Ripping Yarns

Not as well-known as Fawlty Towers or The Rutles, Michael Palin and Terry Jones's Ripping Yarns is poised for discovery as among the best of the post-Python projects. Palin essays a gallery of colorful (or colorless, as in the case of one of the series' best episodes, "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite"), archetypal characters drawn from the storybook adventures that thrilled English schoolboys pre-World War II.