Pushin’ Too Hard, originally titled You’re Pushing Too Hard, is a song by American rock group The Seeds, written by vocalist Sky Saxon and produced by Saxon with Marcus Tybalt. It was released as a single in 1965, re-issued the following year, and peaked at number 36 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1967, and number 44 in Canada in March.
The song became the signature tune for the group and a template for their musical style – so much so that Creem magazine later wrote, not disapprovingly, that “the Seeds, of course, managed to work Pushin’ Too Hard into every song they ever did.” It was included on the influential Nuggets compilation in the 1970s, and earned a reputation as a protopunk garage rock classic. The song is featured in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s exhibit showcasing “The 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll”. The Seeds performed Pushin’ Too Hard during a 1968 episode of the television sitcom The Mothers-in-Law. Saxon revisited the song on his 2008 solo album The King of Garage Rock.
Sky Saxon wrote Pushin’ Too Hard while sitting in the front seat of a car waiting for his girlfriend to finish grocery shopping at a supermarket. The lyrics can be interpreted as the protagonist warning his girlfriend against controlling him or as a rant against society as a whole. The song contains two chords which alternate throughout, as well as instrumental breaks featuring an electric piano solo—played by Daryl Hooper—and a guitar solo played by Jan Savage.
The Seeds released You’re Pushing Too Hard as a single in November 1965. Though the song did not chart initially, a Los Angeles disc jockey began playing it extensively following the release of the band’s self-titled debut album in April 1966. With the title having been changed to Pushin’ Too Hard, a new single was issued in November and the song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart a month later. It peaked at number 36 in February and spent 11 weeks on the chart.
Some radio stations banned the song, believing that the title dealt with being a pusher of illegal drugs. WLS apparently disagreed, because the record reached number one in its tenth week on the playlist of the Silver Dollar Survey on 17 February 1967, and so did rival station WCFL, where the record reached number two on the Sound Ten Survey on February 9, 1967.
Joy Ride (known as Road Kill in the United Kingdom) is a 2001 American horror thriller film directed by John Dahl and written by J. J. Abrams and Clay Tarver. Paul Walker stars as Lewis Thomas, a college freshman embarking on a cross-country road trip during summer break to pick up his childhood crush Venna (Leelee Sobieski). Along for the ride is Lewis’ brother Fuller (Steve Zahn), a practical joker who uses the car’s CB radio to play a cruel prank on a trucker known only by the handle Rusty Nail. The victim of Fuller’s gag, a psychotic murderer, pursues them relentlessly to get revenge at any cost. The film was released on October 5, 2001, and received generally positive reviews from critics.
On the DVD release, there is a 29-minute-long alternate ending, and four other shorter alternate endings. The main one featured Rusty Nail’s shotgun suicide and numerous bodies are found by the police in his trailer. One featured Rusty Nail being arrested, another being beaten in a fight with both Thomas brothers, another wherein he is blown up in his truck, and another saw Rusty Nail run over with his own truck. The ending featured in the actual theatrical cut of the film is the only ending in which Rusty Nail lives. There are also numerous deleted scenes.
In the alternate ending where Rusty Nail’s truck explodes, you can see a water tower behind the truck as it burns. The original intention was to have the truck hit the water tower and have the water come down and put the flames out so that it would be believable if Rusty Nail survived. However, time constraints kept the scene from being filmed. The water tower cost over $100,000.
Sobieski filmed two romantic interludes, one with Zahn and one with Walker during the shooting and re-shooting of the film. Both scenes ended up getting cut. This may explain why Venna appears to be romantically interested in both of them.
Joy Ride opened theatrically on October 5, 2001, in 2,497 venues and earned $7.3 million in its opening weekend, ranking number five in the U.S. box office. By the end of its run, the film grossed $22 million in the U.S. and $14.7 million overseas for a worldwide total of $36.6 million.
The film was followed by two direct to video sequels, Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead (2008) and Joy Ride 3: Roadkill (2014).
Don’t Kill the Magic is the debut studio album by Canadian reggae fusion band Magic! It was released on June 30, 2014 through Latium Entertainment and RCA Records. The production on the album was primarily handled by Adam Messinger along with the other members of the band. Don’t Kill the Magic debuted at #6 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 36,000 copies in its first week. This became the group’s first U.S. top ten debut on the chart. As of July 2016, the album has sold 156,000 copies in the United States. In their home country of Canada, the album debuted at #5 on the Canadian Albums Chart.
Don’t Kill the Magic spawned four singles. The lead single, Rude was originally released as promotional single on October 11, 2013. It was eventually re-released as the lead single from the album on February 24, 2014. The single peaked at #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, becoming MAGIC!’s most successful single in the U.S. to date. Rude was an international commercial success amidst mixed reception from music critics. The song peaked at #6 on the Canadian Hot 100 and internationally topped the charts in the United Kingdom and peaked within the top ten of the charts in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden. Rude was the ninth best-selling song of 2014, with global sales of 8.6 million units, and won the Juno Award for Single of the Year.
Don’t Kill the Magic was released as the second (international) single from the album. Released on April 4, 2014 as the album’s second single in select territories including New Zealand and Australia, it was not released in the United States due to Rude enjoying prolonged popularity and continuing to rise on the charts there. It peaked at #22 in Canada and #53 in Australia.
Let Your Hair Down was released as the third (second, in the U.S.) single from the album. On October 7, 2014 the song was issued to contemporary hit radio by RCA Records and peaked at #20 in Canada and #35 on the American Adult Top 40 chart.
No Way No was released as the fourth (third, in the U.S.) single from the album.
Professor Wacko’s Exothermic Exuberance (Wild Goose Company, 1990s)
This is another chemistry set that was designed to inspire kids to get into science. It was intended to teach children about heat and fire which are generated through chemical reactions. The toy included two bottles of potassium permanganate and glycerine. These bottles were too identical that it was easy for anyone to accidentally switch the bottle caps – that could result in unexpected fires.
This toy caused several incidents, including two house fires. The kit also didn’t have enough warnings and directions for safe use. That said, the Wild Goose Company voluntarily recalled about 5,100 Exothermic Exuberance chemistry kits in 1994.
Although the ketogenic diet has been called a “fad” diet, there is no denying it can be very effective for losing weight.
It works by lowering levels of insulin and shifting your primary fuel source from sugar to ketones. These compounds are made from fatty acids, and your brain and other organs can burn them for energy.
When your body doesn’t have carbs to burn and switches to ketones, you’re in a state called ketosis.
However, unlike the Atkins and other low-carb diets, ketogenic diets don’t gradually increase their carbs. Instead, they keep carb intake very low to ensure followers stay in ketosis.
Indeed, ketogenic diets typically provide less than 50 grams of total carbs per day, and often less than 30.
A large analysis of 13 studies found that ketogenic diets not only boost the loss of weight and body fat, but may also reduce inflammatory markers and disease risk factors in those who are overweight or obese.
In a controlled two-year study of 45 obese adults, those in the ketogenic group dropped 27.5 pounds (12.5 kg), and lost 29 inches (11.4 cm) from their waists, on average.
This was significantly more than the low-fat group, even though both groups were calorie-restricted.
Moreover, even when calories aren’t intentionally restricted, ketogenic diets tend to reduce calorie intake. A recent review of several studies has suggested that this may be because ketones help suppress appetite.
Rudolph Valentino Render (July 1, 1926 – September 11, 2014) was an American singer, musician, arranger and songwriter, best known for his 1949 R&B chart hit, Sneakin’ Around and his work as musical director for Debbie Reynolds.
He was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and studied piano in college. While at Indiana State University in May 1946 Rudy became a charter member of the Chi Sigma chapter of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. He began playing in clubs in Terre Haute, and was seen there by writer Bill Hays, the son of politician Will H. Hays, deviser of the Hays Code. At Bill Hays’ suggestion, Render moved to Hollywood, California after completing his degree studies, and through agent Berle Adams was immediately offered the chance to record Jessie Mae Robinson’s song Sneakin’ Around for London Records. The song rose to #2 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1949. However, shortly afterwards Render was called up for military service, cutting short his recording career.
After leaving the U.S. Army, he had a small cameo role in the 1953 Joan Crawford film Torch Song, before completing his education to earn a master’s degree at Indiana State Teachers College. He recorded unsuccessfully for small record labels, and in 1959 co-wrote with Charles Lederer the title music for the film It Started with a Kiss, starring Debbie Reynolds, whose brother was a friend. He became Debbie Reynolds’ musical director, working with her on stage shows and the 1964 film The Unsinkable Molly Brown, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award.
He left the music business in 1972, and worked as an elementary school teacher in the North Hollywood area until he retired in 2001. He died in 2014, aged 88.
Davy Jones (December 30, 1945 – February 29, 2012)
David Thomas Jones (December 30, 1945 – February 29, 2012) was an English musician, singer, actor and businessman. Jones is best known as a member of the band the Monkees and a co-star of the TV series The Monkees (1966–1968). He was considered a teen idol.
Aside from his work on The Monkees TV show, Jones’ acting credits include a Tony-nominated performance as the Artful Dodger in the original London and Broadway productions of Oliver! and a guest-starring role in a hallmark episode of The Brady Bunch television show and a later reprised parody film.
David Thomas Jones was born in Manchester, England to Harry and Doris Jones. He had three sisters: Hazel, Lynda, and Beryl. Jones’ mother died from emphysema when he was 14 years of age.
Jones’ television acting debut was on the British television soap opera Coronation Street, in which he appeared as Colin Lomax, grandson of the regular character Ena Sharples, for one episode in March 1961. He also appeared in the BBC police series Z-Cars. Following the death of his mother, Jones rejected acting in favour of a career as a jockey, commencing an apprenticeship with Newmarket trainer Basil Foster. He dropped out of secondary school to begin his career in that field. This career was short-lived, however. Even though Foster believed Jones would be successful as a jockey, he encouraged his young protégé to take a role as the Artful Dodger in a production of Oliver! in London’s West End. Foster was approached by a friend who worked in a theatre in the West End of London during casting. Foster replied, “I’ve got the kid.” Jones’ portrayal of the Artful Dodger brought him great acclaim. He played the role in London and then on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony Award.
On February 9, 1964, Jones appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show with Georgia Brown, who was playing Nancy in the Broadway production of Oliver! This was the same episode of the show in which the Beatles made their first appearance on U.S. television. Jones said of that night, “I watched the Beatles from the side of the stage, I saw the girls going crazy, and I said to myself, this is it, I want a piece of that.”
Following his Ed Sullivan appearance, Jones signed a contract with Ward Sylvester of Screen Gems (then the television division of Columbia Pictures). A pair of U.S. television appearances followed, as Jones received screen time in episodes of Ben Casey and The Farmer’s Daughter.
Jones debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week of 14 August 1965, with the single What Are We Going To Do? The 19-year-old singer was signed to Colpix Records, a label owned by Columbia. His debut album, David Jones, on the same label, followed soon after.
From 1966 to 1970, Jones was a member of The Monkees, a pop-rock band formed expressly for a television show of the same name. With Screen Gems producing the series, Jones was shortlisted for auditions, as he was the only Monkee who was signed to a deal with the studio, but still had to meet producers Bob Rafelson’s and Bert Schneider’s standards. Jones sang lead vocals on many of the Monkees’ recordings, including I Wanna Be Free and Daydream Believer. The DVD release of the first season of the show contained commentary from the various bandmates. In Peter Tork’s commentary, he stated that Jones was a good drummer and had the live performance lineups been based solely on playing ability, it should have been Tork on guitar, Mike Nesmith on bass, and Jones on drums, with Micky Dolenz taking the fronting role, rather than as it was done (with Nesmith on guitar, Tork on bass, and Dolenz on drums). Like Peter Tork, Jones, despite playing mostly tambourine or maracas, was a multi-instrumentalist and would fill in for Tork on bass when he played keyboards and vice versa and for Dolenz on drums when the Monkees performed live concerts.
The Monkees officially disbanded in 1970. The NBC television series The Monkees remained popular in syndication.
Bell Records, then having a string of hits with The Partridge Family, signed Jones to a somewhat inflexible solo record contract in 1971. Jones was not allowed to choose his songs or producer, resulting in several lacklustre and aimless records. His second solo album, Davy Jones (1971) was notable for the song Rainy Jane, which reached #52 in the Billboard charts. To promote the album, Jones performed Girl on an episode of The Brady Bunch entitled “Getting Davy Jones”. Although the single sold poorly, the popularity of Jones’ appearance on the show resulted in Girl becoming his best-remembered solo hit, even though it was not included in the album. The final single, I’ll Believe In You/Road to Love, was poorly received.
Thanks in part to reruns of The Monkees on Saturday mornings and in syndication, The Monkees Greatest Hits charted in 1976. The LP, issued by Arista (a subsidiary of Screen Gems), was actually a repackaging of a 1972 compilation LP called Refocus that had been issued by Arista’s previous label imprint, Bell Records, also owned by Screen Gems.
Dolenz and Jones took advantage of this, joining ex-Monkees songwriters Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to tour the United States. From 1975 to 1977, as the “Golden Hits of The Monkees” show (“The Guys who Wrote ‘Em and the Guys who Sang ‘Em!”), they successfully performed in smaller venues such as state fairs and amusement parks as well as making stops in Japan, Thailand, and Singapore (although they were forbidden from using the “Monkees” name, as it was owned by Screen Gems at the time). They also released an album of new material appropriately as Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart; a live album entitled Concert in Japan was also recorded in 1976, but was not released until 1996.
Despite his initial high profile after the Monkees disbanded, Jones struggled to establish himself as a solo music artist. Glenn A. Baker, author of Monkeemania: The True Story of the Monkees, commented in 1986 that “for an artist as versatile and confident as (Davy) Jones, the relative failure of his post-Monkees activities is puzzling. For all his cocky predictions to the press about his future plans, Davy fell into a directionless heap when left to his own devices.”
Jones returned to theatre several times after the Monkees disbanded. In 1977, he performed with former bandmate Micky Dolenz in a stage production of the Harry Nilsson musical The Point! in London at the Mermaid Theatre, playing and singing the starring role of “Oblio” to Dolenz’ roles as the “Count’s Kid” and the “Leafman”, (according to the CD booklet). An original cast recording was made and released. The comedic chemistry of Jones and Dolenz proved so strong that the show was revived in 1978 with Nilsson inserting additional comedy for the two, plus two more songs, with one of them (Gotta Get Up) being sung by Jones and Dolenz. The show was considered so good that it was planned to be revived again in 1979 but it proved cost prohibitive. Jones also appeared in several productions of Oliver! as the Artful Dodger, and in 1989 toured the U.S. portraying “Fagin”.
A Monkees television show marathon (“Pleasant Valley Sunday”) broadcast on 23 February 1986 by MTV resulted in a wave of Monkeemania not seen since the band’s heyday. Jones reunited with Dolenz and Peter Tork from 1986 to 1989 to celebrate the band’s renewed success and promote the 20th anniversary of the band. A new top 20 hit, That Was Then, This Is Now was released (though Jones did not perform on the song) as well as an album, Pool It!
In 1996, Jones reunited with Dolenz, Tork and Michael Nesmith to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Monkees. The band released a new album entitled Justus, the first album since 1967’s Headquarters that featured the band members performing all instrumental duties. It was the last time all four Monkees performed together.
During the 1990s, Jones made guest appearances on TV in Sledge Hammer!, Boy Meets World, Hey Arnold!, The Single Guy and guest starred as himself in the Brady Bunch movie. On June 21, 1997, during a concert at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Jones joined U2’s The Edge onstage for a karaoke performance of Daydream Believer, which had become a fixture of the band’s set during that year’s PopMart Tour.
In 2001, Jones released Just Me, an album of his own songs, some written for the album and others originally on Monkees releases. In the early 2000s he began performing in the Flower Power Concert Series during Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival, a yearly gig he would continue until his death. In April 2006, Jones recorded the single Your Personal Penguin, written by children’s author Sandra Boynton, as a companion piece to her new board book of the same title. In 2007, Jones performed the theme song for the movie Sexina: Popstar P.I.. On November 1, 2007, the Boynton book and CD titled Blue Moo was released and Jones is featured in both the book and CD, singing Your Personal Penguin. In 2009, Jones released a collection of classics and standards from the 1940s through the 1970s entitled She.
In December 2008, Yahoo! Music named Jones the “Number 1 teen idol of all time.” In 2009, Jones was rated second in a list of 10 best teen idols compiled by Fox News Channel.
In February 2011, Jones confirmed rumours of another Monkees reunion. “There’s even talk of putting the Monkees back together again in the next year or so for a U.S. and UK tour,” he told Disney’s Backstage Pass newsletter. “You’re always hearing all those great songs on the radio, in commercials, movies, almost everywhere.” The tour (Jones’ last) came to fruition and was entitled An Evening with The Monkees: The 45th Anniversary Tour.
In addition to his acting and singing career, in 1967, Jones opened his first store, called Zilch, at 217 Thompson Street in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. The store sold “hip” clothing and accessories and also allowed customers to design their own clothes. After the Monkees disbanded in 1970, Jones established a New York City-style street market in Los Angeles, called “The Street”, which cost approximately $40,000.
In pursuit of his love of horses, Jones held an amateur rider’s licence and rode in his first race at Newbury in Berkshire for renowned trainer Toby Balding. He won his first race in February 1996, on Digpast, in the one-mile Ontario Amateur Riders Handicap at Lingfield in Surrey. Jones also had horse ownership interests in both the US and the UK, and served as a commercial spokesman for Colonial Downs racetrack in Virginia. Following Jones’ death, Lingfield announced that the first two races on the card for March 3, 2012 would be renamed the “Hey Hey We’re The Monkees Handicap” and the “In Memory of Davy Jones Selling Stakes”, with successful horses in those races accompanied into the winners’ enclosure by some of the Monkees’ biggest hits. Plans were also announced to erect a plaque to commemorate Jones next to a Monkey Puzzle tree on the course.
Jones was married three times and had four children. In December 1967, he married Dixie Linda Haines, with whom he had been living. Their relationship had been kept out of the public eye until after the birth of their first child in October 1968. It caused a considerable backlash for Jones from his fans when it was finally made public. Jones later stated in Tiger Beat magazine, “I kept my marriage a secret because I believe stars should be allowed a private life.” Jones and Haines had two daughters. The marriage ended in 1975. Jones married his second wife, Anita Pollinger, on January 24, 1981, and also had two daughters with her. The couple divorced in 1996 during the Monkees’ 30th-anniversary reunion tour. Jones married Jessica Pacheco in 2009. On July 28, 2011, Pacheco filed to divorce Jones in Miami-Dade County, Florida, but dropped the suit in October. They were still married when he died in February 2012. Pacheco was omitted from Jones’ will, which he had made before their marriage. His oldest daughter, whom he named his executrix, was granted by the court the unusual request that her father’s will be sealed, on the basis that “planning documents and financial affairs as public opinion could have a material effect on his copyrights, royalties and ongoing goodwill.”
On the morning of February 29, 2012, Jones went to tend his 14 horses at a farm in Indiantown, Florida. After riding one of his favorite horses around the track, he complained of chest pains and difficulty breathing and was rushed to Martin Memorial South Hospital in Stuart, Florida, where he was pronounced dead of a heart attack resulting from arteriosclerosis.
Threads of crisp, golden knafeh dough wrap around a rich nut filling in this sweet dessert, which is an elegant and aromatic relative of baklava. Unlike baklava, borma is often fried, adding an extra infusion of flavor and a crisp texture that stands up to a sugary bath in flavored syrup.
And while baklava hides its filling inside a modest layer of filo dough, borma is rolled and sliced, showing off a cross-section of colorful pistachios, pale pine nuts or walnuts. That eye-catching presentation makes borma especially popular as a present. Pastry shops across the Middle East and Turkey tempt passers-by with piles of borma.
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, the novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and “firemen” burn any that are found. The book’s tagline explains the title as “the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns:” the autoignition temperature of paper. The lead character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings.
People have used this novel to focus on the historical role of book burning. In a 1956 radio interview, Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States. In later years, he described the book as a commentary on how mass media reduces interest in reading literature.
In 1954, Fahrenheit 451 won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and the Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal. It later won the Prometheus “Hall of Fame” Award in 1984 and a “Retro” Hugo Award in 2004. Bradbury was honoured with a Spoken Word Grammy nomination for his 1976 audiobook version.
Adaptations of the novel include François Truffaut’s 1966 film, Ramin Bahrani’s 2018 film, and two BBC Radio dramatizations.
Bradbury published a stage play version in 1979 and helped develop a 1984 interactive fiction computer game of the same name, as well as a collection of his short stories titled A Pleasure to Burn.
In 1954, Galaxy Science Fiction reviewer Groff Conklin placed the novel “among the great works of the imagination written in English in the last decade or more.” The Chicago Sunday Tribune’s August Derleth described the book as “a savage and shockingly prophetic view of one possible future way of life,” calling it “compelling” and praising Bradbury for his “brilliant imagination”. Over half a century later, Sam Weller wrote, “upon its publication, Fahrenheit 451 was hailed as a visionary work of social commentary.” Today, Fahrenheit 451 is still viewed as an important cautionary tale about conformity and the evils of government censorship.
In the years since its publication, Fahrenheit 451 has occasionally been banned, censored, or redacted in some schools at the behest of parents or teaching staff either unaware of or indifferent to the inherent irony in such censorship.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus (also known as simply Monty Python; sometimes abbreviated MPFC) is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring the comedy group Monty Python, consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, aka the “Pythons.” The first episode was recorded at the BBC on September 7, 1969 and premiered on October 5 on BBC1, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV.
The series stands out for its use of absurd situations, mixed with risqué and innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines. Live action segments were broken up with animations by Gilliam, often merging with the live action to form segues. The overall format used for the series followed and elaborated upon the style used by Spike Milligan in his groundbreaking series Q5, rather than the traditional sketch show format. The Pythons play the majority of the series characters themselves, along with supporting cast members including Carol Cleveland (referred to by the team as the unofficial “Seventh Python”), Connie Booth (Cleese’s first wife), series producer Ian MacNaughton, Ian Davidson, musician Neil Innes, and Fred Tomlinson and the Fred Tomlinson Singers for musical numbers.
The programme came about as the six Pythons, having met each other through university and in various radio and television programmes in the 1960s, sought to make a new sketch comedy show unlike anything else on British television at the time. Much of the humour in the series’ various episodes and sketches targets the idiosyncrasies of British life, especially that of professionals, as well as aspects of politics. Their comedy is often pointedly intellectual, with numerous erudite references to philosophers and literary figures and their works. The team intended their humour to be impossible to categorise, and succeeded (although, by their perspective, failed) so completely that the adjective “Pythonesque” was invented to define it and, later, similar material. However, their humour was not always seen as appropriate for television by the BBC, leading to some censorship during the third series. Cleese left the show following that series, and the remaining Pythons completed a final shortened fourth series before ending the show.
The show became very popular in the United Kingdom, and after initially failing to draw an audience in the United States, gained American popularity after Public Broadcasting Service member stations began airing the show in 1974. The success on both sides of the Atlantic led to the Pythons going on live tours and creating three additional films, while the individual Pythons flourished in solo careers. Monty Python’s Flying Circus has become an influential work on comedy as well as the ongoing popular culture.
At the time of the original broadcasting of Monty Python in the United Kingdom, the BBC used Time-Life Television to distribute its shows in the United States. For Monty Python, Time-Life had been concerned that the show was “too British” in its humour to reach American audiences, and did not opt to bring the programme across. However, the show became a fixture on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation beginning in the fall of 1970, and hence was also seen in some American markets.
The Python’s first film, And Now for Something Completely Different, a selection of skits from the show released in the UK in 1971 and in the United States in 1972, was not a hit in the USA. During their first North American tour in 1973, the Pythons performed twice on U.S. television, firstly on The Tonight Show, hosted by Joey Bishop, and then on The Midnight Special. The group spoke of how badly the first appearance went down with the audience; Idle described The Tonight Show performance: “We did thirty minutes [thirty minutes’ worth of material] in fifteen minutes to no laughs whatsoever. We ran out onto the green grass in Burbank and we lay down and laughed for 15 minutes because it was the funniest thing ever. In America they didn’t know what on earth we were talking about.”
Despite the poor reception on their live appearances on American television, the Pythons’ American manager, Nancy Lewis, began to push the show herself into the States. In 1974, the PBS member station KERA in Dallas was the first television station in the United States to broadcast episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and is often credited with introducing the programme to American audiences. Many other PBS stations acquired the show, and by 1975, it was often the most popular show on these stations. And Now for Something Completely Different was re-released to American theaters in 1974 and had a much better box office take that time. That would also set the stage for the Pythons’ next film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, released near simultaneously in the UK and the United States in April 1975, to also perform well in American theaters. The popularity of Monty Python’s Flying Circus helped to open the door for other British television series to make their way into the United States via PBS and its member stations. One notable American fan of Monty Python was singer Elvis Presley. Billy Smith, Presley’s cousin noted that during the last few months of Elvis’ life in 1977, when Elvis was addicted to prescription drugs and mainly confined to his bedroom at his mansion Graceland, Elvis would sit at his room and chat with Smith for hours about various topics including among other things, Presley’s favourite Monty Python sketches.
With the rise in American popularity, the ABC network acquired rights to show select episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in their Wide World of Entertainment showcase in mid 1975. However, ABC re-edited the episodes, thus losing the continuity and flow intended in the originals. When ABC refused to stop treating the series in this way, the Pythons took them to court. Initially the court ruled that their artistic rights had indeed been violated, but it refused to stop the ABC broadcasts. However, on appeal the team gained control over all subsequent U.S. broadcasts of its programmes. The case also led to their gaining the rights from the BBC, once their original contracts ended at the end of 1980.
The show also aired on MTV in 1988, during the network’s infancy; Monty Python was part of a two-hour comedy block on Sunday nights that also included another BBC series, The Young Ones.
In April 2006, Monty Python’s Flying Circus returned to non-cable American television directly through PBS. In connection with this, PBS commissioned Monty Python’s Personal Best, a six-episode series featuring each Python’s favourite sketches, plus a tribute to Chapman, who died in 1989. BBC America has aired the series on a sporadic basis since the mid-2000s, in an extended 40-minute time slot in order to include commercials. IFC acquired the rights to the show in 2009, though not exclusive, as BBC America still airs occasional episodes of the show. IFC also presented a six-part documentary Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyers Cut), produced by Terry Jones’s son Bill.