"Monty Python's Flying Circus" was a hard sell in the United States, and it's easy to see why. Many of the television shows and media tropes the Pythons trotted out on their famously absurdist comedy show were unbearably insular to British audiences. There were jokes about local TV personalities, spoofs of English news programs and send-ups about the BBC's tendency to put dry, unfunny documentaries in their program blocks. (Even years later, Python core John Cleese admits he has 'no idea' why property continues to resonate in the US)

The BBC struck a deal with Time Life Television to broadcast reruns of Monty Python's Flying Circus in the United States, but after the deal was struck, Time-Life deemed the series "too British" for American audiences. Eventually, it was shelved. Time-Life's suspicions about the Pythons were proven true when the troupe's 1971 anthology film "And Now for Something Completely Different" flopped at the box office. Additionally, the six silly men performed a 30-minute block of material on a 1973 episode of The Tonight Show and it went over like a lead balloon.

"The Flying Circus" didn't seem to find its audience stateside until the PBS station in Dallas, Texas -- KERA -- began airing episodes in their entirety. Once PBS audiences (at least the weird ones) finally had a chance to see The Flying Circus unspoiled, they instantly fell in love. Other PBS stations around the country also began airing it, and the show finally started to catch on. Then, in 1975, the Pythons' first film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, opened in theaters to reasonable acclaim, drawing even more Americans to the PBS network of Python broadcasts.

And then the networks got involved. ABC took The Flying Circus into mainstream, national broadcast in 1975. However, confused by the series and worried by some unruly bits, ABC (in its ultimate wisdom) decided to take the few episodes it had bought and cut them into a 90-minute anthology.

The Pythons didn't like that. No, no. Not at all. Indeed, The New York Times reported in 1975 that Monty Python took ABC to court, insisting that their shows be renewed.

They won.

When ABC got its confused little mitts on The Flying Circus, it clearly didn't know what to make of the show. More than anything, though, she was concerned about some of the show's more exciting elements; The Flying Circus contained a small amount of nudity (which was not allowed on American television) and could have afforded to be a little more racy, making more overt toilet jokes. It's also worth noting that American TV shows in the mid-'70s required multiple commercial breaks, while British shows could run a bit longer. Time was a valid concern. How would ABC fit 30 minutes of footage into a 26-minute spot?

A memo about "The Flying Circus" was circulated through the ABC, and the good folks at the New Yorker discovered it.

The famous memorandum, also talked about in Mental Flossnoted that ABC has been hustling about some very specific things. Her deal was for six episodes, and judging by his fears, they appeared to be all six episodes from the 1974 show's fourth season: The Golden Age of Ballooning, Michael Ellis, The War on Fun , Hamlet', 'Mr Neutron' and 'Party Political Broadcasting'. When the first three of those episodes aired as a shortened, specially edited 90-minute special on October 3, 1975, it came out with a full 22 minutes of material cut. ABC didn't seem to like the idea a flattened dead cat used as a bellnor was she interested in explicit references to colonic irrigation. ABC also cut out some offensive words like "damn" and "Good Lord."

When the Pythons caught wind of ABC cutting three of their episodes, they were outraged. They wrote their shows to flow in a certain way, and they vehemently opposed both the interruption of that flow and brazen censorship. As ABC prepared to air a second 90-minute special, scheduled for that December, it intended to similarly cut the material into ribbons. However, to prevent the second live special, the Pythons took ABC to court.

However, the lawsuit was not to obtain financial restitution. The Pythons just wanted their show to maintain its artistic integrity. Only Terry Gilliam, the only American of the groupand Michael Palin appeared in court in person to object to what ABC was doing. The judge in the case, Morris E. Lasker, had to rule on the basis of loss of artistic control over an imported TV show, something not much argued in court. Indeed, ABC was legally allowed to edit the show however they wanted, so it wasn't even a legal matter. It was, to repeat, for integrity. The judge admitted, and this is hilarious, that ABC robbed the troupe of their "iconoclast."

ABC eventually aired a shortened version as it wanted, but a court order required it to be broadcast with an on-screen disclaimer that it was edited for TV. However, after it aired, the Pythons appealed their case and actually won. They prevented ABC from ever airing the truncated specials again. The judge hit the little piece of junk and The Flying Circus had to be broadcast uncut from then on.

The victory in the courtroom, it turns out, was also a legal coup. Thanks to some byzantine details in the contracts between the BBC and the ABC, it was discovered that the copyright for Monty Python's Flying Circus would be released in 1980. The pythons themselves, giving them control of the whole show. It finally belonged to them.