Ripping Yarns

Ripping Yarns was a BBC2 satire of the old fashioned adventures tales once told to Edwardian schoolboys in the past, as seen through the thoroughly modern and warped eyes of Michael Palin and Terry Jones from 'Monty Python's Flying Circus.' The show starred Michael Palin and was full of dangerous expeditions, black magic, and dashing heroes battling vicious villains. Each episode had a new setting and characters, spoofing British Culture and the old fashioned pre-War World II boy adventure stories. Episodes revolved around the horrors of traditional English Public Schools, the boringness of bank jobs, war prisoners, murders at old manor houses, unlucky explorers hunting for frogs on tall mountains, amongst other strange and wild things. Other than Michael Palin the episodes featured such actors as Ian Ogilvy, Kenneth Colley, Roy Kinnear, Liz Smith, Iain Cuthbertson and Frank Middlemass. 'Ripping Yarns' ran for nine episodes, going from 1976 to 1979. MORE