Hi, my name is Eric Idle and I feel horny about being kind of laugh. I only laugh because I don't want to cry. You're always cornering me at some party, grinding up against me. In front of your wife, that's the closest she gets to sex. Fall is where we're here now, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking loose, climb the fence, books and pens. I can tell where we are going to be friends. I can tell where we are going to be friends.
Hey there, welcome to Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend. We're laughing already and you know when we can laugh it means we're alive and life is good, isn't it? Yes. Would you like to talk about what we were laughing about? Absolutely not. Abs, some things are meant for off-mic. Some things are meant for not even off-mic. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Listen, I'm happy to be here with you guys. Just had a lovely interaction with your family. Oh yeah.
Mr. Gourley, your beautiful wife, your daughter, she's how old now? She's three. She's three. She's never to come here again without my permission. I understand. I think kids love it here because we have this nice office building and it has lots of candy and treats and... Yeah, I mean, Glenn came with a mini-mouse on a noose. Right. And there's a story behind that. Yeah, that was a little disturbing. She had mini-mouse and mini-mouse looked like mini-mouse was in bondage.
Your beautiful daughter. And some of it was kind of around the neck and it looked like... It was done to your job. It looked like Frontier Justice for mini-mouse. There's an explanation. The same one which tripled. Mini committed manslaughter. Oh, I see. Okay. And Penny had many head to pay. No, we had to get her to go on our bike. We had to tie mini onto the bike so that once Minnie was on there, Glenn would go on the bike. We don't tie Glenn to the bike. She has a seat. Right.
But if she holds mini-many will fall somewhere. So we had to tie Minnie to the bike seat. And we did it by hanging her. By the neck till she be dead. Yeah. It was disturbing. It was. Yeah. Because Minnie was lifeless and your daughter didn't seem to care. Shout out to the Disney company. Does Disney have any control over how they're... If once they've sold the doll, they have no say over. I don't think so. You can do whatever you want. Oh, wow. Normally Glenn was on a black hood. Oh. What? What?
No, just take it out for drinks. Oh, no. Why wasn't seeing anything like that? Oh. The other thing you could like stab it or light it on fire. Oh, it's your both. Both got it. Where did you go? Drinks. It's wrong what's taking goofy out for a drink and watch the game. Just you and Goofy. A stuffed Goofy sitting in a bar. I would like to do that and see if anyone came over and said anything. Probably not. Wait, do you treat him goofy like he's an actual person?
Sure. Okay. Someone walks by and I'm like, hey, Goofy, you know. What? What? What? I don't know what I'm waiting for. Goofy just sits there with a full drink and then do you try to surreptitiously drink it to seem like Goofy's drinking? Yeah. Every now and then I drain a little bit of Goofy's drink. Oh, my God. So that looks like. And then I say, excuse me. Hello, Goofy's. Goofy's running a little low here. Time for a re-up. A game playing. Do you make him high five?
I go to high five, but he just falls off limply. He just falls off the couch. And then I go like someone said too much over here. Goofy's. Do you see Goofy back up to his room or does he come to yours? No, we're not getting there. Now you took it too far. No, I did. Yes. This is a classy semester. I do want to bring up. This is reminding me that one of my sisters, I forget was not me. It was not me, I want to say that, but we were really little. It's for you now.
Okay. Okay. Someone went in and I forget what sister it was, but someone went in there, cut off all the hair on like three of their dolls and then carved their name backwards onto the skull, which is so on the forehead. Your sister's name or the name of the doll? I think it was the name of my sister backwards. And are you kidding me? Yeah. And I remember that being, I don't remember who did it.
I was not me, I swear it was not me, but I remembered seeing the results and thinking, this is like, we're all really young at this point. And whoever did it just wrote the name backwards. What's the name? Nanak. No, it was not Nanak. But I just remember that being like a chilling, like, oh, this is a grizzly crime scene, it was dolls. But the backwards thing is what's getting me to that. I feel very devil.
No, but I think it was because they were trying to spell their sister's name, Neil and wrote it backwards because they were very young. Wait, so was someone writing someone else's name like a frame job? This was you. No, I didn't do this. I did lots of terrible things. Yeah. I did terrible, terrible things, mostly to Justin. Oh, oh. And I've, apologies, Justin. I've told you this, right? I would play. Yeah. He just wanted to play cops and robbers and I would immediately get lawyers involved.
I would say, well, now we have to go see a lawyer because you drew your gun and be like, I didn't even fire my gun. I went, you drew it. And in Massachusetts, you know, like in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. And I would make him fill out papers. It was so, so bad. So awful. Who's that? The absence of fire. No. And there was a big gap between us. So he was a very young kid and I was in my late 40s. But he's fine now. They just released him. I get it. People do weird things with dolls.
I used to do weird things. Oh, but yeah, it's just, it's a, it's a time of life when, when dolls, it can be a crime scene and it's acting things out in a safe way. Yeah. Okay. I guess that's weird though. What did your, your brother was a bully a little bit to you? Yeah. Danny used to beat me up a lot. And I used to always think, hey, I got a chance and I never did. No. Danny's a strong guy. I can't take Danny. No, he can't. No, he was a football player in high school.
And he was, he was huge and he would be, well, now you're making me feel like I should try and fight Danny. You would lose. He would beat you up badly. What is? He would badly beat you up. I could choose my moment. What if he doesn't see me coming? I come up from behind. Like a sucker punch? Oh, no, I've got, I'm holding something. I've got like a stick. What? That's still like you kind of a sucker punch. But you're, he doesn't expect it. I wouldn't use my real hand. My hands aren't very strong.
Okay. So I would have like a big bass. Like a weapon. Yeah. You would, you would probably win. Yeah. Okay. But I don't care about that part. Okay. You see a scenario where I could take your brother, Danny. Yeah. If he doesn't see me coming in. Yeah. I got. It's Danny. Oh, take it easy. Okay. Now, we accomplished anything here with this opening. No, nothing. This is awful. All we've managed to accomplish is we've killed five minutes. Okay. And so it's time to start the show.
I think we start the show. I'm satisfied. Are you? Yes. Satisfied with less. The podcast rule. My guest today is a comedy legend. Some of the members of the iconic comedy group Monty Python, his new book, The Spamalot Diaries is out now. I can't even, there are no words. I'm to say I'm honored is just dumb because it's a word way beyond honored. I'm elevated, renovated, filled with light. I'm sure with us today, Eric. I could not be happier that you're here. You've been on the podcast before.
You're one of my favorite human beings on earth. I will say that without reservation, he hates a compliment. But as you know, I've been telling you for years and years and years in my, in my opinion, there's Python and then the rest of us are just dicking around. So I mean that and, and I love, I want to say this right up top that you have brought this book in that I adore, it's called The Spamalot Diaries and it's a joy, it's a real treat and it's about the process.
And that's one of the things that I adore about it. But first let's talk about how much you admire me. I've allotted 40, I've allotted 40 minutes. Well, you know, we should know how I feel about it. I think you're not thinking nothing yet. I think you're one of the funniest people on the planet. Oh, that's insanity. We're not doing that. No, it's here. I went and that was a surprise to me because I thought you're hilarious. But then I saw you do stand up at the log out and you killed me.
I've forgotten to obviously you've been doing stand up for millions of years when you worked. That's really, but I had done, I never did classic stand up. But I went from in front of an audience, I'll try anything and so. Well, you like me, you're shameless in front of an audience. I am. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's much funnier than me. And I, I, I, I, I, nope. But anyway, let's make this about you. I'm cutting it off. I don't like this.
This is about Eric Eidl and one of just invited me to say something nice about you. Yeah, but I thought you'd take that opportunity to shit on me and you fucked it out. I've had one of one of the best things that's happened to me in my adult life is getting to know Eric on a bunch of occasions and then Eric, I know you've moved since then, but you would have me to your home, your lovely wife, Tony would be there, your daughter, Lily would be there.
My wife and I, Eliza would go and you'd put together this salon of really funny, cool, musical people. And, but one of the things that always grabbed my attention is I'd walk in the front door and there was a poster and it was from university. It's from 1963, I think. It is from 1966, it's from the Edinburgh Festival. Yeah, it's from the Edinburgh Festival. It's my first public performance. And it's you as a, as a, as a squeaky young lad and it's a giant photo.
I think about handsome young man, the world ahead of him. Okay, squeaky might not be the right. I meant you were clean, squeaky clean. Probably, yes. I think it's, it's this poster from 1963 and it's when you're getting started. This would be easily six years before Python, but you're just getting started and I always looked at that.
Every time you had me over, I would look at that poster and kind of time travel back to this other time when all of you guys were getting started and finding your way. It's before you all found each other and it's magical. No, it's not quite true. You see it oddly. That's true. You had worked together, yeah. Quite by chance, I had already met John Cleese, I'd already met Graham Chapman who was at St. Bart's Hospital studying to become a fully qualified alcoholic.
You know, I like a person who does, really does their work. Yeah, puts the time. Yeah, put the time. I met an Edinburgh Terry Jones and Michael Payton, who were doing the Oxford Review. So in 1963, we'd all met. You'd all met with the exception of Terry Gilliam, right? Who no one is yet, match. You can meet him, but you still haven't met him. Yeah, I would look at that and just think about, this is a document.
This is, you know, I'm a history buff and I'm also a comedy buff and to look at that poster was always hard to lure me away from it because I just thought that's the year I was born and I just want to put that in just to accentuate that. But it's also the year of the Beatles. It's the year of the Beatles in England, not the year of the Beatles. In America, we think 64, but it was 63 years. Yeah, very much so.
At the Edinburgh Festival, with the first time, all the guys were playing, all their records and they went, so all this about, so all this about. Yeah. These guys with this weird hair that are living from Liverpool. Absolutely. And then they came to Cambridge the year after and everybody changed. The whole world changed. They were used to wear a lot of tweed jackets with leather pads, suddenly we were wearing beetle jackets and so on. Who's your favorite beetle?
Yeah. You know, and they actually did literally change the world after that. You know, it's funny. You can look at college yearbooks and high school yearbooks from 1963. You could, in the United States, if you look at a high school yearbook from 1964, everyone's got buzz cuts and horn rim glasses, everybody. They all look kind of the same and then you look at the high school yearbook from 1965.
There's still the occasional guy with a crew cut who just can't get the message, but everybody else has that hair. It changed everything, but we'll talk about the beetles another time. I want to talk about the rolling stones. They're rolling stones. They took the blues. Which is deceptively simple form and they transformed it. I have a theory issue that Python, which this was all rock and roll came in just in those years.
And everybody's, the band used to be in the pit and then they came up on the stage, put on tight trousers, started to play loud music and all the girls chased them and the comedians had to wait in the wings for a while. But my theory is that Monty Python became the first Mock and Roll group. Yes. Because we did stadiums, we ended up playing the Hollywood ball, we did O2.
We were the first ones and the second was, of course, Saturday Night Live because they had or they brought rock and roll into it. So the comedians were all fighting back then. Yes. It was, it's funny you say that because, and then I guess that would be third in the line. Wait, what? I came along and people were like, you know, women were like, I got a fuck that guy. No, no, they're just saying fuck that guy. Oh, yeah. Oh, I misheard it. Yeah. Um, the, now you're right.
Okay, I got to get the hearing checked. I'll leave. You know what, you're, when I first did SNL, the first time I did it, my first guest was Joe Cocker and Baluci came on and mocked him. So that was actually really Mock and Roll. But you're, this is your signature trajectory because you're good, dear departed friend George Harrison famously said he felt the Beatles break up sort of, I think technically in 69, uh, beginning of 1970.
That's right when Python is hitting the air and George Harrison said he really felt the spirit of the Beatles was passed on and went into Python. And I thought, did you guys ever talk about that? Did you talk about that with George? We talked about almost everything because when we met, we just talked all night and we just talked and talked about two or three weeks. But, you know, what was your life being in your group? What was your group like, you know, was your John like.
But I think the secret of it was America. George John. Everyone's got to have a John. But what was America? What happened in America was when the, when the Beatles first arrived in America, what made everybody love them was they were funny. Yes. Guy called Ringo with a big nose, a funny name, the funny haircuts and everybody knew Ringo first. That's the first name they knew. But it was their humor at the airport conference that broke them in America. I'm convinced of it.
Yeah. And so, in a way, they were just as funny as we were, they just were all Liverpool comedians really. But they, you know, they went the wrong way. They went the wrong way. They went on the dark side. They wasted their time in music when they really could have been a sketched up. A sketched troop. They really could have been a sketch troop. And it's sad when people take the wrong turn, but what are you going to do?
What I really wanted to start with because sometimes people bring their, their project along. And I think, okay, we'll get to that. The thing that's special about the Spamalot Diaries is when you were putting Spamalot together and this is 2004, 2003, 2004, you kept a dime. And you were a diary of the entire process of putting it together. You then set the diary aside.
And I remember going to your house when you and Tanya were packing it up to leave, to move to a different house and you were packing everything up. In that process, you find the diary that you had forgotten. I had completely forgotten I'd written it. I had completely forgotten I kept it. And I read it and I gave it to actually Puddles. You know, Puddles, his wife, to read. She said, this is great.
Right. And I get to my wife and she said, oh, this is fantastic because what's interesting about a diary is you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know it's going to be that thing. It's going to be successful. And so it's full of anxieties and arguments and rouse and it's the process. Yes. That's what I love. That's what I love. It's a process not a miracle. There is this misconception and maybe it's appropriate. It should be this way.
People love to think they're going to come in and they see something miraculous and that it just happened. And maybe that's the way an audience should look at it. But what's amazing is you read through this diary because I think, well, yes, spam a lot. Massive hit, sold out forever. So of course, it just happened. You read this and you see how much work, anxiety, rewrites and the creative wrestling between you and the director, Mike Nichols, the famous Mike Nichols. You have emails in here.
You have notes back and forth. There's disagreements with other, you know, sometimes friction with other pythons. And you're just like Job, you're just going ahead trying to make this thing happen. I think that's what's interesting because I forgot about it. I was just writing every few days what I was feeling. And so it comes with a direct form of honesty.
And I kept in the rouse because I thought, no, no, people mustn't believe that the artistic process is just we all have a cup of tea and we'll make this thing. Our conflicts, people need to be angry. We used to rouse in Python about sort of chair it should be. That's not the funny chair. This is a funny chair. No, no, this is a funny chair.
I think those are important and so I kept here in particular the rouse early on with Mike because I thought it was very important for people to understand it. You must maintain your vision of something if you were a writer and you're doing a play and the director doesn't have every say. And fortunately for us, we'd been friends for 15 years. You and Mike Nichols had met. We'd just been pals. We'd been on holidays. We'd had the best of times.
We'd had a lot of fun to the theatre, places all over the seas and we had never had a crossword. And suddenly we're working together and it's a completely different relationship obviously. Now you're the real, you're that person. He's that person. And I thought, well, I'm going to leave that because I think it's important to know that people establish who they are and then they can move forward.
I guess the part that is most fascinating to me is the statement that one of the themes that comes through in the Spamalot diaries and this applies not just to Spamalot but to Python and I think just to comedy and all work is that fighting, arguing, is an essential part of the process. Term oil anxiety is part of the process and I cannot tell you how many, when someone tells me, oh, I love to write. I just love writing. I think you must be a terrible writer.
Because I don't, that's not my process and my wife is a very good writer and she will tell me, oh, I'm just, I hate it. It's miserable and I'll say, right, exactly. Yes, that's what it is. That's, you know, keep going. But that's what it is. I think if you're content with what you're writing, you're not very good. I almost all great writers. You know, I think Graham Green said he'd written one or two sentences. He was quite proud of sentences.
You know, I think, I think all writing is like that because you're trying to capture flies in aspect here. I mean, it's really a very difficult thing you're doing. You're putting down life in these code, 26 letter code. How does that possibly even work? And you're, and how are some people have the gift of making you just read any sentence about anything and you just pick up a book and you just read them all the way through because of the way they write? I find that fascinating.
It's also, I read a biography recently. There's a wonderful biography of Mike Nichols and you find out, I mean, his childhood, in his experience, fleeing Nazi Germany, coming to America, kind of remaking himself. He had famously had alopecia. He lost all of his hair all the, having to wear a wig, not speaking English, not speaking English, and he completely remade himself into the coolest, smartest, most erbein guy doing comedy along with Elaine May.
The, the sheer, not just talent, but will to, and the amount of struggle and pain you have to go through to remake yourself as Mike Nichols into that. And then I think you, we've talked about it before in the previous podcast and you've, been very open about it, you had, you have a very difficult childhood in many ways. Yes, yes. I think that's an advantage, you know, I think, but nobody had a more difficult childhood as Mike.
And for me, there's a new book about the making of Virginia Woolf and which he's in. And I'm amazed it's his first film. And he's standing up to Harry Warner. He's saying, no, it's going to be in black and white. Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? He wanted to shoot it in black and white. He's got the two biggest stars on earth, Richard Burton, and Elizabeth Taylor. And he's a young punk who's never directed anything in his life. And he's telling the biggest man in show business to fuck off.
And so the ball's on that guy. An absolutely incredible. Unbelievable. But it's based on some kind of his perception of what should be, was really pure. If Mike said something and it wasn't quite right, he'd go, oh, it's not quite right. I never had any doubts that some, you know, sometimes he would, he was, he was a most fabulous friend of hell. He didn't write, but he wrote with you, in a sense, he'd say, well, we need somebody to say, say this.
And I said, this is me, and he would encourage it out of you so that you wrote better, always with him. Well, there's a line in the Spamlight Dyer's, you and Mike Nichols, there's a lot of correspondence back and forth between you two. And at one point, Mike Nichols writes you and he says, I've given, I've been thinking a lot about you, Eric, and your childhood. And he's talking about what he acknowledges that he had a crazy insane childhood.
He's talking about how your childhood was so difficult. And he said this line that really stuck with me, which is, I guess we all inoculate ourselves against our own childhood. And that really stuck with me that whatever happens to us individually, and this is in close to anyone listening, it happens to you, you tend to dismiss it like, well, no, I was fine. Oh my God, what does other person went through? You know what I mean?
And when Mike Nichols says that line, he said, hey, because you're so good, I don't know how much of it is being English and how much of it is your own character as Eric Idol, your own personality. But I could just see how you have a stiff upper lip. You could be very dismissive of any kind of pain in your life. I'm fine. Oh, this poor other person. But how much of that is English? How much of that is you? And you're going to be charged for therapy when this is all. I don't know.
I mean, I think you learn empathy. I mean, you start by being a neogatistical shit by going to show business. Look at me. I mean show business. And then you can behave very badly. And I learned from lots of very good people, like Robin Williams taught me how to be nice to fans. I would just tell them to fuck off. And they would laugh and go away, you know. But that was good enough for them. Because they always tell me to fuck off. I just was told to fuck off by Eric Idol.
And that became a thing. And then I thought, and then I watched Robin and his empathy and remembering that this is somebody's moment in their life. And it's a big moment in their life. Because they've waited for, they love you. They want this moment. So if you are a shit or dismissive, it's a nasty memory. So what I always do is I always say, well, I'm Eric. And I get their name. Yes. And then you're on a one-to-one human basis with them.
And you're not some kind of god in there, not some object fans. So I try and, and I think that works in all sorts of situations where you remind people that they're people. Yeah. And we just hear it this moment. It's funny you mentioned Robin because I didn't realize how close you guys were. You guys were very close and I was lucky enough to have some great interactions with Robin Williams before he passed.
One of the most memorable examples to me if his kindness is when I went through my whole tonight's show, Debacle. And finally, the show is done and I don't know if I have a career anymore or what am I going to do next. You remember this part, very well-sonic, as soon as it was with me during all that. And I'm lying on the floor in the living room, my house and my phone rings and I pick it up and it's Robin Williams. I don't even know how he got my phone number. And I'll never forget.
He goes like, how are you holding up, chief? And I said, oh, Robin, thanks so much for calling. He said, you know, listen, you're going to be fine. You're going to be great. I know you like to ride bikes because he was really into bicycling. And he said, I know you like riding bikes. Go down to this, the bike shop down in Santa Monica. I want you to go down there and I've set up a bike for you. And I said, what? And he said, no, no, just head on down there.
And so, and ride around, you'll feel better. And I went down and it was a Colgana, which is a very nice bike. And he said, I told him to paint it in all these crazy Irish colors. And I get down there and it's the most, it's the ugliest. I mean, it was just, you know, greens and shamrocks and everything. And I couldn't believe, and he was like, oh, you're going to like that bike, chief. Don't worry about it. And I just thought I thanked him many, many times.
I just couldn't believe that he was thinking about me. You know how we are in life. But that's how you think about someone. Oh, that's too bad. What happened to him? Oh, whatever. Anyway, I'm going to go get a sandwich. I don't know. He reached out. He thought, what might please you? He went and got to the shop and chose. I mean, he would put a lot of effort into making you feel better, which I thought, that's very, very robbing. That's fantastic. The typical robbing.
And that generosity and kindness is something combined with the wit on the man. It is not a common combination. You know, I don't think Dr. Johnson was busy sending people, maybe I don't know. I think he had Boswell doing it. He had Boswell. Boswell. He said, that's fucker a bike. There's so much in the book that I want to make sure I weave in because you can on so many themes I love as you're approaching the premiere. Of course, now we all know how the story turns out.
But when you're reading through the book, it is very much what you say. You're reading these texts, these messages, these diary entries day by day. You don't know what's going to happen. And you can feel the anxiety. You can feel the self-loathing. You can feel the gloom. And at one point you say, I think the English, there's an English tendency to prefer failure. And I thought that is so fantastic because in a strange way, I understand how failure can feel more comfortable.
And a big hit, it's the tall Poppy syndrome, which is very Irish. It's very United Kingdom. It's what you do with a big hit. And everywhere you went, people were congratulating you. You're uneasy with it. I wasn't used to it. But also, I didn't quite expect it. And it takes a while to know what to do with that. Because you're still trying to understand how we fixed it. Did it really work? A mic would always keep on making it better and better. You cut little bits and keep improving it.
But I think there is a thing in England that failures is a noble and a wonder thing. And if you look at Dunkirk and some of their great victories, the English ran away quite a lot. Which is often a wise choice. Maybe a good choice. If the English don't run away in 1940, they are not there to fight Hitler in 1942. So yeah. No, I mean, I think there are many reasons for it. But also, I think the tall Poppy, which is what the Australians also call it, is also that.
And if you look at the small island, people are envious of people's success. And so people try to either play it down a bit or, oh, yeah, I didn't happen to climb Everest last week. But I'm also working on some Latin thesis. You know, I mean, people say they tend to try and diminish. Yes. It's not America's great because they say, so let's all try and be successful. That's the starting point. Right. And it's fine.
In England, if you've been successful in your car, people will scrape the car with their knife. You know, they go, bar, you're a boss that was an America. The reaction would be one day I'll have one of those. And I think it's completely different attitudes. This is something Bono said, Bono said that, you know, in America, if you see a house on a hill and you walk by and you see a mansion on a hill, you think someday I'm going to have that mansion.
He said, in Ireland, if you see a big mansion on a hill, you think, I'm going to burn that fucker. Yeah, I understand that. I don't want it for myself. I just don't want that asshole to happen. It's funny because this leads into my next question, which is that you bring up, that you had this realization at one point that the Holy Grail, which is Spamalot, the, you know, that it's really about Python and the members of Python.
And this resonated with me right now because all you do, you just set it right now is, you know, there's this tendency to want to run away all throughout Holy Grail. One of the reasons Sir Robin is able to, his only strategy is to run away. Run away, run away. And I've, you know, always, the king of the says run away. Yeah, just a command. Yeah, it's a command. Yes. Robin does. You're quite happy. Robin denies he's running away. Yeah, he's pissing off a buggering off.
No, no, no, no, no. It's a, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, yeah. But, uh, but you talk about, and you go through and you talk about the different members of Python and how they kind of fit their role in the Holy Grail, whether it was intentional or not. Because I had to, I had to bring, I mean, there were 98 characters in the Holy Grail. Yeah. So I put that on stage.
So what I did was I collapsed as many as I could, or the characters played by Michael Pailin into one character, aspects of that character, and the same with me and the same with Lancelot, John Clees, you know, so that, so that then when you do that, you do find more of Michael, who's always like, you know, which is if he really wants a bit of temptation with you, he better happens, you know, I'm about, no, no, I got to go, I got to go. No, yeah.
One of my, being rescued from all the, all the, all the girl, the girl. And you could tell he's, yeah, and I made two films about that too. Obviously, we should, but that's basically the same theme. He's probably, I've been perhaps not now. I've been on that. I think it's very significant about Michael. Oh, no, it's so funny because I relate to both your character. I relate to running away and, you know, no, there's some temptation. Oh, well, I probably should go watch my cholesterol.
I'll just be over here, but I'm going to think about it a lot, and I'm going to hate myself a little bit. But yeah, you go through, it's very convincing that whether it was intentional or not, I think that often writing reveals yourself. I mean, I think good writing is definitely all about yourself and some really bizarre way. And, and if you, when you're adapting something, a piece of work, it's very nice to come across themes that are just in there.
There's one scene when Michael is being led away from Castle Anthrax, you know, and Cleese is getting him out. Come on, let's go. It's a, no, can I have a bit of temptation? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, just as they leave frame, you hear Michael say, oh, I bet you're gay. And we use that for a whole scene where Lange lot, whole rage and anger is explained by the fact he's repressing, you know, he really is.
He's repressing something, yeah. He's repressing it all and how he comes and he dances to Zonkeng. His name is Lange lot. He likes to dance a lot. And then there's a huge piece of Alan number. But I find that that's really the most exciting thing about adapting work is finding little things in there which will make it work on stage. Because Mike and Casey there, there was a whole scene, we kept trying to write the spanking song. You know, because they go say, oh, spanking, spanking tonight.
And we keep writing a spanking, a spanking that's going to be us, and they say, no, no, and they would not have it. So the way out was this, just as hinting in the script, which I improvised and it was fabulous to find. Because it makes Lange lot's character very much more, he's not just angry. He's angry because he had an angry father and he stands up for her, but saying, this man is your son and he comes up with the most wonderful, like he could be Arthur Miller.
And he comes up and stands up for him and it's a very nice dramatic twist in act two, which I like. You said in Python, there were disagreements. I know in my comedy career, I just became with all my different collaborators and creative partners, arguments and fights. And you'd come down to if someone else was listening to it, you'd think you were insane. You talked about how you'd all argue in Python about, is this the right chair? No, this isn't the right chair.
No, the dead parent should look like this. It shouldn't be look like that because that's not funny, but this is, and I remember Robert Smigel, one of the just genius people I've been fortunate to work with over the years. I remembered once us going back and forth, arguing about something forever, and this is maybe 30 years ago. And I said, nobody got a big laugh and he went, yes, but that's not the kind of laugh we want at that point. And I was the only one to get the goddamn laugh.
What do you mean it's not the laugh we want at that point? But I also understand what he's saying, you know, but anyone else listening outside the door would think these two idiots, what is their problem? But I think that is the common thread just in this process, if I think if you're trying to do it right, which is. I think it's a fascinating process.
And I was, I was, had some very good mentors, we used to write jokes for David Frost, the bad, you know, Barry Crondick, Voss, for people who taught me how to be, you know, what to do and how the ropes and then you become, you find your own companions who then become argumentative. It's really, it was very argumentative. I mean, sometimes rouse, use placing rounds would break out. But again, I think that's because if you don't care, it's not important.
And I think I only was not be good at standing up because I was a solo writer in that group. And I remember. And then that's what I think I got on with George. He was a solo between two big forces of Leonard and McCartney. And I was between, you know, my can Terry wrote and John and Graham wrote. And I remember when George came out to the filming of the life of Brian, he'd paid for, he said, how's it going? He said, well, it's all right.
It's hard to get on screen, you know, with Michael Payton and John Cleese. He said, imagine how I was trying to get into the studio with Leonard and McCartney. My drive. Okay. You got it. I got it. You think you have problems. Yeah, exactly. Crimey a river. This is, and we don't have to talk about this, but it's something that as a lifelong, someone who's been so influenced and I by Python, I think of it as sort of Santa Claus, like a child, I just want to believe that everyone's getting along.
And you and Cleese famously lately have had your disagreements and that have come out in public. And I know I'll think, I don't want mommy and daddy to fight, but that's childlike of me because you're human beings that disagree. And you've known each other long time. But we don't disagree about comedy. This is only about money. This is only about business. And there's no reason, I mean, fooling this money are easy-parted, you know, six of us, you know, much more quickly.
I think there's no right or wrong way to deal with business. And if somebody has one view of it and somebody doesn't and somebody has another, those can need to be very bad arguments. And unfortunately, we don't see each other enough. I haven't seen them in 10 years. And if you don't see such. Nine since John, 10 since Mike. If you don't sit across the table and know that person and what decade they're in, I think there's a, there's a lot of room for disagreement. And, you know, we're just old.
And it's like, we never disagreed on the very important things on what was funny. Yeah, really. Well, and put that one ago. You know, there's also, there's a misconception that anyone could have, which is, wait a minute, any Python, the most, in my opinion, influential show of all time. And then that led to these movies, which are in my opinion, flawless and beautiful and fantastic. And that you've all gone on to these things. And then of course, spam a lot, a huge hit.
And you talk about how there's this perception that well, everyone in Python must be driving around in Bentley's with cash, you know, in convertibles with cash just flying out. And then you say, you know, we're all touring at this age to keep it going. And that's, I think that's a misconception that people can have. I think so, because, you know, it depends on some deals you have. And nowadays, residuals are becoming, I think, of the past. You know, they got, take up the music residuals.
You know, you got Spotify and YouTube. Everything takes everything. You know, I mean, I think it's very difficult. I don't mind it because I quite like doing what I do. I quite like going out there and making people laugh, see if I can still make them laugh. Because I think that's the sort of little joy that we get. Yeah. I think it's a secret little, secret little joy or comedy junkies, laugh junkies. And so I'm about to go and do a tour of Australia and New Zealand.
And I've got some really wonderful surprises. I like surprising people. I like, I like making my shows about something. So there's like a through line. I was with Professor Brian Cox last week and he's doing a show. And I said, what's yours about? And I said, mine's about the meaning of life. And he said, well, so is mine. I said, yeah, mine will be deep. LAUGHTER You introduced me. You introduced me to him at a part.
I mean, again, this is one of the gifts of getting to go to Eric Eil's home is you said, oh, here's Brian Cox and we chatted and he's this brilliant mind. And the next thing, you know, he's, I become somewhat, you know, friendly with him. And I think this is, you have salons. You have, it's nice. What you do. You get really smart. It's not just funny people. It's, it's music people. It's people from science. It's people from astrology. It's people who are historians.
And I can just see that you have this endless joy for trying to figure it all out. I like putting people together. I like conversation. But I love it at the end of the evening. It's a ding dong. We have a play. And so I love musicians. And so I've always got musicians. And anybody, I like Brian Cox, if he's going to tell you about Quantum. And that's very nice over Dernina. Yeah. But and he also plays a piano. So we have Giggs, he's just son George plays guitar.
Wow. And I've been playing with this group who have been playing with the monkeys. And they're really great. And we just sit around and play, hit off the hit. It's just, that's my happy, that's when I'm happiest. Off the dinner, outcome to get a task. We're just singing for him. It's funny to say this because like, what is it about? I've loved playing guitar. I could never make a dime off of it. But it's, it's just, it's my hobby. And I really love doing it.
And I got to do the Newport folk festival, month or two ago. And there's, there's footage of it. And I'm up there playing with all these amazing people. And Jack White came. But the comment that shows up every time I'm up there is Conan scenes. This is the most joyous I've ever seen. Conan, he seems so much happier doing this than comedy. I thought, I love comedy, but they're not wrong. No, I love that. Me too. I'm just playing and I'm gigging with people and having fun and listening.
Because it's a different part of your brain. You're not thinking, you're not obsessive. And when's the next laugh? You know, you're just feeling the next chord. I love that. And I've been showing out, which is really a one-man musical. And I do a couple of songs. So it wants to tribute to George Harrison, I wrote, which I really like, because I miss him a lot. And once for Robin, which I wrote for his memorial. And it's a very sweet song. And I put up pictures of them.
And it's kind of a nice way of recognizing that people have moved on and gone and say, for what? It's just no more than, I mean, there's a lot of good jokes. But what you've written, first of all, it's the most requested song at funerals, I think, certainly in the UK, maybe in the world. I watched the second. It's a really good question. I see it was my way, replaced. Which is really a terrible song for when you're dying. Yeah. I did it. No. I laughed. I smoked. I smoked and smoked.
They said I shouldn't, but I did. I ate fatty foods. They said I shouldn't, but I did. The, you wrote, always look on the Bright Side of Life. And it has, it's such a great song. It's an amazing scene in life of Brian. And at the time, I remember it extremely controversial, because people are being, they're dying. They're on a crucifix and singing. Always look on the Bright Side of Life. And I think it's everything. It is the perspective that I completely 100% agree with.
Which is, this is terrible and ridiculous and silly at the same time. That is sometimes the only way we can go, we can move on. And it's just, and it's got one of my, life's got a funny plot, you're here and then you're not. Like, that's all there is to it, I think. Yes. I mean, what's really funny about it, always look on the Bright Side of Life, is you are being crucified. It's a very little to look forward to that moment. Let's face it. And if there's any point in life.
I think you're being, Eric, Eric, I think you're being overly negative. You're getting a bad rap. You're getting a good stretch in the low back. Oh, God. Where you are? Oh, man. Between the L4 and L5, gravity is giving you a little pole. But it isn't ironic song. And I think it's a war song. And I think it comes from my father, my, their generation, those songs was like, oh, always look on the Bright, the blues slide. Blue skies will open, you know, blue birds over the bright.
They were always about future optimism because they're in a war. So I think that's what that song is. It's a song of war song. And it was played in the Falklands when HMS Sheffield was hit by an exosceded and they had to wait for rescue for three hours. They sang that for three hours. And so I think there is something recognizing that it is a ridiculous thing. And teams, you know, seeing it when they're losing at football. I mean, they move on the Bright Side.
There's nothing to look forward to at that point. Right, right. We're down. It's over. There's not enough time left. I have to ask you this because I know that you've, you talk about playing guitar with these iconic musicians. You played for hours and probably thousands of hours with George Harrison. You also stayed up all night once in Rome, playing with Keith Richards.
And I'm just curious how you can, don't you leave your body at some point and say, that's Keith Richards on playing guitar with or that's George Harrison playing guitar with. How do you get over that? Oh, I think pretty quickly because you're playing along, you know, so you're in the moment if you're playing with somebody. And luckily I had a pretty good back. I had a jazz guitar background. I knew better chords than they did often.
Right. But with Keith, you know, I mean, Keith is like, the most extraordinary, he's like Noel Coward. You know, he behaves like a dear boy who come up and have it. Well, what could I get you? I mean, he's like inguying and you know, dressing gowns and red calm. Yeah, it's not, it was the lunatic, you know. That's hilarious. Oh, come in, please, please, you come in. And he's wearing like a calf. He's wearing a calf tan. I'm just looking on a calf tan dressing gown. Dressing gown.
And then that's all, you know, it's a little smoozy and the sense of this gift. Yeah, boy, would you, can I get your glass of brand new? What would you like? Can I take, you know, I mean, quite a different world of the new expect. And what we did sing all night that night and, you know, it was in Rome and went in Rome. Yeah, went in Rome. So I was then the next time I turn up at the set and Chevy, I hadn't got any words after. It was my last scene.
And then Chevy comes up to me and says, I've written this big new scene for us. I was just for European vacation. Yeah. And I went, I got, I got, I got, I just all fuck. You're right. Sorry, you had to lose a scene. I lost a European vacation because you were up all night playing and singing with Keith Richards. I'm sorry, yes. I have found that's probably as good an excuse as anybody. I'm sure it's worth it. Anything it's worth it. Yeah, I'm going to miss the next podcast. I'm sorry.
I was singing all night with Keith Richards. No, no, he's in Theson London. What are you talking about? You were in Pacific Pallisex. You were with Richard Keats. Yeah. Yeah. We got on this very dark topic of death and everything. You have one of the funniest ideas ever I've heard for an inscription on your tombstone, which I really like. I'll tell you what it is because you've clearly forgotten. Eric Eitel, see Google. I'm glad to know that so stanza. Yeah. That's good. I, why? Why not?
I mean, why are we getting into here? Exactly. The rest is nonsense. Yeah. Well, I, I want to thank you. It's a great day for me when I get to spend any time with you. You're one of my all-time heroes. And you've changed my life in so many ways with your work when I was a young lad. And you guys completely, I think, reordered the universe and showed us all what could be done. And I still think you're far ahead of everyone else. My love to your family, Tanya, and of course, Lillie, who I adore.
The book is the Spamalot Diaries. And it is a joyous read. It's a little harrowing at times, but it's great. And it's a great book for anyone to read who's in the process of trying to make something happen. It doesn't have, it could be a Broadway play. It could be anything you're trying to do. It's very inspirational. Yes. And so you've given people a real gift here. Oh, that's very kind. I like that. I'm glad that's so because I do think it's a process and all the miracle.
Yeah. Let's end with just explaining our shirts. Indeed. You want to explain these? Well, this shirt, so to raise money for Statue for Terry Jones. And they're going to build a statue for him on the promenade in Wales, where he comes from Colwyn Bay. And they're raising money on a go for fun, me, basis, and so we're here promoting. I think there should be a statue to Terry Jones. I think this is a lovely idea. And we're hoping it will be the new organist, but we're not sure.
And you said it was a go fun, me, is that correct? It's a go fun, me, yes. It is. So people can just, well, they can see Google. Yeah. Very nicely done, sir. Eric Guidal, go forth and do good works. Thank you. And then always enjoy the talk here. On an episode not too long ago, we talked about your grandma mod. Mody, right? Yeah. Yes, this would be my mother's mother, Ruth Reardon. And yet, for reasons we didn't know when we were kids, everyone.
We all called her Mody, and then I asked her once, why do we call you Mody? And she said that there was a cartoon strip back maybe even before the turn of the century or at the turn of the century. I believe she was born in 1890. And she was in a playground and some kids were harassing her, teasing her. And so she kicked at them. And they started calling her Mody, Mody because there was a well-known cartoon at the time about, I don't know if it's a mule or a horse that kicked people.
Oh my God. Here it is. And this is the mule or the horse kicking someone right there. And her name was mod. And her name was mod. This is it. Oh my God, I'm trying to see what the date is on this. That would be cool to know. I can't see. I can't make up the date. I thought it said 1904 somewhere, but that'd be too late. No, I don't think so. You can still kick people when you're 14. This is really cool. This is her classmates sound like dicks. Well, don't they? I mean, kids don't change.
I know, but they were bugging her so much that she needed to kick them. And then they started calling her a kicking mule. Well, yeah, but it's not like the name stuck and her grandchildren ended up using it. Oh no, this is so cool. This is a good. There's a guy who gets kicked by a mule. He's angry. So he takes the mule. He says, I'll fix this pesky critter. He ties the mule up. The mule kicks some more people. It's kicking automobiles. It's kicking everybody.
And then the people realize that the owner's the one that caused all this problem. So they go and they kick him. And the mule then gets to laugh at the owner who just got kicked. He ha. Oh, and by the way, you can see this. Just go to atteamcoco.com podcasts on Instagram. My question is, did they do the same bit every week? I don't know. Many of these cartoon strips, did they do? At least this is a cartoon strip that's acceptable today.
If you look at a lot of cartoon strips from the turn of the century, they would not pass muster anymore. They're incredibly effective. You find out that mule's politics. Wow. This is an America first mule. What's closed? This is a closed border mule. This is so cool to see this to think that my grandmother would have seen this. It does say to be continued next Sunday. Yep. So that there's a whole story. Yeah, I think this, my guess is this mule just keeps on kicking people.
I know you're real info about it. And her name was mod. He's the name of the strip is a comic strip by Fredrick Burr Opera. It first appeared in the Hearst newspapers on July 24th, 1904. That's it. Oh, they're rest of the stuff. Can I just say, Adam, you approached the mic. Like, I've just got some news. The Hindenburg has exploded at Lake Kurs, New Jersey. All those have been lost. Even you seem surprised by your own lack of information. This is the last thing that I thought was about.
My name is mod in 1904. Newspapers. All those cursed papers. No, it probably does have some politics. Yeah. Well, this is, I don't know. I love that kind of connection to just, I mean, first of all, this is as I've spoken about before. I loved my grandmother. And after my grandfather passed, she lived with us for a while. And she, yes, she was this amazing link to the late 19th early 20th century. And I remembered her telling me it was once a New Year's day.
And she told me she had a very clear memory of New York City because she was staying with relatives in New York City in 1900 on New Year's Day. And she was describing it. She was describing the characters going by how cold it was, the snow. She said, I can see it right now, like perfectly. And I thought, I'm always fascinated by time travel, that concept that you can have a human connection to somebody.
I don't know if you had this with because I know Sony, you lived with, oh my, yeah, my grandparents, yeah, yeah, they both lived into their 90s. Into their 90s. Yeah. And they came from, they came from Istanbul. Yeah. And I mean, my grandpa started, he was a butcher when he was 12. Like, he just put him to work really early. So it's like the idea that you were trusting a 12 year old with slaughtering animals is just feels like a completely different world.
But also just the fact that then they come to this country and they're living with you. And it's, you're going out to in and out to grab a burger. Yeah. And whatever else you're up to, it's just this amazing clash of cultures. I find that stuff fascinating. Well, my great grandma also lived with us. And she was old a shit. She was really old. You don't say old as shit. She was really, really old. And I remember she was this old, wrinkly lady. And I was really young. I was maybe like 10.
And my mom's like, she's going to sleep in your room. And I, that it, from then on, I was terrified of the dark because I thought she was like an old witch lady. And she was just like, when you say she was, what did you say, old as shit? Yeah. How old is old as shit? She was, I mean, when I was 10, she was like 95. Because there are young comedians out there that now see me and go, you're old as shit. So it's all relative. That's why I was 10 and she was 60.
No, no, seriously, how old do you think she was? She was 95. Yeah. But she was like an old wrinkly lady. And I was young and I was like, why is this old person in my room? And I got terrified of the dark. You're talking an awful grandchild. I was really bad. I love this. Like, old and wrinkled. Why is that in my room? I have, we did something else. I don't want to, I should, I have to. Well, we got it now. It is really bad. So she had a son who passed away that no one told her passed away.
And then my uncle, who was still in Istanbul. And we'd hold up two fingers and be like, menzie, touch, you know, touch one of them. And we would, she would touch them and be like, oh, that's, you know, bejua daidae, who was my uncle. And she'd just instantly start crying. And we thought it was so funny. Wait, her estate was happening here. Because we kept reminding her of these people she hadn't seen in a long time. And we'd instantly make her cry.
And Danny and I were like, let's go make menzie cry. Whoa. Oh my God. You're a monster. You're a sociopath. How is that? We were just fascinated with her instant, like sadness. I agree. You're the true sociopath, but it's you. No, it was me. No, no, no, I, to be fair, I did it to my grandmother, Motti too. I used to go to remember that, that, that loved one, the parish. It was fun. We used to call it, it was the old fun, it we called it the parish game.
Hey, let's go play parish and we go into Motti's room. Remember the one you loved who parish? Look at them waterworks. You're an awful, awful person. No joke, that was really bad. Yeah, you're bad. We would make her laugh just for fun. All right, well listen, let's have some good compliments. We would make her cry just for fun. Yeah, no, no, yes. Let's have some good come out of this.
If you're listening right now and you're tempted to go mock a very, very old relative by reminding them of someone they lost long ago, think twice. Yeah, that's a little word from Conor Brian, needs a friend. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Sessian and Mack Gourley, produced by me, Mack Gourley, executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and Nick Leo, theme song by the white stripes, incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Make it away, Jimmy.
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