History Trivia / MontyPythonsFlyingCircus

** The Twentieth Century Vole sketch casts the entire group as Hollywood film execs.

* FakeAustralian: The Pythons have also done this from time to time, including in "The Bruce Sketch", which features a bunch of characters all named Bruce, who are all teachers in the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolloomooloo.

* {{Defictionalization}}: A British man named John Desmond Lewis legally changed his name to "Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel", from the "Election Night" sketch and ran for a parliamentary seat in 1981. He came in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosby_by-election,_1981 fifth of nine candidates]]. He later became involved with the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, a real British political party that was loosely inspired by "Very Silly" party from the sketch.

* TropeNamer: This show inspired the names for:
%% Only put tropes which have been named from this show, not from the movies like "Holy Grail" or "Life of Brian"
** DoesNotLikeSpam
** DropTheCow
** ExtraOreDinary
** MoneySong
** MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels
** NoOneRespectsTheSpanishInquisition
** SillyWalk
** SomethingCompletelyDifferent
** ThereIsNoRuleSix
** UpperClassTwit
** WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife

* ThrowItIn: During a sketch with John Cleese where they played a pair of Pepperpots, Creator/GrahamChapman suddenly went off script and screamed "BURMA!" for no reason. Cleese then asked Chapman, in character, why he did that, to which Chapman replied, in character, "I panicked!". It was later decided it was too funny ''not'' to include.

** Cleese also described their writing process as extremely loose and fluid, never knowing where ideas would come from. For instance, the Cheese Shop sketch was born out of an idea of someone asking for cheese in a chemist's shop, until they asked "Why would he ask for cheese in a chemist's shop?" and the answer was "Well, he went to a cheese shop and they didn't have any."

* SerendipityWritesThePlot: The unique style or animation was developed by necessity of the small budget and short production schedule of the series. Traditional animation takes a lot of time and money, but as part of being produced under BBC they had free access to an image library of old paintings, photographs, caricatures and the like, which Terry Gilliam then put together into animations through literal cutting and pasting.

** One idea that never got past a mere concept was to do a sketch in which the sound would gradually get fainter and fainter, forcing viewers to gradually increase the volume on their TV sets, only to then cut to something at regular volume and shock them as the now-cacophonous noise. The Pythons never did it, but it did eventually become a popular staple of WebAnimation/YouTubePoop known as "ear rape."

* BadExportForYou: Inverted with the original episode package that aired on {{Creator/PBS}} in TheSeventies. The episodes were taken from the master tapes and not the BBC broadcast tapes, which meant that several of the cut scenes mentioned in the ExecutiveMeddling entry below were untouched in the PBS version.

** If the episode with the Tudor porn shop seems disjointed, that's because it had to be edited rather severely before it was allowed to air.

** The infamous "Wee-wee" sketch is one of only two filmed sketches[[note]]The other, one about an artist that makes a statue of Cleese only to give it an incredibly long nose, was cut after Chapman repeatedly forgot his lines[[/note]] that have not only never aired but also failed to surface from the vaults. It revolved around a wine connoisseur being served urine by a French waiter and repeatedly believing he's drinking fine wine ("No, sir, zat is wee-wee."). The BBC didn't like it because one of the wine glasses was slightly rosé (pink), which they took to mean menstrual urine. Eric Idle protested, but the excuse was good enough for John Cleese who detested this sort of humor and managed to get the sketch canned for good.

* {{Defictionalization}}: A British man named John Desmond Lewis legally changed his name to "Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel", from the "Election Night" sketch and ran for a parliamentary seat in 1981 as the candidate for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, a real British political party that was loosely inspired "Very Silly" party from the sketch. He came in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosby_by-election,_1981 fifth of nine candidates]].
** As the Official Monster Raving Loony Party was not formed until 1983 this seems unlikely.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: While the majority of the Pythons' humour is pretty damn ageless, some of the jokes will fly over your head if you aren't familiar with British television presenters, celebrities and politicians who were around at the time. You might get a joke about a "Mrs. Thatcher", "Mr. (Harold) Wilson", and "Mr. (Edward) Heath", but unless you're well-versed in British culture, you probably won't know who Robin Day was (except that he owned a hedgehog called Frank) or realize that the Piranha Brothers sketch was satirizing the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kray_twins Kray twins]]. Some sketches parody aspects of British bureaucracy that are no longer around - for example the 'Fish License' sketch is based around dog licenses which were abolished in 1987. "Appearing on the M2" are many Vauxhall Vivas - a brand of car long disappeared from the United Kingdom. On top of that, the costuming and hairstyles on the series are pretty definitively '60s-'70s, albeit in a fairly low-key way... except when actual women are involved.
** Probably the most notable thing pegging Python to its time is its use of traditional currency - shillings, sixpence, etc. - in the first two series; Britain did not decimalise its currency until 1971, so pre-decimal money shows up from time to time, like in the "Embezzler Accountant" sketch as well as the "New Television Licenses" end credit background. One third-series sketch included an onscreen note, "Old Sketch written before decimalisation" and helpfully provided conversions, which probably counts as LampshadeHanging.
** Their ''The Bishop'' sketch is a parody of ''Series/TheSaint'', but most younger generations don't remember this show anymore.
** In the first season there was a sketch where some hippies have taken custody of a man's stomach (and claim squatters' rights), which is discovered during his operation.
** Frequent references to ''communist uprisings'' and Maoism, actors appearing in BrownFace or YellowFace for gags, direct references to the BBC globe spinning around during programmes (something the BBC abandoned in 1997)...

* EditedForSyndication: In the "Mouse Problem" sketch from Episode 2, the address and phone number of an interview subject who has admitted to wanting to be a mouse are displayed and read out by Creator/JohnCleese. In the original broadcast from 1969, the phone number was David Frost's home phone number, and after fielding a large number of prank calls, an annoyed Frost complained to Creator/TheBBC, who edited the number out of the first re-runs in August 1970.

* MagnumOpusDissonance: Creator/JohnCleese has often expressed frustration over the fact that, of all the high-minded, satirical sketches they'd done, it's the "Ministry Of Silly Walks," the one skit that deliberately made absolutely no sense, is considered their best (this also probably has to do with people stopping him the street and asking him to do a silly walk).

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: While the majority of the Pythons' humour is pretty damn ageless, some of the jokes will fly over your head if you aren't familiar with British television presenters, celebrities and politicians who were around at the time. You might get a joke about a "Mrs. Thatcher", "Mr. (Harold) Wilson", and "Mr. (Edward) Heath", but unless you're well-versed in British culture, you probably won't know who Robin Day was (except that he owned a hedgehog called Frank). Some sketches parody aspects of British bureaucracy that are no longer around - for example the 'Fish License' sketch is based around dog licenses which were abolished in 1987. "Appearing on the M2" are many Vauxhall Vivas - a brand of car long disappeared from the United Kingdom. On top of that, the costuming and hairstyles on the series are pretty definitively '60s-'70s, albeit in a fairly low-key way... except when actual women are involved.

** In "Travel Agent", after Idle's character realizes he can replace the letter B with the letter C, the script was meant to say "I never thought of that, what a silly bunt." Replace the B in "Bunt" and you get...[[CountryMatters you know...]]

** Frequent references to ''communist uprisings'' and Maoism, actors appearing in BrownFace or YellowFace for gags, direct references to the BBC globe spinning around during programs (something the BBC abandoned in 1997)...

** There is an animated section in between the "Crackpot Religions" sketch and "How Not to Be Seen" involving Jesus and the two thieves being crucified on telephone poles, while an AlterKocker Satan (played by Idle) appears out of the ground. It was cut after its initial showing[[note]]the image of the crucifixes ''can'' be found in a split second when the episode is "recapped" in fast forward later in the show[[/note]], but it is now available [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOjWP2mZyzI in full color]].

* BigNameFan:
** Music/PinkFloyd. Not only did they frequently halt recording sessions to watch the show, but they later donated proceeds from ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon'' to the production of ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail.''
** All Music/TheBeatles were also big fans of the show; Music/RingoStarr was a good enough sport to appear as a guest star in one episode, and Music/GeorgeHarrison would later go on to fund ''Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian'' out of his own pocket.
** Music/ElvisPresley was a huge fan and is said to have annoyed his wife by constantly quoting the "Pepperpots" sketches when they were in bed together.
** Creator/TreyParkerAndMattStone have frequently said that the show is their biggest influence. Not only do they consider themselves to have more British comic sensibilities than American, but the cut-out animation style of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' was directly inspired by Terry Gilliam's cartoon segments.

** Music/ElvisPresley was a huge fan and is said to have annoyed his wife by constantly quoting the "Pepperpots" skis when they were in bed together.