Fart in your general direction

Fart in your general direction

Tl;dr: Producers discussing removing offensive text to have a lower film rating including the memorable phrase fart in your general direction

In August of 1974 at a preview screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail Tony Kerpel at the British Board of Film Classification was there to classify the film.

Tony chatted with the film’s producers Mark Forstater about how to cut the rating from AA to A, but it would involve dialogue cuts.

He sent a memo to fellow producer Mark Forstater explaining what they would have to do.

Mark responded (thank god)

I would like to get back to the Censor and agree to lose the shits, take the odd Jesus Christ out and lose Oh fuck off, but to retain ‘fart in your general direction’, ‘castanets of your testicles’ and ‘oral sex’ and ask him for an ‘A’ rating on that basis.

Made on a tiny budget with the equivalent of $365,000….the film went on to make over $127m in theaters, making it a huge success.

Fart in your general direction

Transcript

PYTHON (MONTY) PICUTRES LTD
Registered Address: 20 Fitzroy Square, London W1P6BB
Registered Number 1138069 England

August 5th, 1974.

Dear Mike,

The Censor’s representative, Tony Kerpel, came along to Friday’s screening at Twickenham and he gave us his opinion of the film’s probable certificate.

He thinks the film will be AA, but it would be possible, given some dialogue cuts, to make the film an A rating, which would increase the audience. (AA is 14 and over, and A is 5 – 14).

For an ‘A‘ we would have to:

Lose as many shits as possible
Take Jesus Christ out, if possible
Lose “I fart in your general direction”
Lose “the oral sex“
Lose “oh, fuck off”
Lose “We make castanets out of your testicles”

I would like to get back to the Censor and agree to lose the shits, take the odd Jesus Christ out and lose Oh fuck off, but to retain ‘fart in your general direction’, ‘castanets of your testicles’ and ‘oral sex’ and ask him for an ‘A’ rating on that basis.

Please let me know as soon as possible your attitude to this.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed)

Mark Forstater

 

You can read the rest of the memo collection here.

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