How Owen Wilson’s dad helped Monty Python crack America: “We’re incredibly grateful”
To some degree, the extent to which you think Owen Wilson has contributed to comedy depends on whether or not you like him, or if you think he just kind of says ‘wow’ a lot and looks confused.
But even if it’s the latter that you lean toward, and you’re not a fan of his films with Wes Anderson or that period in the mid-2000s when he seemed to be absolutely everywhere, one thing you can’t deny is that his Dad definitely had some impact on the world of on-screen humour.
That’s because Robert Wilson, aside from siring two boys in Luke and Owen who would become big names in Hollywood, was the President and General manager of Dallas’ public broadcast TV station in the 1970s, and the man who, after a programme manager called Ron Devillier brought him some footage of a little-known (in the US at least) British comedy troupe, took a chance on showing Americans Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
At that point in 1974, the show, starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, had already finished, after a four-series, 45-episode run in the UK, where the mix of the surreal and hilarious had proved totally groundbreaking and hugely influential. But the famed sketches such as the Dead Parrot, the Lumberjack song and the Argument Clinic had never been seen across the pond, and execs had no idea if it would work with American audiences.
Indeed, there had been some interest from US TV stations, including one in Boston that sent a representative out to the UK to meet the comedians and watch some episodes, after which, according to Cleese, “He was like someone who’d seen a ghost, or perhaps seen his career disappearing into the mist.”
So it was by no means a guarantee of success when Wilson decided to broadcast the Ministry of Silly Walks to unsuspecting Texans, but it proved to go down a treat, with other US stations quickly picking up the rights to show it too. And Owen Wilson recalls that even many years later, the British gang hadn’t forgotten the favour.
He told CBS, “They (Dallas station KERA) were the first station to carry Monty Python. Years later, I met Terry Gilliam, and he said, ‘We’re incredibly grateful. Your dad gave us a big break.'”
Wilson Jr initially had no intentions of following his old man into the TV and movie business, instead enrolling at 16 at a Military Institute in New Mexico. It was only when he later switched to the University of Texas that he met Wes Anderson, and the pair began working on scripts and short films together that he began to think there might be the possibility of success.
Their first movie, 1996’s Bottle Rocket, starred both Wilson brothers and was a hit with critics and heavy-hitters like Martin Scorsese, even if it lost millions at the box office. Wilson and Anderson would eventually make eight movies together, winning a ‘Best Screenplay’ Oscar nomination for 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums.
Wilson is currently working on another series of his well-reviewed golf comedy Stick for Apple TV, plus he’s made a throwback action buddy comedy called Runner alongside Reacher star Alan Ritchson, which will hit cinemas in early September.
