Pre-Python Film Rescued

In a mix-up that could easily have been described in a Monty Python sketch, episodes from Michael Palin and Terry Jones's "The Complete and Utter History of Britain" have been found by the British Film Institute's Missing Believed Wiped effort. The intrepid folks at MBW track down footage from eras when archival of film was prohibitively expensive, so many shows were erased after transmission. Why didn't they just upload to BitTorrent?

"The Complete and Utter History of Britain" was a sketch comedy by Palin and Jones, who collaborated before joining Monty Python. The show, which presented historical events like the Battle Of Hastings as live news, is a sort of Rosetta Stone of sketch comedy, providing a definite chronological link between The Goon Show and The Daily Show. This major discovery is just as if Aristotle's Poetics of Comedy had been discovered, and had been funny, and Aristotle had long hair and a wacky accent.

In addition to the three episodes discovered recently, another has been unearthed. It had been misfiled. It is hoped that the parties responsible for the misfile have been sacked.

Messrs. Jones and Palin will be introducing the show at a special event hosted by the British Film Institute on June 25th.

[Via Dead-Frog]