Forget the Magna Carta, Churchill's memoirs, the book of common law — Britain's greatest export to America was a six-pack of loonies out of Oxford and Cambridge who concocted Monty Python.

The sketch comedy show began as an afterthought on BBC1 and gradually metastasized into one of America's howling favorites.

Now, 37 years later, they will resuscitate some of their classic bits in "Monty Python's Personal Best," a series of one-hour specials featuring each member's favorite sketches, premiering Wednesday on PBS. The shows will air in two-hour blocks over three weeks.

Each of the five living members has chosen his cherished skits from the 1969 show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus," and all have collaborated to pick for Graham Chapman, the Pythoner who died in 1989.

Whether they were extolling the qualities of dead parrots, crooning about macho lumberjacks or populating a soccer game with the world's famous philosophers, the Pythoners were able to nudge the funny bone on both sides of the pond.

"The one thing we knew for certain was that 'Python' would never work in America," recalls Eric Idle, known for his "Silly Olympics" and his endlessly cheery sycophants. "That's the one thing we all held in common as an absolute certainty. And so it sort of trickled into Canada. It was quite big in Canada. People found it. But they were used to English shows, and then I think it first went on PBS in Dallas. I mean for us, it was just an amazement that people were watching it in Dallas of all places and were loving it."

The Pythoners were unusual because they began as writers, not performers. "I think the special thing about Python is that it's a writers' commune," muses Idle.

"The writers are in charge. The writers decide what the material is. And only afterwards did we divvy it up to say who would act what. ... I don't think there's anything ever quite been like that, where the writers write everything and they're the same people that do the acting. And I think that's what gives it its strength."

The tall and gangly John Cleese, who used his height for antic physical comedy, admits that he was the first Pythoner to hone an edge on the comedy. "I started to make harder jokes before anyone else did. And the producers would get anxious. They'd say, 'That's a little bit hard-edged, isn't it?' And I'd say, 'Let's just try it and see how the audience reacts. If they don't like it, let's cut it out.' And the audience roared with laughter, so I learned you could do this harder humor and people loved it," he says.

Upper-class academia usually doesn't produce pratfalls or silly walks, but Terry Jones was studying English literature at Oxford when he met Michael Palin, who majored in history at Oxford.

"We'd written together," recalls Jones, "and in '66-'67, I was asked if I'd like to do a children's television program called 'Do Not Adjust Your Set.' So Mike and I did that, and Eric Idle had also been involved," says Jones.

"We'd actually met him once when he was at Cambridge. Then Terry Gilliam came along and started doing cartoons in the last series. We knew of John (Cleese) and Graham (Chapman) and what they were doing. They were doing a thing called 'The Last 1948 Show.' So it was really 'Don't Adjust Your Set' gets together with 'The Last 1948 Show,' ... John wanted to work with Mike Palin. At that time we decided not to do another series of 'Don't Adjust Your Set,' and we all came in the package: Mike and me and Eric and Terry Gilliam. We said, 'Let's all do it together.' We all liked what each other did," says Jones, best known for his frumpy females in baggy cardigans and crumpled nylons.