Which Python played the bearded 'It's' Man in the show's openings?

Michael Palin played the bearded “It's” Man in the opening sequences of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Dressed like a bedraggled castaway, Palin would appear after a long, absurd journey and finally reach the camera just in time to say “It's...” before the titles interrupted him.

The character was a perfect example of the troupe's approach to television comedy: a simple recurring device stretched into an unnecessarily dramatic ordeal. In early openings, the man crawled or stumbled across landscapes, often resembling a Robinson Crusoe figure. Later series shortened the appearance, but the basic joke remained the same—the grand buildup was cut off before the sentence could be completed.

Palin's role is sometimes confused with the show's announcer, especially because the opening also featured spoken introductions and title narration. Those voices were associated with other Pythons, including John Cleese, while Palin was the performer physically portraying the bearded figure. Palin was also one of the show's principal writers and actors, known for characters ranging from mild eccentrics to aggressively strange authority figures.