Look, we all had a lot of hope that 2020 would be the year that things got better. Then things, uh, didn’t.
Then Terry Jones just had to go and pile on the misery by having the gall to seize up. Three weeks on and bam, no more. He has ceased to be.
And that SUCKS!
In all clarity, Terry Jones was one of the legendary members of the Monty Python comedy troupe. In other words, he was part of quite possibly the most important thing to emerge from the UK, my ancestors aside. The man’s body of work spans a half-century and is full of pop culture gold, for gods sake!
And now he is being far too quiet. Forever. Damn it.
The man laughed his way through his life, so I will honor him by continuing to make tasteless jokes at his expense. What follows is a selective, and increasingly exaggerated, accounting of his life.
A LEGEND IS BORN
Jones was born in 1942 in Wales to Dilys and Alick Jones. Our hero, and presumably his amusingly-named parents, moved to Surrey a few years later. Several boring school-related years later, he would meet Michael Palin. Together they would begin the groundwork that would lead to global domination.
He dove head-first into television on shows such as Twice a Fortnight, Do Not Adjust Your Set, and The Complete and Utter History of Britain in the late sixties.
Then God spake, saying “May the giant foot be upon thee.” Jones had no bloody idea what this meant, as he was still mostly intact at the time. However, he still managed to co-create Monty Python’s Flying Circus with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, and several other people, this article can’t go on forever.
Thus, Voltron was formed. The tour de force that was Monty Python, or Monty Python for short, would go on to devastate the British — and to a lesser extent, the American — countryside for the next several years.
Unable to contain their power to the small, rectangular glass tubes, the comedy troupe erupted onto the big screen with classics such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and The Meaning of Life, and it was all Jones’ fault. Okay, well maybe not all his fault, but he did write, act in, and direct those films so let’s keep things in perspective.
Unable to cage these immense powers that made him feel funny in an uncomfortable place, he launched a multi-tiered war on common sense and human decency. I mean, honestly. The man had the gall to write a number of books, act in numerous shows and movies, write numerous shows and movies…
Okay, wait.
This man quite clearly should have been stopped long ago. Who allowed this gargantuan man of immense talent to even… and I mean he is gargantuan. Honestly, he just kept growing, upward, not outward, save for that one time. Eight-foot-nine when the Lord finally smacked him down.
There he was, just stealing all the glory. It was a tolerable theft, though. The kind of thing that whoops, there it is, I’ve grown used to it, now. This went on for some time.
Probably sensing that his power had grown too great for mere mortals, Jones went from working on several projects to just many in the early 2000’s. Then things went all sideways in 2014.
He re-formed Voltron with those other people in that Monty Python thing for Monty Python Live(Mostly). The Great Hidden Prophecy, sensing a resurgence in his latent abilities, set forth to silence him once and for all. Unfortunately, the plan was to all-too literally silence him.
In all(mostly)seriousness(mostly,) Terry Jones was diagnosed the next year with primary progressive aphasia. This form of dementia was Jones’ kryptonite, slowly robbing him of the ability to communicate.
He continued to make people laugh and smile through other unique styles of communication, including but not limited to: funny faces, flatulence, sock puppets, interpretive dance, and excessive blinking.
Finally, and most likely due to exhaustion from all that excessive blinking, Jones’ weary soul had enough and called it quits on 21 January, 2020. Now free of the shackles of icky humanity, only the gods know how his powers will swell. The very universe will quake in awe at the newest god to wade in its waters.
Have mercy on us, neogod Terry Jones. We didn’t know.
WE DIDN’T KNOW…
1 February, 1942 – The End of Time