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In 2003 Diamond Select Toys launched their first series of "Talking" 7 inch Monty Python and The Holy Grail action figures, housed in blister card packaging.
Included with each figure, apart from their scabbard, sword and shield is a stand with a Grail-shaped button which when pressed plays a line of dialogue spoken by each character during the film.
Three figures were released at this time; King Arthur,Sir Bedevere and Sir Robin - Each one was cast to look just like Grahame Chapman, Terry Jones and Eric Idle in their respective roles.
A further three figures were planned to be released as Series 2 in 2004, the proposed figures were; John Cleese as Sir Lancelot, Terry Gilliam as The Bridge Keeper and Michael Palin as Sir Galahad.
According to the Announcement on Daily Llama, posted on 5th August 2003, where they debuted their prototypes of Series one and their plans for a continuation of the series, 10,000 to 50,000 units of each figure were to be shipped and sold in Comic Book Stores and Collectable Shops.
This earned me a cool bonus, which I'll tell you about in a little while...
The back of the packaging states the following:
Arthur, King of the Britons, sends his Knights of The Round Table on a quest throughout his kingdom in search of The Holy Grail, plagued by obstacles such as rude Frenchmen, swamp kings, knights who request shrubbery cut down with a herring and a killer rabbit that decimates their ranks, the Monty Python troupe puts an entirely fresh spin onto a classic tale.
Each figure includes a sword, shield, scabbard and a base that includes three lines of the character's dialogue from Monty Python and The Holy Grail.
All figures sculpted by Gabriel Marquez.
But luckily the package has a "try me" opening in the front - the button is in the form of a golden Grail-shaped button which when pressed plays a line of dialogue, just the one though so I presume the other two can be heard once the stand is removed from it's package.
If you click the above video you can hear Sir Bedevere suggest a solution to the "Trojan Rabbit" debacle!
This copy is dated 2014 - released a week before the World Cup began; and is a limited edition, bearing the number 000314/500 in the top right corner.
Side A is credited to Eric Idle apparently the lyrics were adapted for use during the World Cup in Brazil as a preemptive for England's failure to win.
According to an article in The Independent Newspaper; The new verse is sung as follows:
“When you're in The World Cup, And all your hopes are up, And everybody wants their team to win.“Then they go and let you down, And come slinking back to town, It's time for this daft song to begin.”
The B-side is titled "An Apology from Bernard" and credited to the entire Python Team.
It contains a sketch, unavailable anywhere else and features Michael Palin as Bernard from the record company with input from Terry Jones and the late Graham Chapman.
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