That said Flying Circus fans are obviously the intended audience and whoever watched and loved it should also be able to enjoy the Big Red Book (alternatively those who didn't like, won't like). A similar level of meticulousness went into the Party Political Manifesto for The Silly Party, which came as an insert. Riffs on adverts were also a staple. ‘There was an ad for the Whizzo Chocolate Assortment,’ says Hepburn, ‘which was a pretty close parody of Cadbury’s advertising, except that these particular chocolates were made of steel bolts that spring out when you bit into them.’ Fake ads were nothing new – Mad magazine had made them a trademark – but rarely had they been done with such relish. There would be other books, but none was as iconic. The Pythons went on to do adaptations of their films ( Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Meaning of Life), while rivals tried to imitate their success – the lamentable Goodies book was an object lesson in how not to do it. But for the most part, it was a case of ‘and now for something completely the same’, and by the time alternative comedy came along in the late 1970s the formula was definitely looking past-it. Only the Viz volumes in the 1980s and 90s managed to revive some of that early comedic punch (Michael Palin sent Viz a note of congratulation, saying, ‘Your organ has given me greater pleasure than my own’ 2).

Derek Birdsall and Katy Hepburn were responsible for the graphic design and layout, incorporating many of Gilliam's illustrations. The Pythons (under the editorial stewardship of Eric Idle) produced a few books tied in to their TV shows and films, pioneering this category of publication. Of all their releases ‘Brand New Papperbok’ is probably the most successful as it replicates much of the stylistic sabotage that the Pythons applied to other media. Just as they deconstructed the rules of sketch comedy TV, or as per ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ film’s conventions, with ‘...Papperbok’ the accepted form of a book is disrupted Brand New Bok and Papperbok went on to imitate the success of Monty Python’s Big Red Book and sold in their hundreds of thousands (publishers Methuen can’t say exactly how many because, they say, they’ve ‘ditched the files’). They marked a watershed in a sense, because Papperbok was published in the same year that the television show came off the air. Thereafter, Monty Python would make the transition from cult act to (bigger budget) movies, and becoming megastars in the States. By the time this transformation was complete, the word ‘postmodernism’ had come into common parlance, and the Bok had all but been forgotten.The Big Red Book is technically a TV tie-in and does contain material that appeared in the earlier episodes of Flying Circus, but there is more than enough original material to ensure it's not just repetition for those who have the script books. The entire team took the opportunity to use ideas which only worked in print and the results are worthy of the Python name. Eric Idle acted as editor and there's a lot of his wordy style although Palin's hand is clearly at work in a lot of places and Gilliam is given free reign to return to his comic book days as he provides the visual style. For a lot of us growing up post-Python but pre-netflix (or even DVD's), the books were an essential part of python. They were accessible and could be read over and over again. Except for one item about holidays (travel agency sketch) everything in this book is original, with a few shout-outs to some of the better known sketches. Photography – Doug Webb, BBC News Picture Library, The Radio Times, Hulton Picture Library, John Horton, Tony Sullivan The book contains some stills of footage shot for And Now For Something Completely Different but not used, including "Ken Shabby" and "Le Pouff Celebre/Flying Sheep".

Katy Hepburn and Derek Birdsall’s work for the Python boks was featured in ‘Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design Since the Sixties’ at the Barbican, London. So now, Python print has made it into the Barbican, 3 and the very idea of a ‘Christmas book market’ sends shudders down the spines of right-thinking people. Perhaps, in this post-catchphrase, post-postmodern era of Internet-based satire, the time has finally come to close down the Ministry of Silly Books.There were a lot of them being published at the time, and they were ripe for a bashing,’ says Hepburn. ‘Again, we wanted to be as accurate as possible, so a lot of time was spent on the cover, for example.’ (Which includes the teasers: ‘Short Story: The Deodorant, by Constance MacPseudonym’ and ‘Grand Competition: Win a Thousand Deodorants’, etc.) She continues: ‘Then inside, we commissioned Peter Brookes to do a semi-realistic illustration, to accompany a preposterous romantic story, so that the magazine would seem more authentic, and also so the book wouldn’t look too uniform, like it was all Terry’s work.’