Terry Jones Biography

Fast Facts

• Often published others works outside of television including novels, editorial pieces, poems as well as songs
• Met future Python partner Michael Palin while studying at Oxford at The Comedy Revue, the school's comedy group
• Quote: "One of the things we tried to do with ['Monty Python'] was to try and do something that was so unpredictable that it had no shape and you could never say what kind of humor it was․ And I think that the fact that 'Pythonesque' is now a word in the Oxford English Dictionary shows the extent to which we failed․"
• Quote: "Comedy is a dangerous business․ If people find something funny you're OK․ But the moment you do something that's meant to be funny and someone doesn't find it funny, they become angry․"
• He is often credited for the format in which "Monty Python" refreshed the current television style of editing which abandoned punch lines before every break and encouraged fluid movement into multiple sketches
• Took at directing early on in his career and began by co-directing "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" along with Terry Gilliam in 1975
• Often need to wear lifts while performing alongside fellow Python members, as he was the shortest at 5'8"
• Wrote numerous articles for British newspapers condemning the Iraqi War and moving to impeach then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, which would eventually be compiled into a book titled, Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror
• Diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2006 but received a relatively good report following exploratory surgery later that year