… according to a story in the online UK Telegraph, December 10, 2006: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/nbbc10.xml
Well it IS. So is the evening news. But the Flying Circus is much, much funnier than the evening news.
Consider the times. 
Bunch of stuffed shirt businessmen, probably IBM clones in white shirts and ties. It’s a wonder the show got on the air at all. Can’t we have some nice sensible music? Like Lawrence Welk.
I say it wasn’t sadistic and disgusting enough! Matter of fact, it was much too silly! Now, I enjoy a good laugh as much as anyone… except perhaps my wife. And some of her friends. Oh, and Captain Johnson.
Come to think of it, most people like a good laugh more than I do, but I insist that Monty Python wasn’t sadistic and disgusting enough.
Fortunately, the BBC’s attitude toward Python improved considerably once the penguins took over.
I’ll not hijack this thread for a pound.
The people at the BBC who thought that Python was sadistic and disgusting have been sacked.
How exactly is this news? Every bit of writing about the Pythons for the past 35+ years has said this in great detail.
Flash. Secret papers from the NASA archives reveals that a team of astronauts has been sent to the moon. Further word awaited.
I think we have an “eater”!
David Attenborough was controller of BBC2 at the time and, as such, gave Python final approval.
(Shamless plug follows)
Another reason to vote for him as greatest living British icon. 
No one ever expects the penguins!
Oh, *intercourse * the penguins!
Perhaps Cleese’s and Jones’ portrayals of stuffed shirts was partly inspired by their travails at Television House?
There is no cannibalism at the BBC, absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount.
I’m sadistic and disgusting, and so is my wife.
From the Telegraph link:
‘…The Undertaker’s Sketch, starring Cleese as a man unsure of how to dispose of his mother’s body, were considered unacceptable.
In the second skit, an undertaker, played by Graham Chapman, tells Cleese’s character: “We can bury her, burn her or dump her.” It ends with Chapman offering to eat the corpse.’
No, no! As I recall, it ended when Chapman offered to first eat the cremated ashes, then throw up into the grave!
At this point the studio audience invaded the set and the series finished.
The people responsible for the sacking have been sacked.
Yes, but that was a hoax.
It’s sadistic and disgusting—very sadistic and disgusting indeed. Started off as a nice little idea about old ladies attacking fit young men, but now it’s just got sadistic and disgusting … Right. Now let’s see something decent and military—some precision drilling …
Oh? And what would you raaaaather be doing? What would you rather be doing than marching up and down the square?
Riiight! It has come to our attention that this thread has become altogether too silly. I’ll have to ask for all of you to move along now. That’s it; just move along, move along now; you too, sir, move along now…
A penguin once bit my sister…