Monty Python's Flying Circus

This special was intended to feature an original sketch, in which all the Pythons portrayed schoolchildren, with Steve Martin as their lecturer. Legend has it that the Pythons did not want the sketch to be used because none of them had been involved in writing it. Kim "Howard" Johnson, though, wrote in The First 280 Years of Monty Python (St. Martin's Press, 1999) that some of the Pythons wanted the piece in the show and were displeased that it was cut. Regardless, one more human factor probably played a part in axing the piece: Graham Chapman was too ill to participate.