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"I suppose I'll be able to spend the remaining years of my life reading this over and over again, reminding myself of what a wonderful group of people we were and how we changed civilization," Monty Python's Terry Gilliam jokes to Esquire about the new book, Monty Python's Flying Circus: Hidden Treasures, out this week. "Weren't we funny? Weren't we clever?"

Since disbanding for a final time after the troupe's remarkable run of reunion shows at London's O2 Arena in 2014, surviving Pythons Gilliam, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, have been remarkably busy. Cleese and Idle have toured the U.S. sporadically as a duo; Idle released the marvelous What About Dick? and collaborated on a holiday special with physicist Brian Cox called The Entire Universe; Cleese released the first volume of his memoirs to much acclaim. Meanwhile, Gilliam and Palin teamed up on Gilliam's long-gestating Don Quixote film and appeared onstage together in London recently at a charity event, reminiscing about their Python days. Terry Jones, who announced last year that he is suffering from health issues related to dementia, directed Simon Pegg and the late Robin Williams in the film Absolutely Anything, which featured the voices of all the surviving Pythons, and collaborated with his son on a film about the lessons to be learned from the 2008 stock market crash, Boom Bust Boom. The entire troupe even appeared together at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

But with a loyal following still driving demand for anything Monty Python, the time seemed right to celebrate their groundbreaking television show, Monty Python's Flying Circus. Hidden Treasures, by author Adrian Besley, tells the story of that show in lavishly illustrated form, with input from all of the surviving Pythons.

"It contains things out of our old drawers and archives," Michael Palin tells Esquire. "Lots of things in envelopes. Eric Idle's in it, John Cleese is in it, Terry Jones is in it, Terry Gilliam is in it, and yes, even Michael Palin's in it."

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Terry Gilliam\'s cartoon representation of the famous Gumby, who first appeared in Series One, Episode Five.

"And it contains brilliant artwork by a young Terry Gilliam," Gilliam adds, not to be outdone.

In fact, the book includes a plethora of removable facsimiles of rare memorabilia from the troupe's official archives, including hand-scribbled scripts, cue sheets, character lists and posters featuring Gilliam's pioneering animations. The Pythons were also actively involved in writing the book, which recounts the often-fraught making of their TV show in brisk, easily digestible, illustrated form, going back as far as their early days as members of the Cambridge Footlights, pre-Python work as writers for the BBC, and on to their collective brush with global stardom, feature films, inevitable fights and, finally, their 2014 reunion.

"Yes, it even contains the brilliantly designed poster for the Pythons' last stand at the O2 in 2014, when we were all together, all in one piece, all of our bits working properly, unlike now when most of our time is spent lying down in the middle of the day," Gilliam says of his artwork which promoted the record-setting London shows.

"It's wonderful, because it contains scripts of sketches that may or may not have been seen," John Cleese says of the book, which breaks down classic sketches as well as a handful of sketches that were abandoned along the way. "There's lots and lots of stuff in the book, and the surprising thing is how little of it I remember, honestly."

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Terry Jones and Eric Idle performing the \'Nudge, Nudge\

"And everyone's done a silly forward, which is lovely," Cleese adds. "Python fans will love it. Everyone else will be bored stiff, of course."

One of the things Cleese seemed particularly pleased with are the QR codes included that, if you scan them with your smartphone, take you immediately to the Monty Python YouTube channel, where readers can see the corresponding sketch that's illustrated in the book.

As for the enduring appeal of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Cleese, of course, has a theory: "It's always surprising to me how many people in America come up to me and say they used to watch Monty Python because it was the only place you could get to see boobs," he says, chuckling.

From: Esquire US