Eric Idle--This "Greedy Bastard" Gets Around

I don't know if Eric Idle is my favorite Python performer. I used to say my favorite was John Cleese. I was going to write this next blog about the alarmingly-talented Mr. Cleese. After all, he's taller than the other Montys and taller people tend to stand out a bit more.

But Cleese, despite some of the good work he has done, and the clear path he had to become the Icon of the group in films and/or television, seems to be a writer/performer who wants to leave his fans with less and less --certainly after the fun of "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988). After that film, he sort of flamed out on major comedy projects and took to writing psychology books and appearing for speaking engagements at business seminars in Chicago like he was Tony Robbins or Henry Kissinger or something. In movies, he's the "Kng of the Cameos", appearing in small roles consuming a few days work and doing animated films where little of his creative energies seemed to be in danger of being utilized. So I'm a bit cheesed at Cleese and I've written too much about him for free and so now...

It's Eric Idle who gets the call first. Maybe I wouldn't have picked him, but he has been the most prolific of the group in this decade. I also just read his book, "The Greedy Bastard Tour" and its basically a three month diary of his One-Python and Others show he did across Canada and the United States.

I missed the show--it didn't come within a couple hundred miles of where I live and by the time I was aware of it it was over and gone, so I blew it. But I think the book is full of funny and witty material and Idle is a modern James Boswell, writing about himself and others along the tour in a way that makes you sorry you missedthe show but, after reading the book, also makes you feel you got the next best thing. (see example below)

"Incidentally, did you know that the first draft of the Canadian national anthem, 'Oh, Canada', was originally "O, Sorry"?

Besides the tour, he wrote the Tony-award winning musical, "Spamalot" and wrote and directed a second film about his faux Beatles group, The Rutles, called "Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch", which the morons at Warner Bros. have yet to put on DVD. The"Spamalot" cast album is very good and Idle had the good sense to keep a couple of the original songs from the film, including the "Camelot" song, which feature s these classic lines:

We're awful mad in Camelot,

We eat ham and jam and spamalot

Which prety much sums up life in the old 20th Century, don't you agree?