History Creator / MichaelPalin

* BookEnds: By design in several of his travelogues -- leaving from and returning to the Reform Club in ''80 Days'', doing the same with Little Diomede Island in ''Full Circle'', leaving and returning to Gibraltar in ''Full Circle'', and going from one pole to the other pole in... well, [[CaptainObvious guess.]]

* BookEnds: By design in several of his travelogues -- leaving from and returning to the Reform Club in ''80 Days'', doing the same with Little Diomede Island in ''Full Circle'', and going from one pole to the other pole in... well, [[CaptainObvious guess.]]

* HistoryMarchesOn: [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] by Palin, who notes while sailing down the Yangtze River in ''80 Days'' that all the villages and waterfronts he's seeing will disappear when the big dam project is completed. 1.3 million people were relocated when the Three Gorges Dam left their homes and towns underwater.
* IndyPloy: In ''Pole to Pole'' Palin and crew are left stuck in South Africa, with no way to complete their trip to the South Pole along 30 degrees east, when the only ship is all booked up. So they fly to South America and to the South Pole from there.

* PaintingTheMedium: In "80 Days" it cuts to Michael reading a book. He looks at the camera and says "Don't worry, there'll be some commentary coming along in a second. Ah, here it is." The commentary then starts. Later on, the commentary notes that he's been given permission to cross Saudi Arabia, but that he had to make a sacrifice, concluding with "Here, I'll let myself explain it." The Michael being filmed then starts explaining to the camera what's going on.

** ''Around the World in Eighty Days'' He spends most of the trip falling further and further behind the schedule as written by Jules Verne, but is able to make it all up by crossing the Pacific Ocean in a freight ship that moves twice as fast as the paddleboat Verne wrote.
** The second half of ''Pole to Pole'' features him needing to get across Africa in time to get to the one ship going to Antarctica all year. And then it's completely booked anyway.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The demonstration of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect Coriolis effect]] in ''Pole to Pole'' was a [[http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html clever fraud.]] While the rotation of the Earth DOES have an effect on the rotation of water as it goes down a drain, the effect is very, very small, and in ordinary conditions completely overpowered by more mundane factors like the way the drain is constructed and how water is put into and taken out of it. Experiments have only been able to detect the Coriolis effect by pouring water into perfectly symmetrical containers with drains exactly in the middle, and letting that water stand for at least a day to insure that it is perfectly still. (However, in the original cut, Palin reveals that this experiment is faked, and explains why. In some versions, this section is removed.)

** In "80 Days" he tries to engage a parrot in a bird market in Hong Kong in conversation, saying "I was in a sketch with you once!''

* PaintingTheFourthWall: In "80 Days" it cuts to Michael reading a book. He looks at the camera and says "Don't worry, there'll be some commentary coming along in a second. Ah, here it is." The commentary then starts. Later on, the commentary notes that he's been given permission to cross Saudi Arabia, but that he had to make a sacrifice, concluding with "Here, I'll let myself explain it." The Michael being filmed then starts explaining to the camera what's going on.

* PaintingTheFourthWall: In "80 Days" it cuts to Michael reading a book. He looks at the camera and says "Don't worry, there'll be some commentary coming along in a second. Ah, here it is." The commentary then starts

* DidNotDoTheResearch: The demonstration of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect Coriolis effect]] in ''Pole to Pole'' was a [[http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html clever fraud.]] While the rotation of the Earth DOES have an effect on the rotation of water as it goes down a drain, the effect is very, very small, and in ordinary conditions completely overpowered by more mundane factors like the way the drain is constructed and how water is put into and taken out of it. Experiments have only been able to detect the Coriolis effect by pouring water into perfectly symmetrical containers with drains exactly in the middle, and letting that water stand for at least a day to insure that it is perfectly still. (However, in the original cut, Palin reveals that this experiment is faked, and explains why. In some versions, this section is removed.)

** In the Tunisian leg of ''Sahara'' Palin visits some old filming locations from ''[[MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian Life of Brian]]''.

* XMeetsY: A rural Indian coal mine in ''Himalaya'', with an old tank engine still pulling coal cars, is described as "''ApocalypseNow'' meets ''WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine''".

** In ''Sahara'' he teaches the drinking phrase "Bottom's Up!" to the nomadic tribesmen. In ''Himalaya'' he tells the Nepalese "'Bottom's Up!' As they say in the Sahara!"

* KaraokeBox / FollowTheBouncingBall: Karaoke was still relatively unknown in the West when Palin sang "You Are My Sunshine" in a Tokyo bar in 1988, as featured in ''80 Days''.

His career after Python has included writing and starring in his own films, ''The Missionary'' and ''American Friends'', as well as frequent collaborations with fellow Python alumni: Terry Jones (as creators of the hilarious TV subversion of traditional British adventure stories for boys, ''RippingYarns''), Creator/JohnCleese (as costar of the hugely successful film ''Film/AFishCalledWanda'' and its semisequel ''FierceCreatures'') and Creator/TerryGilliam (as co-writer and -star of ''Film/TimeBandits'' and in a starring role in Gilliam's solo magnum opus ''Film/{{Brazil}}'').

His career after Python has included writing and starring in his own films, ''The Missionary'' and ''American Friends'', as well as frequent collaborations with fellow Python alumni: Terry Jones (as creators of the hilarious TV subversion of traditional British adventure stories for boys, ''RippingYarns''), Creator/JohnCleese (as costar of the hugely successful film ''Film/AFishCalledWanda'' and its semisequel ''FierceCreatures'') and Creator/TerryGilliam (as co-writer and -star of ''Film/TimeBandits'' and in a starring role in Gilliam's solo magnum opus ''{{Film/Brazil}}'').

However, he has become best known post-Python for a series of epic travelogue series filmed for {{the BBC}}. These have taken Palin to dozens of countries on all seven continents, prompted a series of best-selling companion books based on his on-the-spot notes, and led to the so-called "[[ColbertBump Palin Effect]]", whereby places he's visited report a massive increase in tourism. They were also responsible for his 2009 appointment to a three-year term as President of the UK's prestigious Royal Geographic Society.

* ''Hemingway Adventure'' (1999), in which Palin follows in the footsteps of ErnestHemingway.

* DidNotDoTheResearch: The demonstration of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect Coriolis effect]] in ''Pole to Pole'' was a [[http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html clever fraud.]] While the rotation of the Earth DOES have an effect on the rotation of water as it goes down a drain, the effect is very, very small, and in ordinary conditions completely overpowered by more mundane factors like the way the drain is constructed and how water is put into and taken out of it. Experiments have only been able to detect the Coriolis effect by pouring water into perfectly symmetrical containers with drains exactly in the middle, and letting that water stand for at least a day to insure that it is perfectly still.

Completely unrelated to former Alaskan governor, one-time Republican Vice Presidential nominee and TinaFey impersonator SarahPalin (whom JohnCleese now considers to be funnier than Michael) or her husband Todd Palin. Also not to be confused with author Michael Pollan, despite similarly pronounced names.

** In the first episode of ''Pole to Pole'', Palin rides a train across Finland, and he sings a song to himself that any Python fan would recognize.

* TheCameo: In ''Around the World in Eighty Days'', Python alumni Terry Jones and TerryGilliam show up to send Palin off and greet him on his return. Palin himself has a knack for finding parts in foreign film productions. In ''80 Days'' Palin makes a cameo in an Egyptian movie. In ''Pole to Pole'' he plays "Frogman's Hand" in a Russian documentary about crayfish. In ''Full Circle'', he makes [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=261ugmDCcBU a cameo in an Australian soap opera]].

* WorldWarII: In ''Sahara'' Palin hooks up with a British veteran's tour of the war in North Africa.
* XMeetsY: A rural Indian coal mine in ''Himalaya'', with an old tank engine still pulling coal cars, is described as "''ApocalypseNow'' meets ''WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine''".

* ''Pole to Pole'' (1992), from North to South.

Michael Palin (born 1943) is an English comedian, character actor and author, most famous for being one of the members of Creator/MontyPython.

* [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=Main/MontyPython Monty Python]] - Creator/