The world has lost one of its finest minds, a brilliant man who was also a comedy genius. Scholar, historian, writer, director and founding member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Terry Jones, has died at age 77 from an advanced and rare form of dementia.
Lots of geeky kids like me grew up watching Jones on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Through the mid 1970s, I enjoyed the American version of the British program on my family’s Zenith color console TV tuned to the local PBS station in Minneapolis. Monty Python and the Flying Circus used to air around the dinner hour and I would test the patience of my parents by lingering in front of the set for one last comedy sketch before ever more insistently being called to the dinner table. One of my teenage memories is of my late father yelling at me to “turn off that English crap and get your butt in here.” My Dad once watched part of an episode with me and forever afterward claimed that it was the singularly dumbest thing ever broadcast on the tube. I loved my Dad but he was wrong. Jones and Python produced some of my favorite moments on television.
So, bring up the body cart and “bring out your dead.” This Python cast member is really dead this time. Thanks for the laughs, Terry.
Photo Courtesy of Monty Python YouTube
My Father Hated Terry Jones and Monty Python
Jan 22, 2020 | 10:31 AM
