Monty Python Was the Beatles of Comedy and Vice Versa
Fifty years ago, were the Fab Four reincarnated as Monty Python? George Harrison thought so — and he may have been onto something
On September 26, 1969, 50 years ago today, the Beatles released their final album, Abbey Road. It featured music inspired by Chuck Berry and Fleetwood Mac and Beethoven, a bizarre new instrument called the Moog synthesizer, insect sounds and wind chimes and a clanging anvil, faux-Spanish nonsense lyrics, rolling waves of white noise, and characters including a homicidal medical student and a gardening octopus.
A little more than a week later, on Sunday, October 5, Monty Python’s Flying Circus premiered on BBC1. It featured a scraggly man emerging out of the English Channel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart presenting famous deaths, Pablo Picasso on a bike and Toulouse-Lautrec on a tricycle, a goose-stepping Nazi, and Adolf Hitler regaling a rally with a corny joke. At least one Beatle was watching intently.
Mostly, though, it’s fun to think about the Beatles working on “Something” on the same day the Pythons were filming a man getting hit over the head with a raw chicken.
