Monty Python Live! shows (minus the animation and Neil Innes songs), alongside a selection of lesser performed sketches plus some new comedy pieces written specially for the book. Monty Python Live! Monty Python Live! is a book detailing the various live performances of the Monty Python team between 1971 and 1980. Edited by Eric Idle, the book was released in 2009 as part of the team’s 40th anniversary celebrations and features recollections from surviving members John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, alongside archive interviews with Graham Chapman. Also contributing are Python regulars Carol Cleveland and Neil Innes, promoter
Monty Python performers collaborated with their stunts to perform a combined set of acts. Differing, somewhat confusing accounts are given of the origins of the Python name, although the members agree that its only "significance" was that they thought it sounded funny. In the 1998 documentary "Live at Aspen" during the US Comedy Arts Festival, where the troupe was awarded the AFI Star Award by the American Film Institute, the group implied that "Monty" was selected (Eric Idle's idea) as a gently mocking tribute to Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, a legendary British general of World War II; requiring a "slippery-sounding" surname, they