He co-wrote Ripping Yarns with Palin, and wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth ( 1986 ), although his draft went through several rewrites and several other writers before being filmed ; much of the finished film wasn't written by Jones at all.

Basingstoke is mentioned briefly in a Monty Python sketch where Michael Palin is in the midst of hi-jacking a plane when the pilot ( John Cleese ) suggest he could drop him off at a " haystack just outside Basingstoke ", the footage of Palin falling into the haystack and getting onto a coach is actually filmed on the outskirts of Basingstoke.

In 2008, a Pakistani religious leader issued a fatwā on President Asif Ali Zardari for " indecent gestures " toward Sarah Palin, U. S. Vice Presidential candidate.

In 1978, Chapman co-wrote ( with Bernard McKenna ) and starred in The Odd Job alongside David Jason who had previously appeared on Do Not Adjust Your Set with Idle, Jones, and Palin.

He also provided the narration for a video biography of Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, that appeared on McCain's campaign website.

The Knights are led by a man who is approximately 12 feet tall with disproportionately short arms and reindeer antlers inserted into his helmet ( played by Michael Palin standing on a ladder ; the original screenplay suggested that he be played by " Mike standing on John's shoulders ").

Shortly after the film was released, Cleese and Palin engaged in what would become a notorious debate on the BBC2 discussion programme Friday Night, Saturday Morning, in which Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Southwark, put the case against the film.

Michael Palin says that the various separatist movements were modelled on " modern resistance groups, all with obscure acronyms which they can never remember and their conflicting agendas ".

The " Pythonesque " film explored the events surrounding the 1979 television debate on talk show Friday Night, Saturday Morning between John Cleese and Michael Palin and Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, the then Bishop of Southwark.

The sketch portrays a conflict between disgruntled customer Mr Praline ( played by Cleese ) and a shopkeeper ( Michael Palin ), who hold contradictory positions on the vital state of a " Norwegian Blue " parrot.

That sketch was based on an actual incident between Palin and a car salesman .< ref > In Monty Python Live at Aspen, Palin said that this salesman " had an excuse for everything.

" In an interview on NPR's Fresh Air, Palin attributed an almost dead audience to his seeing guests reverently mouthing the words of the sketch, rather than laughing at it.

In his published Diary, Michael Palin recalls that during the filming of Monty Python's Life of Brian in Tunisia, Spike Milligan ( who happened to be there on holiday ) regaled the Pythons with his own version of the Dead Parrot sketch, but changed " Norwegian Blue " to " Arctic Grey ".

In a 2002 interview with Michael Parkinson, John Cleese said that when he and Palin were performing the sketch on Drury Lane, Palin made him laugh by saying, when asked if his slug could talk, " It mutters a bit " instead of " Not really.

" He also says that when he and Palin were asked to do the sketch for Saturday Night Live, they sat down together to try to remember the lines, and when they got stuck they considered just going out and stopping somebody on the street to ask how it went, since everybody seemed to have it memorised.

After finishing university in 1965 Palin became a presenter on a comedy pop show called Now!

Following The Frost Report the Palin / Jones team worked both as actors and writers on the show Twice a Fortnight with Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, and the successful children's comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set with Idle and David Jason.

After the Monty Python television series ended in 1974, the Palin / Jones team worked on Ripping Yarns, an intermittent television comedy series broadcast over three years from 1976.

Palin also appeared in All You Need Is Cash ( 1978 ) as Eric Manchester ( based on Derek Taylor ), the press agent for the Rutles.

After filming for Fierce Creatures finished, Palin went on a travel journey for a BBC documentary and, returning a year later, found that the end of Fierce Creatures had failed at test screenings and had to be reshot.

* Full Circle with Michael Palin ( Travel 1996 / 97 ; Programme release 1997 ): in which he circumnavigated the lands around the Pacific Ocean anti-clockwise ; a journey of almost 50, 000 miles ( 80, 000 km ) starting on Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait and taking him through Asia, Oceania and the Americas.

In recent years, Palin has written and presented occasional documentary programmes on artists that interest him.

The first, on Scottish painter Anne Redpath, was Palin on Redpath in 1997.

Palin travelled through the following countries by foot, train, ship, balloon, and husky dog, amongst other methods of transport: United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, India, Singapore, the People's Republic of China, Japan, and the United States.

In 1969, Chapman and Cleese joined the other Pythons including Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin for their sketch comedy show Flying Circus.

In Monty Python Live at Aspen, Cleese said that the original idea came from a man Palin bought a car from, who had endless excuses for everything that went wrong with it.

In the DVD commentary for the film, Michael Palin says that their use of the word was derived from The Goon Show.

Over the years, Cleese and Palin have done many versions of the " Dead Parrot " sketch for various television shows, record albums, and live performances.

On the Rhino Records ' compilation Dead Parrot Society, a live performance has Palin cracking up while Cleese declares " Pining for the fjords?

Later in that episode during the " Police Constable Pan Am Sketch ", the policeman tells a chemist " one more peep out of you and I'll do you for heresy ", with the chemist ( played by Palin ) responding that he " didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition "; except that instead of the Spanish Inquisition arriving, PC Pan Am ( played by Graham Chapman ) simply tells the chemist to shut up.

Michael Edward Palin, CBE, FRGS ( pronounced ; born 5 May 1943 ) is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries.

In 2000 Palin was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) for his services to television.

At the same time Palin was contacted by Jones, who had left university a year earlier, for assistance in writing a theatrical documentary about sex through the ages.

Although this project was eventually abandoned, it brought Palin and Jones together as a writing duo and led them to write comedy for various BBC programmes, such as The Ken Dodd Show, The Billy Cotton Bandshow, and The Illustrated Weekly Hudd.

The Palin / Jones team were reunited for The Complete and Utter History of Britain.

In 1994, Palin travelled through Ireland for the same series, entitled " Derry to Kerry ".

Starting in 1989, Palin appeared as presenter in a series of travel programmes made for the BBC.

Palin's travel programmes are responsible for a phenomenon termed the " Palin effect ": areas of the world that he has visited suddenly become popular tourist attractions – for example, the significant increase in the number of tourists interested in Peru after Palin visited Machu Picchu.

Following each trip, Palin wrote a book about his travels, providing information and insights not included in the TV programme.

The DVD Michael Palin on Art contains all these documentaries except for the Matisse programme.

In 1992 when Palin and the BBC were planning to make a new travel programme, Pole to Pole, they decided that it would be a good idea to have a full-time stills photographer on the team, and that Pao was a top candidate for the job.

The Bonzo Dog Band was called the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band at the time and appeared regularly on Do Not Adjust Your Set-a so-called children's programme that also featured Michael Palin, and other later famous comics.

The programme starts out with Palin sitting on a beach reading a novel of Hemingway.