Terry Jones, RIP

Terry Jones, co-creator of the comedy troupe that operated under the name Monty Python's Flying Circus, died on January 22, 2020 of primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia that makes it difficult and finally impossible to communicate. He had been in decline for several years.

Before illness and mortality dragged him down, Mr. Jones had been an Oxford graduate, a scholar of Chaucer, a writer of books, poetry, newspaper columns and (most importantly?), a performer and director of some of the more sublime comedy of the late twentieth century.

There were three Python features and 45 episodes of the Monty Python television series; Mr. Jones participated in all of them, and also co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail, then directed solo Monty Python and the Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Meaning of Life. His final directorial effort was Absolutely Anything, featuring Simon Pegg, Kate Beckinsale and all surviving members of the Python troop.

And it would be negligent not to mention that Terry Jones created with novelist Gavin Scott the Canadian animated series Blazing Dragons (seen below); Dragons ran on Toon Disney for two seasons in the mid 90s. (The Mouse cut some of the cartoon's edgier material, but what you gonna do?)

Mr. Jones leaves a wife and three children.