Michael Palin

British actor Michael Palin on how Monty Python came to be.

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In the long-ago fall of 1969, something completely different in television began happening in the UK. It was called Monty Python’s Flying Circus — a free-form, satirical, anarchic circus of humor that had Britons staring dumbfounded, then laughing ’til they cried.

Monty Python made the leap to America, and then onto the big screen, with “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” and more. John Cleese was there, and Eric Idle — and Michael Palin, who’s now out with a new diary of those years.

This hour Point: Monty Python’s Michael Palin, and the Monty Python years.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Michael Palin, actor and writer. His diaries from 1969 to 1979, chronicling the years of Monty Python, have just been published.