And now for something completely legitimate

I've been getting into Micheal Palin's travel documentaries lately, for one because I'm a sucker for BBC documentaries, and also because I'm a sucker for Micheal Palin, being the Python freak that I am.

As often happens these days, I was looking up the series I'm in the middle of (Pole to Pole) on wikipedia for any extra information they might have. A garden path of digression led me to other post-python stuff, one of them being the 30th anniversary special that I'd only barely heard of, featuring Eddie Izzard playing the parts Eric Idle was too indignant to come play himself. And I thought, that's weird. Because I own essentially everything they've ever done, but I've never seen that.

I did another thing that has become pretty common: I went over to youtube to see if some lonely soul had uploaded the thing, or clips.

And let me say: I know this is piracy. I know it's wrong and scary for television like napster was scary for musicians. But I also know youtube has made it possible for me to watch all of the UK version of Whose Line Is It Anyway, which to my knowledge is not available on DVD in the states, certainly not through netflix or my library.

Let me also say that were I in the position to BUY the stuff I would do it in a heartbeat, because at this point I've watched series 5-10 of WLIIA several times over. I am an Extreme Dork when it comes to stuff. I want the funny, and I want ALL of it. But I am not in such position, because I am a broke self-employed illustrator. So what to do?

The Pythons themselves decided to approach the problem in this way:



Which I think is pretty brilliant, along similar lines as the various bands putting their albums up on their own websites, avoiding the labels. I don't know that it will give them any revenue, but I know that once I've seen something enough that I want to see it at weird hours when I can't get internet at my apartment, it's nice to have a hard copy. And hopefully other people will thinks so to.

So hey. Never seen any Monty Python? Maybe you should.