They all worked together on a couple of different shows before forming the Monty Python troupe. However, interestingly enough, though their faces are all quite famous now, they were writers first, and actors only later.

The most notable one is "The Frost Report," a short-lived comedy series hosted by already-famous TV personality David Frost. It featured Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin on its writing staff -- all the Pythons, in fact, except Terry Gilliam. Cleese was the only one to act on the series.

However, Cleese started working with Frost as a writer, on Frost's first series, "That Was the Week That Was," along with his Chapman. They went on to write another Frost-produced series, "At Last the 1948 Show," and all five British Pythons worked together on Frost's later series "The Two Ronnies."

Cleese and Chapman's working relationship can be traced back to their days in the theater at Cambridge University. They and Idle were all part of Cambridge's famed Footlights Society theater group. Palin and Jones met while attending Oxford University and doing theater together there as well.

Terry Gilliam is the exception to these and all sorts of other rules. The lone non-Brit among them -- Gilliam hails from Minnesota -- he didn't share the others' posh-school history. He also made himself valuable not by his writing or his acting, but his animation work. He did have a working relationship with the Pythons ahead of "Flying Circus," though, having written and animated for "Do Not Adjust Your Set," working alongside Jones, Palin and Idle.

However, Gilliam said in the 2009 documentary miniseries "Monty Python: Almost the Truth: The Lawyer's Cut" that he got to know Cleese first, having met him in New York while Cleese was touring with a Cambridge stage show. He used Cleese as a photo subject for a magazine he was working on at the time.

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