Out of the Trees(Movie, 1976)

Out of the Trees is a 1975 television sketch show pilot written by Graham Chapman, Douglas Adams and Bernard McKenna that was broadcast on BBC 2 in 1976. The show shared some of the stream-of-consciousness style of Monty Python's Flying Circus, of which Chapman was a member. Actors included Chapman, Mark Wing-Davey and Simon Jones. The instrumental theme tune was by Neil Innes. The concept of the show was, according to Chapman, to follow the exploits of two modern-day linguists who would travel around a Britain gripped which is in rapid decline. The linguists would comment upon the origins of a word or phrase, which would then be the genesis of a sketch. Although two scripts were written (the second a collaboration between Chapman and David Yallop), only one episode was ever filmed. It was broadcast only once by the BBC, with little promotion, at 10pm on Saturday 10 January 1976 opposite Match of the Day, and so was seen by relatively few people. The original broadcast standard videotape of the show was subsequently wiped, as often occurred at the time, and the show was then unseen for decades. The film segments shot in outdoor locations survived, and consist of a sketch titled "Severance of a Peony", and some inserts intended for an item about Genghis Khan. The former was inc... ()