8.7/103 votes#1 - Tomkinson's Schooldays
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 1/7/1976
Set in the frontier days of British education, when upper lips were stiff with cold and corporal punishment was an A-level. A savage, searing indictment of something or other.
Director: Terry Hughes
Writer: Michael Palin
8.1/1011 votes#2 - The Spanish Inquisition
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 9/22/1970
Featuring the Spanish Inquisition, courtroom charades and a semaphore interpretation of Wuthering Heights.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
8.1/1010 votes#3 - Déjà Vu
Season 2 Episode 3 - Aired 9/29/1970
Featuring the work of the poet Euan McTeagle, a psychiatrist milkman and some exploding animals. A television presenter suffers from a severe case of deja vu.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.9/1015 votes#4 - How to Recognise Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away
Season 1 Episode 3 - Aired 10/19/1969
Featuring a court scene, the larch, Bicycle Repair Man, children's stories, a restaurant sketch, some seduced milkmen, an interview with some children and a stolen newsreader.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.9/1010 votes#5 - The Buzz Aldrin Show
Season 2 Episode 4 - Aired 10/20/1970
More surreal humour from the Monty Python team. Sketches include The Architects, How to Recognise a Mason, Poets and the Chemist sketch.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.9/107 votes#6 - E. Henry Thripshaw's Disease
Season 3 Episode 10 - Aired 12/21/1972
Sketches include The Tudor Jobs Agency, Elizabethan Pornography Smugglers, Thripshaw's Disease and The Man Who Says Words in the Wrong Order.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.8/1012 votes#7 - Face the Press
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 9/15/1970
Featuring Doug and Dinsdale Piranha, Face the Press and the Ministry of Silly Walks. Mrs G Pinnet buys a new gas cooker.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.7/1019 votes#8 - Whither Canada?
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 10/5/1969
Featuring 'It's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart', an Italian lesson, Whizzo Butter, 'It's the Arts', Arthur 'Two-Sheds' Jackson, a cycling race, and The Funniest Joke in the World.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.7/1015 votes#9 - Man's Crisis of Identity in the Latter Half of the 20th Century
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 11/16/1969
Featuring Confuse-a-Cat, discussion programme A Duck, a Cat and a Lizard, the arrest of a newsreader, an erotic film, a silly job interview and a burglar/encyclopaedia salesman.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.7/1011 votes#10 - Spam
Season 2 Episode 12 - Aired 12/15/1970
The sketches in this episode include Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook, World Forum-Communist Quiz, Hospital for Over-Actors and Spam.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.7/1010 votes#11 - Royal Episode 13
Season 2 Episode 13 - Aired 12/22/1970
Sketches in this episode include How to Feed a Goldfish, The Man Who Says Things in a Very Roundabout Way and Lifeboat.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.7/107 votes#12 - Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror
Season 3 Episode 4 - Aired 11/9/1972
Features gags and sketches such as Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror, The Man who Speaks in Anagrams and Pantomime Horses.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.6/1016 votes#13 - Sex and Violence
Season 1 Episode 2 - Aired 10/12/1969
Featuring some flying sheep, a man with three buttocks, a man with two noses, musical mice, a marriage guidance counsellor, a working-class playwright and The Wrestling Epilogue.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.6/107 votes#14 - Salad Days
Season 3 Episode 7 - Aired 11/30/1972
Features gags and sketches such as Biggles Dictates a Letter, Climbing the North Face of the Uxbridge Road, Lifeboat and The Cheese Shop.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.6/107 votes#15 - A Book at Bedtime
Season 3 Episode 12 - Aired 1/11/1973
Features gags and sketches such as A Book at Bedtime, Kamikaze Scotsmen, No Time to Lose, Spot the Looney and Frontiers of Medicine-Penguins.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.5/1015 votes#16 - Owl Stretching Time
Season 1 Episode 4 - Aired 10/26/1969
Featuring fresh fruit as self-defence, some folk-singing, an art gallery sketch and Lemming of the BDA. An Edwardian man struggles to undress on the beach.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.5/1015 votes#17 - The Ant, An Introduction
Season 1 Episode 9 - Aired 12/14/1969
Featuring Ken Buddha, a man with a tape-recorder up his nose and a hairdresser who always wanted to be a lumberjack.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.4/1016 votes#18 - It's the Arts
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 11/23/1969
Featuring a gang of legal burglars, the Whizzo Quality Assortment, a Scottish wedding and a day in the life of a city stockbroker. Some film moguls try to impress their boss.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.4/1016 votes#19 - Full Frontal Nudity
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 12/7/1969
Featuring an art critic, some hermits, Hell's Grannies and the dead parrot sketch. Some newlyweds attempt to buy a bed and the mafia offer protecting to the army.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.4/1010 votes#20 - The Attila the Hun Show
Season 2 Episode 7 - Aired 11/11/1970
Featuring the Attila the Hun Show, a rat catcher, a village idiot, some killer sheep and news for parrots.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.4/1010 votes#21 - How to Recognise Different Parts of the Body
Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 11/24/1970
Featuring a guide on how to recognise parts of the body, a singing policeman, an interview with a plastic surgeon, a camp soldiers' drill and the Verrifast Plane Company.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.4/1010 votes#22 - How Not to Be Seen
Season 2 Episode 11 - Aired 12/8/1970
Features gags and sketches such as Job Hunter, Railway Timetables, How Not to be Seen and Interview in a Filing Cabinet.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.4/107 votes#23 - The War Against Pornography
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 11/23/1972
Sketches in this episode include Tory Housewives Clean-up Campaign, Gumby Brain Specialist, Expedition to Lake Pahoe and The Silliest Interview We've Ever Had.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.3/1014 votes#24 - Untitled
Season 1 Episode 10 - Aired 12/21/1969
Featuring a bank robber in a lingerie shop, It's A Tree (with Arthur Tree), a vocational guidance counsellor, Ron Obvious and a gorilla librarian.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
7.3/1015 votes#25 - The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Goes to the Bathroom
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 12/28/1969
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra goes to the bathroom, a footballer is interviewed and Batley Townswomen's Guild re-enact the invasion of Pearl Harbour.
Director: Ian MacNaughton
Writer: Michael Palin
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Michael Palin Ratings Summary
"Tomkinson's Schooldays" is the best rated episode written by Michael Palin. It scored 8.7/10 based on 3 votes. It was directed by Terry Hughes. It aired on 1/7/1976 and is rated 0.6 points higher than their second-best episode, "The Spanish Inquisition".