Nothing was sacred to "Monty Python's Flying Circus" -- and that is probably why the comedy troupe's television show became so popular.

The irreverent programme starring  John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman first aired 40 years ago in 1969.

Among Monty Python's most popular TV skits are those that mock unworkable aspects of Britain's authoritarian class structure, including its famously intractable rules, monumental political bureaucracy and befuddling misrepresentations.

After several seasons the show stopped airing in Britain, but played on in North American television re-runs.

Python members widened their scope in such Hollywood films as "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and the controversial "Life of Brian," considered blasphemous in some circles because of its comedic references to Jesus Christ.

Monty Python will receive a BAFTA at a special ceremony in New York on October 15 as a tribute to their contribution to British comedy.

Do you have a favourite Monty Python sketch?

Watch clips selected from the YouTube Monty Python channel and let us know.

They’re rolling out the red carpet in Los Angeles for television’s prime time Emmy Awards on Sunday but some experts are already predicting a winner’s line-up  in the main categories that looks much the same as last year.

That means that popular favorites like hospital drama “House”, animated comedy “Family Guy” and the “Law&Order” actress Mariska Hargitay could again lose out to shows like “Mad Men”, “Damages” star Glenn Close and the Tina Fey comedy “30 Rock”.

With the exception perhaps of “30 Rock” and the reality series category that acknowledges the mass appeal of shows like “Dancing With The Stars” and “The Amazing Race”, the Emmy awards seem to be moving away from mainstream viewing in the same way as the Oscars has done with mainstream films in recent years.

Public opinion polls are showing big differences between what the vast American public would like to see win, and the shows like “Breaking Bad” and “Little Dorritt” that are winning lots of prizes but small audiences. Yet, the Emmys are supposed to honor the best of the best, rather than the highest-rated shows and the stars that appear most on celebrity websites.

So on Sunday, will you be paying more attention to the winners on the podium, the red carpet fashion, or the entertainment which will be hosted by “How I Met Your Mother” actor Neil Patrick Harris and includes a live band for the first time since 2004, as well as a dance segment?

Which stars are you most excited about seeing? And is there anyone, in your opinion, who shouldn’t be there at all?

What's that? Jay Leno is moving to prime-time? You don't say!

Frankly, it's hard to remember the last time there was such hubbub about a TV show. It was, after all, the cover story in Time magazine. Not to be outdone, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, AP, and probably every local news outlet between New York and Hollywood had a story about the talk show host -- more often than not raising the question of whether he's going to save network TV.

(You've got to give it to the public-relations machine on this one. They really worked the story. Of course, their spinning was augmented by a huge marketing effort. Stuart Elliott of the New York Times today estimated that NBC put out more than $10 million in promoting the show).

But there is more to the fall TV season than Jay Leno. The media buyers and planners over at  RPA offer a useful road map to the season in a recent report.

Their take on the fall season is fairly upbeat (maybe network TV doesn't really need Leno to save it).

"For the first time in two years, network fortunes will not be held hostage to the industry's labor problems, but will be determined, as they used to be, by content quality and scheduling... Based on what we've seen, the overall quality of that content looks better than it has in the past two seasons," the report says.

Here, according to RPA, are some things to keep in mind heading into the season:

• The five broadcast networks will debut 21 shows, accounting for 22 percent of scheduling hours.

• Dramas and dramedies (a mix of comedy and drama) will increase from 43 percent to 48 percent of the schedule's hours. Comedies will rise from 10 percent to 17 percent.

• Not a single new fall show is a foreign co-production (which had been looking like a trend until now).

• Medicine is hot, with three hospital dramas debuting this fall and a fourth starting midseason ("Trauma," "Mercy", "Three Rivers," and "Miami Trauma").

• Paranormal is big, too. Four new shows built around that theme will land this fall ("V," "Eastwick," "Flash Forward," and "Vampire Diaries").

Oh, and Jay Leno is moving to prime-time.

German television station RTL has admitted to producing that video that emerged last month and appeared to show Michael Jackson alive and getting out of a Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office van, which spread quickly after it was posted on the Internet.

The station told U.S. news outlet CNN on Tuesday that the video was produced to show how easily rumors can spread online, such as the rumor that Jackson faked his death, used a coroner’s van as his private, incognito “taxi” service and then emerged in the bowels of a building, where he no doubt is hard at work cutting another album for later sale, Tupac-style.

Well, Jackson is definitely dead, in fact sadly his family will gather for his burial on Thursday in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale. But until then, his fans can always pretend he is alive by watching this German production. The video is below. In the meantime, do Fan Fare readers believe the German station was acting in good faith by producing this video, and claiming it was all for the good of public experimentation?

American TV fans are being offered the chance of a seat “next to some of the biggest stars in Hollywood” at the annual prime time Emmy television awards next month.

CBS, which will broadcast the Emmy ceremony live from Los Angeles on Sept. 20,  has invited fans to enter a “best seat in the house” contest by submitting a 30-second video explaining why they are “TV’s Number One Fan.”

One prize winner, over the age of 18, will attend the Emmy Awards and will be seated  among the stars for the glitzy three-hour award ceremony.

Bill Binenstock, vice president of CBS.com, said the contest was a “great way to get fans involved” in the TV industry’s biggest night.  Actor Neil Patrick Harris, star of the  TV comedy “How I Met Your Mother”, will host the ceremony, and comedy “30 Rock” and drama series “Mad Men” are expected to be  be among the big winners.

  Farrah Fawcett’s farewell message to the American public drew 8.9 million TV viewers on Friday, according to NBC, and a flood of comments on this site, many of them from well-wishers asking where they could send messages of support to the actress.

  For all those who asked and any others, we came up with an email address where such messages can be sent and hopefully passed onto Fawcett.

   The address is  inquiries@rogersandcowan.com   and if  there’s enough response maybe someone will set up a more public site where fans of Fawcett and those touched by her story can post their thoughts.

  “Farrah’s Story,” in which the former “Charlie’s Angels” actress shares the grim details of her losing battle with anal cancer, ranked as the night’s second most-watched program. Over at CBS, “Numbers” drew 9.6 million viewers. 

The two-hour special was NBC’s top entry in the time period, excluding Olympics, in more than a year, the network said, citing data from Nielsen Media Research. A week ago, a “Dateline” installment averaged 5.2 million viewers in the same 9-11 p.m. slot. 

Final data for the week ended May 17 will be released on Tuesday. If the previous week’s data are any guide, “Farrah’s Story” will rank somewhere in the 40s. Still, the show aired on a Friday, which trails only Saturday as the least-watched night on TV, according to Nielsen data for summer 2008. 

The show drew mixed critical reactions. The New York Times described it as “awful” and “exploitative.” Entertainment Weekly said it was “sometimes almost unbearable, sometimes fascinating.”
 
Fawcett, 62, narrates much of the film herself. It chronicles the highs and the lows of her numerous medical treatments since her 2006 cancer diagnosis, and the recent weeks when she has been bedridden, heavily medicated and barely able to recognize her son. 

It triggered a breach-of-contract lawsuit last week when Craig Nevius, a producer who has worked closely with Fawcett since 2004, claimed Fawcett’s companion Ryan O’Neal recut the film “from top to bottom” without his or Fawcett’s authorization. A spokesman for O’Neal and Fawcett countered that the pair were “shocked at this unconscionable act.”

Remember the “Seinfeld” episode where Kramer retrieved the set of “The Merv Griffin Show” from the trash and miraculously installed it in his apartment? 
    
Fans of the late television impresario will also be able to salvage some of Griffin’s belongings when a California auction house puts them up for sale on Sunday. Griffin’s son Tony is unloading antiquities, fine furnishings and contemporary art from his father’s three homes in California.

From humble origins as a nightclub singer and bandleader, Merv Griffin built an entertainment empire around his game shows “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune.” He also hosted his own TV talk show and invested heavily in real estate. He died of prostate cancer in 2007, aged 82.
    

Oakland, Calif.-based Clars Auction Gallery estimates the total value of the 200 lots at a minimum of $282,000. The priciest item, estimated at between $30,000 and $50,000, is a 1926 oil painting of a California harbor by landscape artist Paul Starrett Sample. A chainsaw-carved plywood and acrylic diptych by contemporary abstract artist Charles Arnoldi is estimated to fetch between $10,000 and $20,000. 
    
For lesser-heeled fans, Clars has cleaned out Griffin’s closet. Dozens of tuxedos, suits, shirts, sweaters, pants and t-shirts are on the block, starting at $100 per lot. Griffin’s numerous Emmys are not included in the sale, but a Perspex statuette dubbed the Celanese Meridian Award did make the cut, priced at a mere $100-$200. Other tchotchkes include movie posters, a photo of one of Griffin’s horses, and a life-size chimpanzee prop.
    
Clars president Redge Martin said Griffin had “exquisite” taste, and that the auction was drawing interest from Griffin’s high-powered Hollywood friends.
    
Martin said the recession seems to have had little impact on auction sales of high-end furniture, jewelry and art. “There’s still a lot of money out there,” he said.

John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” is an unlikely choice for an advertising jingle. With future murderer Phil Spector manning the boards, the angry ex-Beatle wasted no time warning listeners, “You better get yourself together, Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead.” Which in fact Lennon was a decade later.
    
Cut to 2009, and Chase has dusted off the song for an advertising campaign, but it has focused on the shiny, happy chorus, “Well we all shine on, Like the moon and the stars and the sun, Well we all shine on…” 
    
That’s not Lennon singing on the new version, by the way. Instead Chase went edgy with British goth singer Peter Murphy, who used to front Bauhaus, a rock group famed for the song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” and for inspiring Nine Inch Nails. Cindy Mizelle, who once toured with Mick Jagger, does the backing vocals.
    
The spot heralds Chase’s arrival in California following the purchase last fall of Washington Mutual’s banking operations by its JPMorgan Chase parent. The black-and-white clip depicts such outdoor pursuits as surfing, swimming and ballooning, and a biker couple riding off into the sunset.
    
“This spot heralds a bright new day and so we chose a song that is upbeat, well known and classic,” a Chase spokesman said in an email. “‘Instant Karma’ is an iconic song and the chorus, ‘We all shine on’, reinforces an emotional connection with the brand but also demonstrates that ‘we’re going to get through these trying times together.’”
    
The spokesman declined to discuss financial terms, and a spokesman for Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, did not return an email seeking comment.
    
Murphy recorded the song in full, and hopes it will see the light of day, said David Baron, who produced and arranged the tune with Murphy at a converted church in Woodstock, New York.
    
“Peter is currently working out the details for the new record and the final tracks have not been decided on,” Baron said. “Peter would like to release Instant Karma in some fashion so I am sure it will surface.”
    
Murphy does not appear in the Chase ad, but he can be seen as “the Blown Away Guy” in a 1980s British ad for Maxell cassettes.

(Peter Murphy photo credit: Koray Birand)

The eighth season of “American Idol” kicked off on Tuesday night, bringing back all the hijinks viewers have come to expect from the world’s most popular reality talent show.

The huddled masses of singers yearning to be the next Kelly Clarkson or Chris Daughtry came out to a sweltering Phoenix, Arizona, where the now four celebrity judges either cooed over or mocked them as only “Idol” judges can.

The new judge, Kara DioGuardi, even got into a singing faceoff with one of the contestants, a woman named Katrina Darrell who showed up in a string bikini, delighting male judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson and earning the scorn of DioGuardi and Paula Abdul. It’s unlikely that DioGuardi would have put her own singing pipes to work in an effort to show Darrell how it’s done, if not for the teeny weeny bikini.

“Honestly, you don’t have the chops to sing that song,” DioGuardi told the contestant, who the show dubbed “Bikini Girl.”

Bikini Girl responded by telling DioGuardi, “Your demonstration wasn’t any better.”

That set off a verbal battle between Bikini Girl and the two female judges, but in the end Darrell and her bikini made it through to the critical Hollywood round.

On a more upbeat note, 23-year-old legally blind singer Scott MacIntyre also advanced to the next round, wowing all four of the judges with his version of Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes.” MacIntyre is not only a talented singer, he told the judges that he started college at Arizona State University at age 14 and graduated at 19. Now he can add national TV exposure to his resume.

When MacIntyre walked out after his audition, show host Ryan Seacrest tried to give him a high-five, to Seacrest’s embarrassment since the contestant could not see the raised hand.

Despite the recent suicide of one spurned “Idol” contestant, the judges did not spare their criticism of the singers they deemed not yet ready for primetime. One singer named Michael had trouble raising his voice above a dull croak. In response, Cowell told him, “You could have been singing in Bulgarian, I couldn’t understand a word of that.”

Critics have said that “American Idol” too often exploits the failures of its try-out contestants. That became a major story in November when a woman named Paula Goodspeed who tried out for “American Idol” in 2005, killed herself from a drug overdose in front of Abdul’s home. Goodspeed apparently had a longstanding obsession with Abdul, and when she tried out in 2005 she brought along drawings she had made of the pop star.

On Tuesday’s premiere, none of the contestants seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with the judges, although one teen gushed that she was DioGuardi’s biggest fan. And there was plenty of naked ambition, and in the case of Bikini Girl — almost naked ambition.

Despite the hype around “Idol,” 10 percent fewer viewers tuned in for the season premiere last night. Could they have been put off by the idea of a fourth judge, or the promise of a kinder, gentler “Idol?”

 What did you think of the premiere?

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Top 10 lists can cover just about anything these days — best movie presidents, most influential men and Hollywood catchphrases are just some of the more unusual we’ve seen recently.

So it doesn’t seem fair to leave out television’s Top Dogs, especially when Charlie Brown’s sidekick beagle  Snoopy takes top billing in a list compiled by TV Guide this week.

Lassie, the faithful star of 20 seasons on television and countless film incarnations, took second place, while Jack Russell terrier Eddie of “Frasier” fame bounded in third.

Every dog must have its day, and for these pooches it’s the Oct 23 edition of TV Guide.