Eric Idle may sue Shrek
comedian furious after DreamWorks stole jokes for animated movie
May 21, 2007
(Source: www.thestar.com)
Thirty seconds after the movie started, comedy legend Eric Idle stormed out of Shrek the Third's premiere.
The reason? The producers of Shrek the Third had grabbed the coconut gag from the 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail and inserted it into their flick. Idle performed several roles in that movie, when he was part of the legendary comedy troupe, and later adapted it for the Broadway stage as the hit musical Spamalot.
“So many people love the coconut gag from Monty Python – it’s of course a radio joke," Idle, who is turning 64 at the end of this month, said in an interview with radio station Mix 99.9 FM. “It’s been stolen patently by Shrek the Third. I’m happy to say – so we’ll be able to sue their asses.”
In the first sequence of Shrek the Third, Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) is acting out his fantasy of killing Shrek on a dinner theatre stage. He is shown to be riding a hobby horse while a stagehand bangs two coconut halves together to make the clopping sound. It's a gag directly taken from an early sequence in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
“No, I mean it’s like there it is in the first 30 seconds," he said. "You go: wait a minute, John (fellow Monty Python alumnus John Cleese) and I are in this film and you steal our joke?"
Idle voices the role of Merlin the Magician in Shrek the Third, but producers didn't tell him that they were using some of his jokes in the flick. John Cleese voices the role of the frog King Harold in the movie.
“Um, I don’t know how the (other surviving members of the Monty Python troupe) are going to take to this," Idle also said. "I hope they (Dreamworks Animation) cleared it with them – and they also steal from Spamalot, you know."
When asked if it could be seen as an homage to Idle and Cleese's work with the Pythons, Idle snapped back: “Do you think if I stole your wallet that’d be homage to your money?"
He continues, “You see they neglected to tell us – so the first I saw it was in the premiere – and I was shocked – my whole family went, ‘What? How dare you!’ “So I walked out – calmed down – and walked back in, but I was shocked and I think if you steal people's jokes, I don’t think that’s homage, I think that’s theft.”
Eric Idle, along with John Cleese, the late Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, starred in the British comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus from 1969 to 1974. In 1975, the Pythons reunited to make the classic films Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.
After quitting the Pythons, Idle made the movie The Rutles (a spoof of The Beatles, partially financed by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison). He worked with Terry Gilliam on 1989's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and with Robbie Coltrane on 1990's Nuns on the Run.
In 2005, after getting permission from the surviving Pythons (Chapman died of cancer in 1989), Idle adapted Holy Grail into the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Spamalot.
 |
