collated with great care and precision. For example, every single "um" and "er" is precisely replicated, as I have read along whilst viewing the DVD version of the episode. No script anticipates such actor compliance with a text! Additionally, I find it preposterous to believe that the scripts for the comedy sketches have been written with such foresight to Terry Gilliam's intersections of comic illustration and cartoons.

In summary, I applaude whoever had the tenacity to meticulously capture every last syllable of spoken text, but nonetheless, this is NOT a collection of scripts. It is a transcript of the series as could have been captured by anyone with enough patience to have done so.

This is by no means a book to be purchased by any aspiring comedy writer seeking insight to Monty Python. It is, sadly, one more milking of the ouvre of a great comedy show that deserves more respect than the publishers have given it!

NOT script, but TRANSCRIPT! (5/19 people found this helpful)

Monty Python: Just the Words: Vol 1 (Just the Words)

Graham Chapman

Editorial Review: