Another Python has joined the heavenly choir and etc., making this a day on the one hand sadder than most others, and on the other hand just a bit funnier, since what can one do with such news but laugh remembering a comic genius?

Not only was he the stealth funnyman lurking among the more flashy likes of Cleese and Palin and the single greatest Python of them all, Graham Chapman, he also directed their three movies (with an assist from Gilliam on Grail). Which is to say, just with Life of Brian alone, he directed one of the greatest, and ballsiest, comedies of all time.

Terry Jones was, in short, a lovely little fish who, like all the Pythons, went wherever I did go. His and their influence on my young brain could not possibly be overstated.