[[quoteright:328:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/monty_python_004_team_910.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:328:[-In the front: Terry Jones, Creator/JohnCleese and Creator/MichaelPalin. Behind them: Creator/GrahamChapman, Eric Idle and Creator/TerryGilliam. Not Shown: [[SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer Sir Not Appearing in This Photo]].-] ]]

->''"One of the things we tried to do with the show was to try and do something that was so unpredictable that it had no shape and you could never say what the kind of humor was. And I think that the fact that 'Pythonesque' is [[PersonAsVerb now a word in the Oxford English Dictionary]] shows the extent to which [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny we failed.]]"''
-->-- '''Terry Jones''' at the US Comedy Arts Festival, 1998

''AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent...''\\
''It's...''

'''''Monty Python's Flying Circus''''' is a British sketch comedy television series featuring the comedy troupe Creator/MontyPython that originally aired on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. The success of its uniquely surreal lunacy has also generated four spinoff films to date, each featuring the same troupe in multiple roles before and behind the camera.

In its native country the show is considered by many to be the best British television program ever made, with the Pythons themselves regarded as essentially Music/TheBeatles of comedy (Paul [=McCartney=] and George Harrison were in fact huge fans, and Ringo Starr made a brief cameo in one episode). ''Monty Python'' invaded America with rebroadcasts on local PBS stations, two ABC late-night specials in 1975 and a 1988 video release. They found a relatively small but devoted and appreciative audience stateside and influenced many American sketch comedy series over the years. On either side of the Atlantic, the show is now so firmly entrenched in pop-culture that quoting a line from almost any sketch or one of the films triggers [[LoveItOrHateIt either a hail of quotes or a chorus of groans]].

The show became so popular abroad that in 1971 and 1972 the Pythons produced two special episodes for West German and Austrian television under the title ''Monty Pythons fliegender Zirkus'' at the Bavaria studios in Munich. The first was done in German (memorized phonetically as none of them spoke the language), the second in English, and consisted mostly of material not seen before (although there is a German version of the Lumberjack song). An English-language motion picture, ''And Now for Something Completely Different'', featuring remakes of many sketches from the series, was released while the series was still on the air.

After their original run ended, the Python troupe made besides their own films many more in various non-Python-related collaborations, and all its members went on to continued success in film, television and other media. However Creator/MontyPython, as a troupe, disbanded upon the death of member Graham Chapman (Though fans often consider any film with two or more members of the troupe in it as a Python film despite this).

As noted above, the show's seemingly random but actually highly sophisticated humour has spawned its own adjective -- Pythonesque. Anything can happen during any given sketch, and usually does. Sketches end without punchlines, or the Pythons sometimes just stop mid-sketch and declare it all to be "too silly". Although the Pythons weren't the first to use these methods, they made them into an art form: postmodern, self-referential comedy, punctuated by Gilliam's absurdist animations and starring a whole lot of odd men in drag.

Thanks for some of the description go to ''[[http://www.intriguing.com/mp/ Monty Python's Completely Useless Web Site]]'', which has loads of current information on the cast, clips, and a supply of original scripts.

Vote on your favorite sketch [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/BestEpisode/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus?open=all#fodn1yrf here!]]

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[[folder:Some of the most Famous Sketches]]

* Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses ("[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment My theory, which belongs to me, is mine]] -- sneeze! sneeze!")
* Argument Clinic ([[HypocriticalHumor "Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position." "Yes, but that's not just saying 'no, it isn't'!" "Yes, it is!" "No, it isn't!" *Beat*]])
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Assurance of health, welfare and jaywalking.
* Bruce Sketch/Philosopher's Song (René Decartes was a drunken fart/I drink, therefore, I am!)
* Cheese Shop (TheLongList ending with [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife A Senseless Waste Of Human Life]] "I'm afraid I'm going to have to shoot you now.")
* Dead Parrot ("This is an ex-parrot!")
* The Restaurant Sketch, aka: Dirty Fork [[BerserkButton (You probably shouldn't mention it.)]]
* Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook ([[TropeNamer Which gave us]] "MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels")
* Four Yorkshiremen (Which was not written for ''MPFC'', but was instead created for ''At Last The 1948 Show'', in which Cleese and Chapman starred along with future [[Series/TheGoodies Goodie]] Tim Brooke-Taylor and ''YoungFrankenstein''[='=]s Marty Feldman. Its use in other Python stuff has led to many attributing it mistakenly to Python.)
* Lumberjack Song ("I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars... I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear Mama!")
* Military Fairy (Whoops! I've got your number ducky. You couldn't afford me dear. two, three)
* Nudge Nudge ("Know what I mean? Know what I mean?")
* Exploding Penguin Sketch
* Self-Defense Against Fresh Fruit ("No point-ed stick?" "SHUT UP.")
* Spanish Inquisition ("NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!")
* Spam ("Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, LOVELY SPAM!! WONDERFUL SPAM!! LOVELY SPAM!! WONDERFUL SPAM!!"): Yes, Monty Python [[{{Neologism}} unwittingly inspired]] the current usage of the word spam in terms of e-mail!
* Sergeant Major (Marching up and down the square... alone.)
* The Ministry of {{Silly Walk}}s ("It's not particularly silly, is it? I mean, the right leg isn't silly at all and the left leg merely does a forward aerial half turn every alternate step.")
* UpperClassTwit of the Year (Kick the beggar and insult the waiter.)
* The Funniest Joke in the World ([[GratuitousGerman "Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput]]!"). We have the translated version. (It's not really that funny, but click the hottip if you would like to know)[[hottip:*:"If the Nunstück is git and Slotermeyer? Yes! ... Beige dog, that or the Flipperwaldt gersput!"]]
* The Colonel (Would appear in the middle of a sketch, declare it to be silly, and tell everyone to leave. "I've noticed a tendency for this program to get rather silly.")
* The knight with a chicken, similar to the Colonel, would appear at random times and smack someone over the head with it. One of the most genius things about this is that although it was a running gag, they avoided overusing it, and therefore made it last quite some time.
* The Fish Slapping Dance
* Gumby Brain Surgery ("[[NoIndoorVoice MY BRAIN HURTS! WE FORGOT THE ANESTHETIC]]!!")
* Undertaker/Cannibalism Sketch (So controversial, the BBC only ''barely'' allowed it to air.)
* How Not To Be Seen. If you've not watched the sketch, can you Stand Up Please. [[spoiler:BoomHeadShot]]!
[[/folder]]
----
!!''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' would like to apologize for the following tropes:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: A-B]]
* ActionGirl: The psychiatric nurse from "Hamlet".
** Also, Carol Cleveland plays an explorer in the "Jungle Restaurant" sketch in episode 29.
* ActionSurvivor: Parodied in the "Science Fiction Sketch", which paints average-Joe, loser Angus Podgorny as the everyman who survives the Blancmanges and goes on to defeat them; during the final battle, the Wimbledon tennis final, [[CurbStompBattle Angus gets his ass handed to him by a Blancmange]].
* AdaptationDistillation: Arguably some of the Python records have funnier versions of the sketches thaan the TV series.
* AffablyEvil: The apologetic mass murderer.
** The polite airplane hijacker in episode 16 combines this with IneffectualSympatheticVillain.
* AllJustADream: Subverted in Cycling Tour. "So it was all a dream." "No, this is the dream, you are back in the cell."
* AlwaysABiggerFish: "The Dentist Sketch" featured a man held at gunpoint by an evil dentist, who is then disarmed and both are held by another evil dentist with a gun, followed by another evil dentist with a sub-machine gun, and another evil dentist with a [[{{BFG}} bazooka]]. The whole lot of them are surprised by the appearance of "[[BigBad the Big Cheese]]", who intends to put them all "under the drill".
** A literal example occurs in one of the animations, when the victim of the Fish Slapping Dance is eaten by a German fish that apparently doubles as a submarine. That fish is then eaten by a larger British fish, and then ''that'' fish is eaten by an even larger Chinese fish.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Mr. & Mrs. & Mrs. Zambizi are a woman (Mrs. Zambizi) married to either a transvestite man, or another woman who occasionally acts like a man (Mr. & Mrs. Zambizi).
* AndStarring: "The Buzz Aldrin Show" has a fake credits sequence for a detective feature called "The Bishop" that includes "AND INTRODUCING F. B. GRIMSBY URQHART-WRIGHT AS THE VOICE OF GOD".
* {{Anticlimax}}: Done deliberately with the much hyped Page 71! of the second Python book: [[spoiler:It's just a page with PAGE 71! written on it in huge letters.]] Followed by a reviews page; "Oh, what a disappointment."
** Ms. Anne Elk spends a lot of time building up to her theory on brontosaurii with a long series of throat-clearing coughs. Her theory (her first one, anyway) is that [[CaptainObvious "All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much, much thicker in the middle, and then thin again at the far end."]]
* ApatheticCitizens: Taken UpToEleven in the ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdEVWlnWc7s The Dull Life of a Stockbroker]]'' skit, in which said stockbroker walks by [[TheNativesAreRestless a native African spearing his neighbour]], [[MsFanservice a completely nude corner store attendant (uncensored, that is)]], FrankensteinsMonster killing multiple people from behind, WW2, [[ImprobablyCoolCar a driverless cab]], a backstabbed murder victim, a dangling suicide victim and an orgy on his working desk (latter three were ''in the same room'').
* AppealToNature: The owner of the Whizzo Chocolate Company takes pride in his company's policy of using only natural ingredients in their chocolate, like raw, boned, baby frogs, lamb's bladder and lark's vomit. Suggesting that "Crunchy Frog" contains a mock frog like an almond whirl is a BerserkButton for him. Which becomes BlatantLies when he comments that lark's vomit is in the ingredients list, right after monosodium glutamate.
* ArbitrarySkepticism: Played for laughs; John Cleese's policeman is quite happy to believe in the existence of tennis playing blancmanges, but refuses to believe that five people could play mixed doubles.
* [[ArentYouGoingToRavishMe Aren't You Going to Arrest Me?]]: The incompetent smuggler gets frustrated when the customs official isn't going to arrest him, and he eventually gets taken away for causing a disturbance rather than smuggling.
* ArgumentOfContradictions: In the "Argument Clinic" sketch, a man goes to the eponymous clinic for an argument, but all he receives is negation - which is to say, this.
-->'''Man:''' An argument isn't just contradiction.
-->'''Mr Vibrating:''' It can be.
-->'''Man:''' No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
-->'''Mr Vibrating:''' No it isn't.
-->'''Man:''' Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
-->'''Mr Vibrating:''' Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
-->'''Man:''' Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
-->'''Mr Vibrating:''' Yes it is!
-->'''Man:''' No it isn't!
* ArtisticLicenseAnimalCare: According to the "Fish Club" sketch, goldfish have a ravenous appetite and eat sausages, spring greens, gazpacho, bread and gravy.
-->'''Announcer:''' ''(with text on screen)'' "The RSPCA wishes it to be known that that man was not a bona-fide animal lover, and also that goldfish do not eat sausages."\\
'''Fish Club Man:''' Treacle tart!\\
'''Announcer:''' Shut up! "They are quite happy with bread crumbs, ants' eggs and--" (''text shows "[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: and the occasional pheasant ]]
" crossed out'') Who wrote that?!
* ArtisticLicenseEconomics: Dennis Moore tries to alleviate poverty by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, but his first attempt involves stealing lupins (a type of flower); after he is told lupins are worthless and to steal valuable things, he does such a good job that he bankrupts the aristocrats, and makes a peasant family wealthy. And then the poor family complain when he can only bring them what's left of what originally belonged to the rich (mostly silverware).
-->'''Dennis Moore:''' "Blimey, this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought."
* AsideGlance: The cast members regularly did this, usually to express their disbelief with the situation.
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign
* AssShove: In the "Military Court Martial" sketch, the presiding general keeps [[DistractingDisambiguation diverting the prosecutor with questions about minor details]], like why the accused was presented with a special pair of gaiters from his regiment; the prosecutor tries to answer in the most polite way possible until...
-->'''General:''' I want to know how he made them happy.\\
'''Prosecutor:''' (''shouting'') HE USED TO ''RAM THINGS UP THEIR--''\\
'''General:''' All right, all right, all right, no need to spell it out!
* [[AttackOfTheKillerWhatever Attack of the Killer Blancmanges]]: Two of Gilliam's animations involved Killer Cars and Killer Houses.
* AttilaTheHun: Appears as a sitcom dad, followed by [[NunTooHoly Attila the Nun]] and [[AnthropomorphicFood Attila the Bun]].
* AudienceParticipation: "Spot the Looney!"
** The only way the BBC would air the Undertaker sketch would be if the audience booed during the offensive bits and stormed the set after the final line ("We'll eat your mum, and then if you feel a bit guilty about it afterward, we can dig a grave and you can throw up in it!")
* BackhandedApology: An OverlyLongGag in episode 32.
* BadassNormal: Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Brainsample, until they reveal they are [[HumanAliens from another planet]].
* BadassPreacher: "The Bishop". (Well, he ''tries'' to be one, anyway.)
* BadLiar: In the Customs sketch, a smuggler has a suitcase full of Swiss watches.
* BaitAndSwitchCredits: Several examples once the Pythons were established enough to start subverting not just sketch comedy tropes, but the very structure of television programmes.
** Episode 25 begins with fake titles and credits for a historical epic called ''The Black Eagle'' (purportedly based on a book by Creator/RafaelSabatini), whose opening scene is interrupted by the ''real'' TitleSequence. The scene nevertheless goes on for long enough that early audiences were probably scrambling for the week's ''Radio Times'', wondering if there had been another of the last-minute schedule changes to which ''Python'' was often subjected.
** Episode 29 opened with the opening credits, music and all, to ''The Money Programme'' ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a finance and business programme]] [[LongRunners that has been airing since 1966]]). Only when the presenter was revealed to be a [[MoneyFetish comically money-mad]] Eric Idle who burst into song was the veil lifted.
** Episode 39 took this still further by opening with the Thames TV ident and a fake continuity link delivered by actual Thames continuity presenter David Hamilton, perhaps fooling early viewers into thinking their television was tuned to the wrong station until Hamilton announced, "But right now, here's a rotten old BBC programme!"
* BattleStrip: In "Scott of the Sahara", Ensign Oates stripped all his clothes off as he fights the giant electric penguin.
* BawdySong: Several.
* BearsAreBadNews: One breaks into a signal box near Hove, and causes a train wreck.
* BedroomAdulteryScene: "Strangers in the Night"
* BerserkButton:
** Don't mention anything about dirty forks in one particular restaurant.
** "You have to say 'dog kennel' to Mr. Lambert, because if you say 'mattress', he puts a bag over his head."
** "It's NOT A BALLOON!" - Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
** Don't reject the designs of Mr. Wiggin of Ironside & Malone:
--->'''Wiggin''': Yes, well, of course, this is just the sort of blinkered, philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome, spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker's ''cuss'' about the struggling artist! You '''excrement'''! You lousy, hypocritical, whining toadies with your lousy colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your bleeding [[BrotherhoodOfFunnyHats masonic handshakes]]! [[HypocriticalHumour You wouldn't let me join]], would you, you ''blackballing bastards''! Well, I wouldn't become a freemason now if you went down on your lousy, stinking, purulent knees and '''BEGGED''' me!
* BillyElliotPlot: Brilliantly inverted in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPSzPGrazPo one sketch]]; instead of a coal mining father with black lung disapproving of his son going into theater, it's a playwright father with writer's cramp disapproving of his son working in the coal mines.
* BitingTheHandHumor: The BBC would be better off if it was run by penguins.
* {{Blackmail}}: The eponymous gameshow in the eponymous sketch. Compromising footage of people has been obtained by the producers, the footage covering the whole gamut of embarassment potential from evidence of homosexuality to evidence of multiple child sex offences. If the subject doesn't pay a significant amount of money, relevant parties such as spouses and the police will be informed. "That's £3000 for us not to reveal what happened, the names of the three other people involved, the youth organisation to which they belonged, and the shop where you bought the equipment."
* BlatantLies:
** Mr. Anemone, the flying man is ''not'' hanging from the ceiling on a clearly visible wire. And he is not committing ImplausibleDeniability when he has to break a hoop that he flips over himself to prove that's he's not on a wire.
** The smuggler who is trying to sneak Swiss watches and clocks in his luggage [[BadLiar can't tell a convincing lie]] to save his life, his lies get more and more outrageous as the customs officer toys with him; then his [[ImplausibleDeniability "vest" goes off]].
** There's ''nothing'' going on in the book-shop. Just ask the gun-wielding mobster.
* BlessedAreTheCheesemakers: The Cheese Shop Sketch. Monty Python was also the TropeNamer by way of ''Life of Brian''.
* BlessedWithSuck: Mr. Horton, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgAoGf84-3A the man who makes people laugh]], even when he's serious and miserable.
* BloodierAndGorier: Parodied and taken hilariously UpToEleven in the "Salad Days" sketch, which is a supposed film version of the incredibly [[TastesLikeDiabetes twee]], [[UpperClassTwit upperclass]], turn-of-the-century stage play -- Directed by Sam Peckinpah. BloodyHilarious.
* {{Bowdlerise}}: Bowdlerisation ruined the "Summarize Proust" sketch by cutting out the marginally offensive part of a punchline:
-->'''MC:''' What are your hobbies, outside summarizing?
-->'''Contestant:''' Well, strangling animals, golf, [[spoiler:and masturbating.]]
** Future versions changed it to a shoddily spliced version: "Well, golf - and - strangling animals-"
* BlowingARaspberry: Napoleon Bonaparte in a sketch about a man with people living in his stomach.
* BoisterousBruiser: Creator/JohnCleese is most definitely this out of the group, being not only the tallest, but also the loudest and most intimidating of them all, as seen in the "Self-Defence Against Fresh Fruit" and "Dirty Fork" sketches.
* BreadEggsMilkSquick: The Lumberjack Song is possibly the most famous version. "I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wildflowers, I put on women's clothing and hang around in bars..."
** "Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, [[FreudianSlip Panties... I'm sorry!]]..."
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Characters would sometimes talk directly to the audience.
* BrickJoke: Many sketches were referred to later during the same episode, sometimes even later episodes. And like the original brick joke, many earlier scenes started making sense only later on.
** A notable example is "The Larch" sketch in "How to Recognize Different Types of Tree from Quite a Long Way Away", where the present shows the audience a picture of a larch over and over again. This is repeated over the course of the show, and seems to serve no purpose until the end credits, when one of the trees in the background is, indeed, a larch.
** And then seven episodes later, in the middle of the "Vocational Guidance Counselor" sketch, the counselor says "Time enough I think for a piece of wood." Cut to: The Larch.
** In the "Killer Sheep" sketch, a ratcatcher jokes that he's from a committee that's selected the flat as the venue of a cricket match. Later in the sketch, a cricket team shows up. Then another...
* BrownNote: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsW9DO1k5-s The funniest joke in the world]].
* BuryYourGays: Why Biggles killed Algy, and the Prejudice sketch with "Shoot the Poof".
* ButtMonkey: If the Pythons ever needed to drop a name, regardless of connotations, it tended to be "Maudling"; Reginald Maudling was a notable MP who faced a lot of scandal in his later career.
* BuxomIsBetter: Who won the first prize in "All England Summarizing Proust Competition"? The girl with the biggest tits. And she didn't even have to summarize anything.
[[/folder]]


[[folder: C-D]]
* {{Calvinball}}: The game show ''It's a Living'': "The rules are very simple: each week we get a large fee; at the end of that week we get another large fee; if there's been no interruption at the end of the year we get a repeat fee which can be added on for tax purposes to the previous year or the following year if there's no new series."
* CampGay: A frequent source of humor in the show's early days, something about which Terry Jones later expressed regret. It has to be said that Graham Chapman was a real life StraightGay who hated this stereotype and preferred parodying it to playing it straight (so to speak). Also, when Graham first came out, Barry Took advised the team that the worst thing they could do was to stop making gay jokes.
* CampStraight: Ginger.
** "Funny. He ''looks'' like a poof."
* CaptainOblivious
** Mr. Pither from "Cycling Tour" just doesn't understand that no-one is interested in his cycling tour. The most {{egregious}} case is a couple who are arguing over their relationship problems: his interference leads to the woman dumping the man; the man throws him out of the restaurant, which he just shrugs off; and when he passes the woman who is crying her eyes out, he comments that he had a "chat with her dad" [[{{Jerkass}} before taking off]].
** Also, Ron Obvious (who, oddly enough, is not a CaptainObvious, despite his name). He never notices that his agent is trying to get him to do crazy stunts, despite his increasingly massive injuries, until he finally dies from one of them. [[spoiler:Which the agent tries to claim is another stunt.]]
* CaptionHumor: This show was a frequent user of this trope, arguably a TropeCodifier.
** At one point in the frequently-restarted "Ypres 1914" sketch, the caption shows "Knickers 1914" at the beginning.
** During the "Spanish Inquisition" sketch, there's captions for "Diabolical Laughter" and "Diabolical Acting".
** During the "New Brain" sketch, whenever prices are mentioned, a caption pops up showing the price after decimalization of the currency.
* CarpetOfVirility: Scott of the Antarctic. Ye ''gods''.
* CartoonBomb: Given to the "It's" man at the beginning of a show, it explodes at the end.
** Also, one featured in the Season 3 opening animation. [[ShapedLikeItself It even has the word 'bomb' written on it.]]
* CatchPhrase: "It's...", "And now for something completely different", and others. In fact, the latter phrase was originally from ''BluePeter'', but is only now associated with Python.
* ChairmanOfTheBrawl: The lion in "Scott of the Sahara".
* CharacterFilibuster: Mr. Smoketoomuch, of the "Travel Agent" sketch, whose MeaningfulName has never even occurred to him before.
* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: One cartoon parodied the original Charles Atlas, showing that in a fight, big muscles are no match against [[{{BFG}} big muzzles]].
* ChattyHairdresser: Subverted. "The Barber Sketch" contains a barber who ''pretends'' to be one of these, but both the chatting and the haircutting are only on tape.
** In a later episode, a group of these climb Mt Everest.
* CheatingWithTheMilkman
** A milkman approaches the door and is greeted by a negligee wearing woman who invites him inside; instead of bringing him in for sex, she locks him in the bedroom as part of her collection.
** Played straight with Wombat Harness, the man who reads people's poets, and a woman who wants him to take her where "eternity knows no bounds".
* ChekhovsGunman: After "a brief and misleading appearance in the early part of the film", it's Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Brainsample who ultimately defeat the Blancmanges.
* ChewingTheScenery: The padre from the [[WorldWarOne Ypres]] sketch, which lands him in a hospital that treats overacting.
* CliffhangerCopout: In "Cycling Tour", Mr. Pither and Mr. Gulliver find themselves in [[GloriousMotherRussia Soviet Russia]] facing a firing squad, who after [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy several failed attempts]] at shooting Mr. Pither, attach bayonets to their guns, and try to run them through. We don't get to see how they escape, instead we get a caption noting a missing scene, and then the two men appear back in Britain, safe and sound.
* ClothesMakeTheSuperman: Inverted in show 3 with a city populated by men dressed as Superman. Only one of them -- F.G. Superman -- is actually Bicycle Repair Man, who comes in to the rescue whenever a bicycle breaks down.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Pick a character. Any character. (Averted with Arthur Putey.)
* ComedyAsAWeapon: The "World's Funniest Joke" sketch.
* ComicSutra: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MstyFwhLy4 With a melon]]??"
* ComicallyMissingThePoint
-->'''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL-SmhFlFoQ John Cleese]]:''' It was from such an unlikely beginning as an unwanted fungus accidentally growing on a sterile plate that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming Sir Alexander Fleming]] gave the world penicillin. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt James Watt]] watched an ordinary household kettle boiling and conceived the potentiality of steam power. Would AlbertEinstein ever have hit upon the Theory of Relativity if he hadn't been clever? All of these tremendous leaps forward have been taken in the dark; would Rutherford ever have split the atom if he hadn't tried? Could Marconi have invented the radio if he hadn't by pure chance spent years working at the problem? Are these amazing breakthroughs ever achieved except by years and years of unlimiting study? [[InsaneTrollLogic Of course not. What I said earlier about accidental discoveries must have been wrong.]]
* TheComicallySerious: The Colonel, who stops sketches for being silly.
* ComplainingAboutComplaining: the ''Déjà Vu'' episode got tied up with people complaining, then someone complained about another person's complaint, and then someone else complained about [[HypocriticalHumor people complaining about people who complain]], and insists that something should be done about it. [[DropTheCow Cue the 16-ton weight]].
* ConstantlyCurious: Arthur Lemming in the dentist sketch is a man who gets caught in the middle of an unraveling conspiracy of evil dentists, and he occasionally asks one of the evil dentists what is going on. The end of the sketch reveals that Lemming is a dentist from the British Dental Association who was spying on them.
* CreativeClosingCredits: A TropeCodifier.
** One episode's closing credits, right after the "Irving C. Saltzberg" sketch, gave every name the "X C. Y-berg" treatment (Graham C. Chapmanberg, Eric C. Idleberg, etc.)
** The episode with the "Spam" sketch put everyone's names in menu items (with Spam, of course).
** The "Blood, Devastation, Death, War & Horror" episode had a [[AnagramBin Fun With Anagrams]] RunningGag, and the closing credits had the Python members in anagrams (Rice Lied, Torn Jersey, etc.), as well as the crew's titles.
** One episode ended with the BBC going bankrupt and having everything taped in a small household (until everyone got kicked out); the closing credits were handwritten on sheets of paper.
** One episode featured a callback to a sketch set in a dirty book shop by including suggestive advertising copy or nicknames in the names of each cast and crew member (Michael "Bulky" Palin, Eric Idle (Actual Size - Batteries Extra), etc.).
** One episode ended with an inept hijacker who had appeared in several sketches reading the credits aloud as the theme music played in the background; he began with "The show was conceived, written, and performed by... the usual lot."
* CreditsGag: In addition to many CreativeClosingCredits, the placement of the credits in the show's sequence was a gag in itself.
** Of particular note is the episode "The Golden Age of Ballooning", where the closing credits ran about halfway through the show.
** The next episode, "Michael Ellis", went one step further. The end credits ran immediately after the TitleSequence. That is, less than 30 seconds into the show.
** The episode that started with the "Summarize Proust Competition" sketch rolled the credits right after that sketch.
* CrosscastRole: All the Pythons dress up as women at least once. Terry Jones and Graham Chapman specialized in squeaky-voiced elderly ratbags, whereas Michael Palin and Eric Idle portrayed rather convincing middle-aged women, and John Cleese and Terry Gilliam were simply bizarre.
** Subverted in the "Piranha Brothers" sketch. So used are we at this point to seeing the Pythons as women that it comes as a bit of a shock when John Cleese, playing a gangster's moll, announces: "Dinsdale was a gentleman. And what's more, he knew how to treat a female impersonator".
** Frequent contributor Carol Cleveland, who was dubbed [[MsFanservice Carol Cleavage]] by the team, remarked that whenever they had written something for a female character that they thought was ''funny'', they'd almost invariably play that character themselves, whereas if they gave it to her... well, she called herself the "glamour stooge".
* CulturalTranslation: A few sketches were redone by the German comedy duo of Harald Juhnke and Eddi Arent. The one sketch about the difficult book shop customer gets a justification tacked on: Because the salesman's mother owns the shop and has threatened him that she'll disinherit him and give the shop to his brother if he doesn't manage to sell at least one book -- that's the explanation why he puts up with the customer neither being able to pay for the book nor to read it. And the famous "Dead Parrot" sketch becomes... brace yourself... upped to eleven (this was probably the intention) with the dead parrot replaced by ''[[EverythingsBetterWithPlushies a plush parrot]]''. And at the end, when the customer points out that the "parrot" he bought is "just a toy", the salesman states philosophically "Aren't we all but God's toys, somehow?", turning around and revealing that he's a wind-up android.
* CurbStompBattle: The boxing match between The Champ and The Killer; [[LosingYourHead The Champ lost his head twice in two separate bouts]], he won the second when The Killer was disqualified.
* CurtainCall: In the episode about the Golden Age of Ballooning, at the end of the title sketch there's a curtain call of all of the actors in the sketch, featuring the butler.
* CutHisHeartOutWithASpoon: The Piranha Brothers tended to nail peoples' heads to the floor, or a coffee table.
* DavidVersusGoliath: Ensign Oates vs. the 20-foot-tall Electric Penguin in "Scott of the Antarctic".
* DeadpanSnarker: Eric Praline. One of the few examples that combines this with {{Cloudcuckoolander}}.
* DeathSeeker: The [=McKamikaze=] Highlanders
* DecoyProtagonist: Turned UpToEleven with "Up Your Pavement", which starts by elaborately introducing two cheerful hoboes who then immediately get run over by crime fighter Alex Diamond, who suffers from lumbago which is treated by Dr Koning, whose doorbell was above Rear Admiral De Vere, whose daughter helped uncover the secrets of the Royal Arsenal Women's College, which is being spied on by Len Hanky, hen-teaser; then the sketch is briefly going to be about the chairman of Fiat before being derailed via a hurricane of Decoy Protagonists until it ends up being about RAF fighter pilots.
* DerailedForDetails: Common. Just in the Dennis Moore sketch, John Cleese gets lost in discussions about his target practice, British botany, European history, human anatomy and NotActuallyTheUltimateQuestion while trying to rob some nobles.
* DerangedAnimation: TerryGilliam, full stop.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: Eric Idle played a Scotsman who stormed into an airplane cockpit, leading to this exchange:
-->'''Scotsman:''' There's a bomb on board this plane, and I'll tell you where it is for £1,000.\\
'''Co-pilot:''' I don't believe you.\\
'''Scotsman:''' If you don't tell me where the bomb is... if I don't give you the money... Unless you give me the bomb--\\
'''Flight Attendant:''' The money?\\
'''Scotsman:''' -- the ''money'', thank you, pretty lady -- the bomb will explode, killing everybody.\\
'''Co-pilot:''' Including you.\\
''({{beat}})''\\
'''Scotsman:''' I'll tell you where it is for a pound.
** John Cleese is a masked bank robber who realises too late that he's robbing a lingerie shop:
--->'''Robber''': Well, um ... what have you got?\\
'''Assistant''': ''[politely]'' Er, we've got corsets, stockings, suspender belts, tights, bras, slips, petticoats, knickers, socks and garters, sir.\\
'''Robber''': Fine, fine, fine, fine. No large piles of money in safes?\\
'''Assistant''': No, sir.\\
'''Robber''': No deposit accounts?\\
'''Assistant''': No sir.\\
'''Robber''': No piles of cash in easy to carry bags?\\
'''Assistant''': None at all, sir.\\
'''Robber''': No luncheon vouchers?\\
'''Assistant''': No, sir.\\
'''Robber''': Fine, fine. Well, um... adopt, adapt and improve. Just a pair of knickers then please.
* DidntWeUseThisJokeAlready: In episode 2 an announcer says, "And now for something completely the same: a man with three buttocks," and gets a phone call pointing out that they did that already.
* DieLaughing: "The Funniest Joke in the World"
* TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed
** Like so:
-->''There once was an enchanted Prince, who lived beyond the wobbles.\\
One day he noticed a spot on his face.\\
Foolishly he ignored it and three years later died of'' '''GANGRENE.'''
** That last bit was due to ExecutiveMeddling; the original line was ''"cancer"'', spoken with the same voice.
** ''And Now For Something Completely Different'' redoes the cartoon and keeps "cancer."
** The "Conquistador Coffee Campaign" sketch also got censored, because of its reference to cancer.
* DisorganizedOutlineSpeech: "Our two weapons are fear and surprise and a ruthless efficiency..."
* DisproportionateRetribution: The "Self-Defense against Fresh Fruit" sketch.
** One sketch briefly mentions a man being investigated by the police for two years, convicted of not having a license for his car radio, for which he was subsequently hanged, "despite the prohibition of capital punishment, and a huge public outcry".
* DistractingDisambiguation
* TheDitz: The Gumbys
* DoesNotLikeSpam: Mrs. Bun in the ''Spam'' sketch, though her husband and the singing vikings love it. The TropeNamer.
* DontExplainTheJoke: Take your pick.
* [[DontLikeDontRead Don't Like, Don't Eat]]: In the "Spam" sketch, Mrs. Bun tries to order one of the spam-filled dishes with the spam removed, and argues with the waitress over it, despite there being two items on the menu with no spam in them, one of which was exactly what she was trying to order.
* TheDreaded: The Piranha Brothers were feared gangsters, but Doug Piranha took the cake. Even Dinsdale Piranha, a man who strapped people to tanks and nailed their heads to the floor, was frightened of him.
-->'''Luigi Vercotti''' (terrified): I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug.
* DrillSergeantNasty
** Sgt. Major from the "Self-Defense against Fresh Fruit" sketch
** Also the first doctor from the "RSM Hospital" sketch.
* DropTheCow: ''Holy Grail'' is the TropeNamer, but ''Flying Circus'' still had 16-ton weights, giant hammers, and a knight with a chicken.
* DyingLikeAnimals: The police when attempting to re-enact a murder.
[[/folder]]


[[folder: E-F]]
* EarlyBirdCameo: Monty Python's very first U.S. exposure was on the 1974 NBC summertime series ''Comedyworld,'' which highlighted international comedy acts. They showed the Irving O. Seltzer sketch.
* EntendreFailure: The basis of the "Nudge Nudge" sketch.
* EpicFail: In the "Election Night Special", Kevin Phillips-[[SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud Bong]] of the Slighty Silly Party doesn't receive a single vote, or '''Pathetic Defeat'''.
* EverythingExplodesEnding: One of the many ways they DropTheCow.
* EverythingIsAnInstrument: The mouse organ, a set of mice trained to squeak at a selected pitch, arranged in a set of boxes from E# to G, that can squeak "the Bells of St. Mary's". They are played by striking them with mallets; not small felt covered mallets like you use for xylophones and such, large wooden meat tenderizers. The organist is dragged away with off-stage screams of "Oh my God! Stop him!"
* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins
** One on the telly (that explodes).
** A giant one with electrified tentacles.
** Plus the penguins who are smarter than BBC programme planners.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: One sketch involved a man trying to get the head of a bank to donate a pound to Orphans, with the banker being utterly mystified at the concept of charity.
* ExecutiveMeddling: TheBBC got cold feet over some of the Pythons' humour. In the narration to one Gilliam animation they crudely replaced the word "cancer" with "gangrene"; in the "Summarize Proust Competition" they muted Chapman's reference to "masturbating"; and they would only allow the "Undertaker Sketch" to be recorded if some of the studio audience were seen protesting about it. Even so, the sketch was apparently cut from the master tape after transmission, and had to be reinserted from an NTSC copy. The "Quiz Show"/"Spot the Brain Cell" sketch was cut from BBC repeats for several years, but restored for DVD release.
** Even worse was the show's treatment by ABC in the US, which involved cutting shows for timing and removing anything the network considered objectionable - which, the Pythons claimed, included almost everything that was ''funny''. This led to a full-blown lawsuit between the Pythons and ABC, the ultimate result of which was the full reversion of copyrights to the Pythons' own company.
** See also TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed.
** Some of the BBC's complaints stretched into downright paranoia. In the "New Brain from Curry's" sketch, a representative for the brain's delivery asks a Pepperpot to sign a fake leg; when the Pythons submitted the sketch for review, they were told to "cut the penis." The angle that Cleese held the leg into the doorway caused it to resemble an [[GagPenis oversized Johnson.]]
** Episode "A Book at Bedtime" originally opened with a "Party Political Broadcast" where a member of the Conservative and Unionist party breaks out into a choreographed dance as he gives his speech. This was removed from subsequent broadcasts for fear that [[CompletelyMissingThePoint it could be taken seriously.]]
** The infamous "Wee-wee" sketch is one of only two filmed sketches[[hottip:*:The other, one about an artist that makes a statue of Cleese only to give it an incredibly long nose, was cut for unknown reasons]] 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.'
** Terry Gilliam's animation for a "cartoon ministry" was cut short for repeat broadcastings due to a scene where Jesus was crucified on a telephone pole that was being repaired. Then the devil popped up out of a crack in the ground, turned into a bat, and flew off into the field of the next sketch (The famous "How Not to Be Seen" sketch). The animation has survived, albeit in lower quality, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l462aqpaAOY on YouTube.]]
* ExperimentalArcheology: "Mr. and Mrs. Brian Norris's Ford Popular".
* FailedAttemptAtDrama: The Spanish Inquisition
* FakeAmerican: Many cases. John Cleese does a laughable cowboy voice. Even Terry Gilliam, who ''is'' American, had trouble sounding like it
* FanDisservice: Especially in the third season, with a nude organist playing a little fanfare before the opening titles.
* {{Fanservice}}: The episode "How to Recognize Different Parts of the Body" started with a lineup of beautiful women in bikinis, leading to John Cleese and the It's Man, [[FanDisservice also in bikinis]].
** In the "Dull Life Of A City Stockbroker" sketch, a bare-breasted woman is one of the merchants.
** Insurance agent Ron Devious sells a vicar a car insurance policy that includes a "free nude lady"; when the vicar leaves Devious' office, he takes with him a shopping trolley that has a naked girl sitting in it.
** Subverted in a few cases. In "And now, a bit of fun," a busty blonde woman does a striptease, but the footage is sped up so fast it's very difficult to actually see anything. "Scott of the Sahara" has a topless Carol Cleveland running on a beach, but is only shown from behind.
** This was Carol Cleveland's [[MsFanservice primary role]] for most of her appearances on the show.
* {{Fauxshadow}}
* FelonyMisdemeanor: Frequently mocked, particularly in the Dirty Fork sketch.
** No we never do meet Mr. Belpit, nor do we find out why his legs are so swollen.
** The title character of the episode "Michael Ellis". An animated television biologist calls the main character "Mr. Ellis", but the end of the sketch shows he's not Michael Ellis.
* FictionalPoliticalParty: In the "Election Night Special" sketch, covering the 1970 UK General Election, all elections are mainly contested by two parties, the Sensible Party and the Silly Party; the Slightly Silly Party and Very Silly Party both vouch candidates in a few districts as well.
* FightingIrish: "Bookshop Sketch": 101 Ways to Start a Fight by "an Irish gentleman whose name eludes me."
* LeFilmArtistique: "Le Fromage Grand" (which is French for "the big cheese")
* FinishingEachOthersSentences: "Exact-" "Ly."
** "G-" "-oo-" "-d..." "E-" "-ven-" "ing!"
--> '''Professor:''' Our only clue is this portion of wolf's clothing which the killer sheep-
--> '''Random Viking:''' '''''-WAS WEARING-'''''
--> '''Professor:''' -in yesterday's raid on Selfridges.
** Random Vikings appeared in a few sketches.
--> '''Presenter:''' What is the attitude-
--> '''Random Viking:''' -of the man in the street towards-
--> '''Presenter:''' -this growing social phenomenon?
* FreudianExcuse: After "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days", a fake apology appears, stating that the creators "all come from broken homes and have very unhappy personal lives, especially Eric."
* FreudianSlipperySlope: "Good evening. I'd like to talk to you tonight about the place of the nude [[ThatCameOutWrong in my bed]]... um... in the ''history'' of my bed -- of ''art'', of art! I'm sorry. The place of the nude in the history of [[AccidentalInnuendo tart]] -- [[CrossesTheLineTwice call girl]] -- I'm sorry, I'll start again. ''(pauses, takes deep breath)'' [[TheyJustDidntCare Bum.]] Oh, what a giveaway, I'm sorry... the place of the nude in art..."
* FreudWasRight:[[invoked]] An actor playing Hamlet is depressed because he is bored with life and wants to become a private dick (detective), hoping to get fame, money, glamour, excitement, and sex; all the psychiatrists and other people around him jump on the "sex" part.
* FruitOfTheLoon: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bCyIAsSid8 "Self-Defense Against Fresh Fruit."]]
* TheFunInFuneral: The funeral of the only deceased Python member to date, Graham Chapman, went about [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsHk9WC7fnQ as you'd expect]]:
-->'''John Cleese:''' Graham Chapman, co-author of the Parrot Sketch, is no more. He has ceased to be, bereft of life, he rests in peace, he has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and [[WentToTheGreatXInTheSky gone to meet the Great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky]]. And I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, for such unusual intelligence, a man who could overcome his alcoholism with such truly admirable single-mindedness, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only forty-eight [[TearJerker before he'd achieved many of the things in which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun]]. Well, I feel that I should say, ''"[[CrowningMomentOfFunny Nonsense! Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries!]]"'' And the reason I feel I should say this is [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming he would never forgive me if I didn't. If I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf.]] [[RefugeInAudacity Anything for him but mindless good taste.]] I could hear him whispering in my ear last night as I was writing this, "Alright, Cleese," he was saying, "You're very proud of being [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar the very first person ever to say 'shit' on British television]]; if this service is really for me -- just for starters -- I want you to become the first person ever at a British memorial service to say [[PrecisionFStrike 'fuck']]."
:: After that, Eric Idle sang [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"]].
-->'''Eric Idle:''' I'd just like to be the last person at this meeting to say "fuck"...
* FunWithForeignLanguages: The show contains the trope-naming sketch for MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels.
[[/folder]]


[[folder:G-H]]
* GardenHoseSquirtSurprise: In "The Wacky Queen", Queen Victoria does this to Gladstone.
* GenderFlip: In "Scott of the Antarctic/Sahara", one of his men was changed to Miss Evans, for the blatant {{Fanservice}}.
* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: [[Radar/LiveActionTV Listed here.]]
* GettingHotInHere: Done twice.
** In one intro, a woman in her apartment used the line and stripped, she got to her bra when John Cleese entered the frame to start the show.
** In another sketch, after Ramsay [=MacDonald=] is re-elected Prime Minister he returns to 10 Downing Street, says the line, and strips, showing that he's wearing women's underwear.
* GettingTheBoot: Happens to Mr. Pither during the Cycling Tour sketch.
* GiantFootOfStomping: A TropeCodifier (animation-wise, anyway).
* GodzillaThreshold: When Mr. Neutron goes missing, it is treated like this by the U.S. Army, specifically [[TheMenInBlack F.E.E.B.L.E.]] and [[FunWithAcronyms F.E.A.R.]]
* {{Gorn}}
** "It's got a nice woody sound, 'gooooorn'."
** "Salad Days"
** ''Actual'' {{gorn}} shows up in the films.
* GoryDiscretionShot: In the "Explorer's Sketch", four explorers are dining at a jungle restaurant when it is attacked, but we don't get to see the attack; we are told by an announcer that it was very gory, and due to the unsuitability of the scene, we are shown a clip from "Ken Russell's Gardening Club (1958)", which instead of gorn, is porn.
* GossipyHens: The Pepperpots
* GovernmentAgencyOfFiction: The Ministry of Silly Walks
* GroinAttack: A nun kicks a policeman in the groin and Inspector Leopard knees a policeman in the 'nads.
* HairTriggerSoundEffect: : For the love of god, whatever you do, don't say anything about the fact that you're not expecting the Spanish Inquisition. *DRAMATIC STING* Goes even further, as it is accompanied by the Spanish Inquisition.
* HappinessIsMandatory: The fairy-tale kingdom of Happy Valley. The subjects were always happy all the time because, by royal decree, anyone who wasn't happy would be put to death. One subject whose wife had just died is seen being arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to hang by the neck until he cheers up.
* HatesSmallTalk: "Vocational Guidance Counsellor" sketch has this exchange between Palin and Cleese (no prizes for guessing who plays what):
-->'''Counsellor:''' Ah, Mr Anchovy! Do sit down. \\
'''Mr Anchovy:''' Thank you. Take the weight off the feet, eh? Lovely weather for the time of year I must say!\\
'''Counsellor:''' Enough of this gay banter.
* HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday: Eric Praline starts his new chat show by introducing us to his co-host Brooky, who is also his flat mate, ''and nothing else, he'd like to emphasize that''.
* HaveIMentionedIAmSexuallyActiveToday: "Dirty Vicar" sketch, anyone?
* HeadTiltinglyKinky: In the Storytime sketch. "...with a ''[[NoodleImplements melon]]''?!"
* HeyThatsMyLine: In the "Explorer's Sketch" at the British Explorer's Club, "[[DesignatedHero Our Hero]]" approaches the counter and asks the porter if there's been word from [[LostWorld Betty Bailey's expedition]]; the actor playing the porter hasn't rehearsed, and starts reading the wrong lines from the script, getting the response from the explorer.
* HiddenDepths: The Pepperpots. Despite supposedly being squeaky voiced caricatures of lower middle class housewives; they always show an enormous amount of knowledge of history, philosophy and art (One sketch concerned an argument about the real meaning of Jean Paul Sartre's work; apparently they were on first name terms with his wife).
* TheHighwayMan: Dennis Moore is the, ehm, ''botanical'' version of this. He gets it right later on, though.
* HoldUpYourScore
* HotMom: Mrs. Attila the Hun from "The Attila the Hun Show", an ActionGirl in a {{Stripperific}} FurBikini.
* HumanLadder: "Archeology Today"
* HurricaneOfEuphemisms: Arguably the TropeCodifier. According to John Cleese, the Parrot Sketch was partly inspired by a thesaurus' list of synonyms for "died": "He's not pining, he's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! He's expired and gone to meet his maker! He's a stiff! Bereft of life, he rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed him to the perch he'd be pushing up the daisies! His metabolic processes are now history! He's off the twig! He's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, rung down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible! ''THIS IS AN '''EX-PARROT!'''''"
* HypocriticalHumor: Shows up constantly, though none more so in the Argument Clinic sketch where the actors in said sketch are accused of taking part in a sketch with intent of inflicting grievous mental confusion. It's later [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when the policeman who comes in to arrest them for this is himself arrested for the same crime.
[[/folder]]


[[folder: I-J]]
* IAmNotShazam [[invoked]]
** This was almost averted since Michael Palin's original idea was to call it "Gwen Dibley's Flying Circus" after a neighbor of his named Gwen Dibley, because, he reasoned, wouldn't it be great to give someone their own TV show without them knowing about it?
** Played with in the 30th Anniversary Special, when Idle presents a mock biography of the non-existent Mr. Python.
** Further played with in the playbills for ''Theatre/{{Spamalot}}'', which include a small bio for Monty Python in the "Cast & Crew Bios" section. The bio presents him as a faceless ManBehindTheMan who secretly runs the troupe from the shadows, but admits outright that nobody knows if he even exists.
-->"Is he God or [[Theatre/WaitingForGodot Godot]], an agent of the devil or an agent of the William Morris Agency, or is he, as some have argued, a fictitious character invented in 1969 by Creator/GrahamChapman, Creator/JohnCleese, Creator/TerryGilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Creator/MichaelPalin in a desperate attempt to find a title for their [[{{Understatement}} rather silly]] TV show?"
* IAteWhat: A sketch where someone thought they were tasting wine, but was actually "wee-wee", was nixed by the BBC.
* [[ISeeThemToo I Hear Them Too]]: Mr. Notlob goes to a psychiatrist because he keeps hearing music (mostly folk songs) everywhere he goes; the psychiatrist starts talking about auditory hallucinations, and is startled when he hears "''We're All Going to the Zoo Tomorrow''".
* IdiosyncraticWipes: Scenes separated by long, animated sequences.
* IgnoreTheFanservice: During "The Dull Life of a City Stockbroker"... the stockbroker doesn't flinch at the sight of a topless woman selling him a newspaper.
* ImAHumanitarian: "Royal Episode 13" has two back-to-back cannibalism sketches, the second one incited a (staged) riot from the audience.
* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: In the "Cycling Tour" episode, Palin is put in front of a firing squad, and everyone misses.
* ImpossibleInsurance: The "[[http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode17.htm#3 Motor Insurance Sketch]]" is all about this.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: The funniest joke in the world, which became used in warfare.
** And a hypothetical attacker wielding fresh fruit.
* ImprobablyLowIQ: BBC programme planners scored '''8''' on a standardized IQ test, at least they understand how ridiculously ''high'' that is.
-->'''Prof. Rosewall:''' The BBC programme planners' surprisingly high total here can be explained away as being within the ordinary limits of statistical error. One particularly dim programme planner can cock the whole thing up. (''Followed by superimposed title: "You can say that again!"'')
* ImprovisedPlatform: Described in the Lumberjack scene: "I always wanted... to be a lumberjack! Leaping from tree to tree, as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia!"
* IncessantChorus: The Spam vikings. "Lovely Spam, wonderful Spaaaaam..." "Stupid Vikings!"
* IncessantMusicMadness: In the Cheese Shop sketch, when John Cleese's character enters, there are some guys playing Greek music and dancing. After several minutes of the annoying music in the background, he turns around and yells, "Will you shut that bloody dancing up!" and they stop playing.
* IndestructibleEdible: Mr. Gulliver from the ''Cycling Tour'' episode develops these. He made a cheese sandwich that can resist 4000 psi, and a tomato that predicts when it's going to be in an accident and jumps to safety.
* InflationaryDialogue: In the camel-spotting and Spanish Inquisition sketches.
* InformedAbility
** Mr. Neutron is supposed to be the most powerful man in the universe, but the only super power we actually see on screen is transforming Mrs. S.C.U.M.'s outfit; otherwise he is seen doing totally mundane things like gardening and hanging wallpaper in a non-super powered way. The entire sketch becomes this when it reaches a cliffhanger, and an announcer tells us about how expensive and special effects filled the ending is, only for the show to end without showing any of these scenes.
** Inverted in the same sketch with Teddy Salad, an ex-CIA agent whose claim to fame is disguise, and is the only man able to find Neutron; when we meet him, he is ''disguised as a sled dog'', and he knows exactly where Neutron is.
* InformedObscenity: After a sketch filled with naughty words, Michael Palin appears to show us a list of words that will not be tolerated on the program. After a list of (decidedly British) dirty words, the word "Semprini" appears. A woman then comes on screen and says, "Semprini?" prompting Michael to throw her out.
* InherentlyFunnyWords:
** Spam, spam, spam, spam....
** Lemon curry?
** STROUTH!
** Eric Idle at one point gives a voice-over regarding a prohibition on "getting cheep laughs with words like knickers, bum, or wee-wees".
* InNameOnly: Parodied in the "Scott of the Antarctic" sketch.
* InsistentTerminology:
** '''S.''' Frog from the Conquistador Coffee Campaign sketch.
** Ferdinand von Zeppelin's flying machine is not a balloon; it's an airship!
* InstrumentalThemeTune / [[PublicDomainSoundtrack Public Domain Theme Tune]]: "The Liberty Bell March", by John Philip Sousa. Today, it is inextricably linked to the Pythons.
* InvasionOfTheBabySnatchers: In the ''Hell's Grannies'' sketch, are a gang of "Baby Snatchers", a gang who dresses up like babies, and abducts adults.
* [[IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat I Thought Everyone Had Big Teeth]]: Martin Curry is a film director who makes films where every character has enormous teeth, this is because he has overly large teeth himself; and when asked by a normal toothed person about the dental appendages, he doesn't understand what's so odd. This is followed by several people with different abnormalities (man with large ears, man with large nose, man in drag) also thinking the film was weird, except for another person with big teeth who thought it was just fine.
* ItIsPronouncedTroPAY: "No, it's ''spelt'' 'Raymond Luxury-Yacht', but it's pronounced 'Throatwobbler Mangrove'."
* ItMakesSenseInContext: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted;]] usually it ''still'' doesn't make sense.
* ItsBeenDone: Mr L F Dibley is a director who keeps making films that other people have already done (''If'', ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', ''Rear Window''); he claims that they are ripping him off, and that those high budget movies were "rushed out" while his were still at the chemist's (i.e. being developed).
* JackOfAllTrades: According to Eric Idle, out of the six regular Python members, Michael Palin has the most talent to be able to play the widest variety of characters out of them all, from the brainless Gumby to "manly" lumberjacks to boring civil servants to zealous Spanish inquisitors.
* JapaneseRanguage: "Erizabeth L"
* JiveTurkey: Parodied in the "RAF Banter" sketch; the chaps' banter has become so impenetrable that none of them can understand each other.
-->'''Bovril''': Hold on then. ''[shouts]'' Wingco!\\
'''Wingco''': Yes?\\
'''Bovril''': Bend an ear to the Squadron Leader's banter for a sec, would you?\\
'''Wingco''': Can do.\\
'''Bovril''': Jolly good.\\
'''Wingco''': Fire away.\\
'''Squadron Leader''': ''[draws a deep breath and looks slightly uncertain, then starts even more deliberately than before]'' Bally Jerry...pranged his kite...right in how's yer father...hairy blighter...dicky-birdied...feathered back on his Sammy...took a waspy...flipped over on his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie...\\
'''Wingco''':...No, don't understand that banter at all.
* JungleDrums: During the sketch with the jungle restaurant.
* JustLikeMakingLove: The Bruces claim that American beer is like making love in a canoe: it's fucking close to water. (From their "Live at the Hollywood Bowl" film)
* JustLikeRobinHood: Parodied by Dennis Moore, who first makes the mistake of stealing only lupins from the rich to give to the poor, and then steals so much else from the rich that the rich become poor and the poor become the new rich.
-->'''Dennis Moore''': This redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought.
* JustPlaneWrong: As the BALPA spokesman points out. Except for the plane door that opens without any decompression or anything. Then there's the whole "landing on hay bales" thing.
* JustTheIntroductionToTheOpposites: The gang of grannies, the "working-class playwright" and his estranged miner son.
* JuxtapositionGag
[[/folder]]


[[folder:K-L]]
* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: Scott to the lion in "Scott of the Antarctic".
* [[KillerRabbit Killer]] [[KillerRabbit Sheep]]: Arthur X, leader of the Pennine Gang.
* KillThePoor: This John Cleese vox pop:
-->'''Conservative MP:''' Well, I would destroy the lower classes, first with bombs and rockets destroying their homes and then when they run screaming into the streets, mowing them down with submachine guns. ''(beat)'' I know these views aren't popular, but I have never courted popularity.
* LampshadedDoubleEntendre
** "Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrDFGa0juCM say no more]]"
** "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat!"
* LampshadeHanging: And plenty of it. After each punchline in the Conquistador Coffee sketch, for example, the characters hold up a sign that says "JOKE".
* LanguageBarrier: Oh, the poor tobacconist and the poor Hungarian, trapped in malicious trickster translation of a Hungarian-English phrasebook.
* LargeHam: In-universe, John Cleese's padre in the First World War sketch... so much so that he is taken to a hospital for "Over-acting".
* LarynxDissonance: If any of them could do a convincing woman's voice, they certainly didn't try it, since it wouldn't be as funny. Except Idle, who ''did'' sound like a middle-aged woman and was even funnier for it.
* LaughablyEvil: Despite all the sting chords and maniacal cackling, the Spanish Inquisition can't even get their lines straight, let alone intimidate anyone.
* LaughTrack: Parodied in the "Interesting People" sketch, the announcer had a switch which could turn on canned applause whenever he needed it.
* LawyerFriendlyCameo: The Pythons didn't think to get permission from DCComics for using Superman as part of the "Bicycle Repair Man" sketch, and worried afterward. No lawsuit was forthcoming (possibly due to Fair Use by way of parody/satire, and because the sketch did no harm to the brand).
** Also, SPAM. Hormel, the makers of Spam, didn't mind the use and even advertise their wonderful [[RunningGag Spam]] using the Python [[OverlyLongGag Spam]] references.
* LessEmbarrassingTerm: From one of the sketches--
-->'''Miss Bladder''': I'm not a courtesan!
-->'''Biggles (Graham Chapman)''': Courtesan? Oh, oh, aren't we grand? Harlot's not good enough for us, eh? Paramour, concubine, fille de joie, that's what we're not. Well, you listen to me, my fine fellow, you are a bit of tail.
-->'''Miss Bladder:''' I am not, you demented fictional character.
-->'''Biggles:''' Algy says you are. He says you're no better than you should be.
-->'''Miss Bladder''': And how would Algy know?
-->'''Biggles''': And just what did you mean by that? Are you calling my old fictional comrade-in-arms a fairy?
-->'''Miss Bladder''': Fairy? Poof's not good enough for you. He's got to be a bleedin' fairy! Mincing old RAF queen!
* LighterAndSofter: "The Attila the Hun Show" turned the famous warlord into a SitCom dad.
* LiteralAssKissing: ''The Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook'' is available at Her Majesty's Stationary Office for the price of a kiss on the bum.
* LondonGangster: The Piranha brothers. (A ShoutOut to the RealLife Kray twins) [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygg2KlicnOQ Not that anyone has anything bad to say about them.]] (start at 05:05)
* LookBothWays
** In one intro, the It's Man tries to cross a street, but has to dodge to avoid several cars; he makes it to the other side, and is knocked over by a woman with a baby carriage.
** There was also a vox pop segment where the interviewer tries to get an opinion from a "man in the street", who is promptly run over.
* LosingYourHead: Graham Chapman once had his head cut off for use in a piece of animation.
* LovelyAssistant: The Amazing Mystico and Janet put up housing blocks by hypnosis. (Janet is the Lovely Assistant.)
[[/folder]]


[[folder:M-N]]
* MadeFromRealGirlScouts: The entire premise of the Crunchy Frog sketch.
* MadeOfPlasticine: "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days" has a peaceful summer scene ruined due to the participants all being this, [[{{Gorn}} accidentally maiming and dismembering]] each other.
* TheMafia: Luigi Vercotti, occasionally accompanied by his brother Dino Vercotti; he also ran a LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub in the "Piranha Brothers" sketch.
* MandatoryLine: "But it's my only line!"
* MeatgrinderSurgery: Gumby Brain Surgery.
* MediumAwareness
** Medium Realization starting at [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y 4:23]] of the "Argument Clinic".
** There's also the Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things: "Good lord! I'm on film. How did that happen?"
** In the sketch titled "The Silliest Sketch We've Ever Done", at the end the actors just stop, remark to each other that it's the silliest sketch they've ever done, call if off, and walk off the set.
** The end of the phonograph record version of "The Piranha Brothers": "Sorry, squire, I scratched the record." *click* "Sorry, squire, I scratched the record." *click* [[RuleOfThree "Sorry, squire..."]]
** The opening of ''Monty Python's Previous Record'' ("''NOT THIS RECORD!''")
** The end of the "Crunchy Frog" sketch:
-->'''Policeman:''' I shall have to ask you to accompany me to the station!\\
'''Mr. Hilton:''' (AsideGlance) It's a fair cop...\\
'''Policeman:''' And don't talk into the camera!
* MediumBlending: Terry Gilliam's cartoon segments. There were even a few moments when the animation was split-screened with live-action scenes.
** Gilliam himself appeared in one particular segment. He starts out by explaining how he usually does the animation, complete with a shot of his hands holding the animated cardboard characters, before realizing [[MediumAwareness the segment is already running]], at which point he himself appears on-screen to apologize.
* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Cardinal Ximinez, head of the Spanish Inquisition, is ''not'' helped in his quest for legitimacy by subordinates Cardinal Biggles and Cardinal Fang.
* MisplacedWildlife: Became a problem for "Scott of the Antarctic" as the film was going to have Scott fight a lion, until it is pointed out there are no lions in the Antarctic. Instead of losing the lion, [[ReadTheFinePrint which was in the contract]], they switch locations to the Sahara desert, where they have lions and giant electric penguins with green tentacles that sting people.
* MistakenForBadass: In the "Dentist Sketch", an evil dentist mistakes a tobacconist for an agent of the BDA, and pulls a gun on him; it's subverted at the end when said tobacconist reveals himself as Arthur Lemming, Special Investigator from the British Dental Association.
* MistakenForGay: One sketch occurred at a wedding chapel, where a rather confused clerk kept misinterpreting his patrons' desires to get married; it ended with five men getting married to each other.
* MisterStrangenoun: The show was littered with oddly named characters like Mr. Anchovy. Sketches about two women would have pairs of complementary names of this sort, such as Mrs. Thing and Mrs. Entity, Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion, or Mrs. Gorilla and Mrs. Nongorilla.
* {{Mockumentary}}: John Cleese does a door-to-door TV documentary[[hottip:*:he has a cardboard cut-out of a TV that he stands behind so he can go door-to-door with his documentary]] on molluscs, at first it's a normal documentary, but the people are so bored he switches to talking about the sex life of molluscs, painting the whole phylum as the perverts of the animal kingdom.
* ModelPlanning: In "The Architect Sketch".
* MoneySong: TropeNamer
* MoodSwinger: The butcher who alternates between insulting and polite with each line.
* MostDefinitelyNotAVillain: "Mr. Hilter" and his cronies.
* MotorMouth: Michael Palin as the host of "Spectrum".
-->" Tonight 'Spectrum' examines the whole question of frothing and falling, coughing and calling, screaming and bawling, walling and stalling, galling and mauling, palling and hauling, trawling and squalling and zalling. Zalling? Is there a word zalling? If there is what does it mean...if there isn't what does it mean? Perhaps both. Maybe neither. What do I mean by the word mean? What do I mean by the word word, what do I mean by what do I mean, what do I mean by do, and what do I do by mean? What do I do by do by do and what do I do by wasting your time like this? Goodnight."
* MsFanservice
** Carol Cleveland, often used when the Pythons needed an actual woman, as opposed to Eric-in-drag. They called her "Carol Cleavage". She was a busty redhead.
** Spike Milligan's MsFanservice, Julia Breck, [[HeyItsThatGuy makes a guest appearance]] as "Puss in Boots" in the "Titanic Sinking" sketch.
* MuggingTheMonster: A pedestrian reveals multiple arms to defeat a mugger.
* MultiarmedAndDangerous: See MuggingTheMonster above.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01xasUtlvw BICYCLE REPAIRMAN!]] And others--the show loved this trope.
** Dinsdale Piranha is incredibly violent but his brother Doug is far more terrifying because he used...sarcasm.
--->'''Luigi Vercotti''': ''[visibly shaken]'' He knew all the tricks -- dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.
** The ''Matching Tie and Handkerchief'' featured an entire sketch of Mundane Made Awesome: file clerk Ralph Mellish goes to work and despite Michael Palin's [[LargeHam awesomely dramatic]] narration and appropriately epic/sinister music, Mellish can't help noticing that there is no evidence whatsoever of any web of crime and intrigue which he might be drawn into, because there isn't one; his secretary doesn't notice any "tiny but tell-tale bloodstains" on his clothing, because there aren't any; Ralph doesn't end up in court because he hasn't done anything; in fact, precisely because ''nothing happened'', Mellish ''doesn't'' end up "like all those who challenge the fundamental laws of our society: [[DisproportionateRetribution in an iron coffin with spikes on the inside]]."
* TheMusical
* MusicalisInterruptus: The Proust song in the Proust-summarizing competition sketch.
* MyHovercraftIsFullOfEels: TropeNamer.
* MyNameIsNotDurwood: Raymond Luxury-Yacht, pronounced "Throatwobbler Mangrove".
* NakedPeopleAreFunny: Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones as the Nude Organist, Graham Chapman belly dancing, Michael Palin as RamsayMacdonald stripping to reveal lingerie, and Terry Jones performing a striptease. [[FanDisservice Twice.]]
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Mr. A-Sniveling-Little-Rat-Faced Git, played by Terry Jones who [[MeaningfulName looks like it]]; then comes his wife Mrs. Dreary-Fat-Boring-Old Git, played by John Cleese in drag [[LarynxDissonance with his normal voice]].
* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: Parodied. Mr. Smoke-too-much apparently has ''never'' gotten a comment on [[LukeNounverber the fact that his name is a meaningful phrase]].
* NewscasterCameo: BBC anchor Richard Baker turns up in a few scenes, more than happy to go along with the gag in play.
* NinjaProp: A woman is being interviewed about a gangster, the woman is played by a man in drag. Women being played by men is common enough on the show that the audience would just think of this as the case here... right up until he says "... and what's more, he knew how to treat a female impersonator."
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The Piranha Brothers bear a striking resemblance to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kray_twins Kray Twins]], even down to Dinsdale's "warm interest" in [[DepravedHomosexual "Boys' Clubs, Sailors' Homes, Choristers' Associations, Scouting Jamborees and of course the Household Cavalry"]]. Their police nemesis Harry "Snapper" Organs resembles the Kray's nemesis, Detective Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Read, in name only.
* NoEnding: Many, many sketches and shows end without a punchline, or any sort of resolution at all. Often by having The Colonel show up and disrupt things for being too silly. They are the essence of Surrealism.
** At one point, the police showed up out of nowhere and arrested everyone for violations against the 'Getting out of sketches without using a proper punchline' act, since just about every skit in the episode had ended [[HypocriticalHumor with the police showing up out of nowhere and arresting everyone.]]
* NoExceptYes: "Katie Boyle is not a looney - she is a ''Television Personality''."
* NoFourthWall: Too many to list, but here's one example of many to give an idea (from the Hungarian Phrasebook sketch): "If there's any more stock film of women applauding I shall clear the court!"
* NoIndoorVoice: The Gumbys
** John Cleese is also quite an accomplished shouter.
* NoKillLikeOverkill: Hank and Roy Spim, who use machine guns, explosives and fighter jets to hunt tiny insects like flies and moths; and they relax by dynamite fishing, which is somewhat reasonable. They do it for sport.
* NoodleImplements: The "specimens" in "The Insurance Sketch".
** "With a melon!?"
* NoOneShouldSurviveThat
* NonAnswer: "How to Do It" shows us how to play the flute and cure the world of all known diseases.
* NonindicativeName: "Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror" is a lighthearted chat show which features a man who speaks entirely in anagrams.
-->'''Host (Michael Palin)''': Hello, good evening, and welcome to another edition of ''Blood, Devastation, Death, War, and Horror''. And later on we'll be meeting a man who actually ''does'' [[SeriousBusiness gardening]].
** By contrast, "Ethel the Frog" is a very serious news magazine programme.
* NoSenseOfHumor: The Colonel in episode 8 who stopped sketches for being "too silly":
-->"Now, nobody likes a good laugh more than I do... except perhaps my wife... and some of her friends... oh, yes, and Captain Johnston. Come to think of it, ''most'' people like a good laugh more than I do, but that's beside the point."
* NotActuallyTheUltimateQuestion: Dennis Moore
* NoTitle: The "Showbiz Awards" episode makes no mention of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" at all; the "It's" intro goes straight into the "Showbiz Awards" opening, and the end credits are in the context of the wife-swapping competition.
* NotSoImaginaryFriend: Dinsdale Piranha thought he was being followed by a giant hedgehog, whom he referred to as "Spiny Norman"; at the end of the show, a giant hedgehog is lurking around London looking for Dinsdale.
* TheNudifier: Scientists send probes across the galaxy to study shopping and women's underwear. The Algon-1 probe was the first piece of space hardware specifically designed to undress ladies.
[[/folder]]



[[folder:O-P]]
* ObfuscatingStupidity: The [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNBNqUdqm1E Village Idiots]].
* OfficeGolf: "Party Political Broadcast" has a sketch in which a doctor practices his golf swing while his patient bleeds to death in his office.
* OffTheChart: Mr. Frog's ('''[[InsistentTerminology S.]]''' Frog's) sales campaign for Conquistador Coffee sends the sales graph plummeting through the horizonal axis and off the bottom of the page.
* OldFashionedCopper: A favoured target of satire. Constable Pan-Am, from the ending of the Chemists sketch, for one.
* OnceForYesTwiceForNo: The sketch in which a coffin is called as a witness. In ''Pleasure at her Majesty's'', the film of the first ever Amnesty International "Secret Policeman's Ball", the backstage footage shows Peter Cook (who stood in for Eric Idle as the defendant) pointing out to John Cleese (the defense counsel) that at one point he asked the coffin a question without a yes-or-no answer: "Mr. Aldridge, are you thinking or are you just dead?"
* OnlySaneMan
** Inverted. If anything, John Cleese was the ''Least Insane'' Man.
** In-show, the Colonel often tries to act as this by stopping sketches before they become too 'silly'.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping
* OrSoIHeard: Ron Vibbentrop drops a similar phrase alongside a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial when someone jokes that he's not [[ThoseWackyNazis Von Ribbentrop]].
-->'''Ron Vibbentrop:''' Nein! Nein! Nein! Nein! Oh. Ha ha. No, different other chap. I in Somerset am being born. Von Ribbentrop is born in Gotterdammerstrasse 46, Dusseldorf Vest 8... so they say!!
* TheOtherDarrin: A couple of times one of the actors was needed to play another character, and was replaced mid-sketch once their lines ran out:
** In "Court Charades", the jury foreman (Palin) and the defendant (Jones) were also two members of the Spanish Inquisition. When the defendant says "I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition", the scene cuts to film of the Inquisition racing to the court house, and then cuts back to the studio when the Spanish Inquisition storms in; by which time the defendant has been replaced, and the foreman seems to have disappeared altogether.
** In the "Father-In-Law" sketch, the father is played by Graham Chapman; when the sketch comes back as a link, he is replaced by Terry Gilliam.
** On live stage productions, Eric Idle would sing the Lumberjack Song instead of Michael Palin.
* OurProductSucks: Used in the "Dentist Sketch"; an evil dentist was using a bookstore as a front and is waiting for an associate, so when a customer shows up, the dentist tries to convince him to go to another bookstore across the street.
* OverlyLongGag: Another technique they helped pioneer.
-->"Number one: the larch. The... larch. ''The... larch.'' And now... number one... the larch."
** [[spoiler:[[BrickJoke And then in the credits...]]]]
** The very first Monty Python gag the world encountered was of the overly long variety, namely the "It's..." man crawling out of the ocean to introduce the show.
* OverlyLongName: A regular occurrance in the series, but the cream of the crop comes from the "Election Night" sketch (and the Very Silly Party):
--> '''Election Official''': Malcolm Peter Brian Telescope Adrian Umbrella Stand Jasper Wednesday (pops mouth twice) Stoatgobbler John Raw Vegetable (sound of horse whinnying) Arthur Norman Michael (blows squeaker) Featherstone Smith (blows whistle) Northgot Edwards Harris (fires pistol, which goes 'whoop') Mason Chuffchuffchuff Frampton Jones Fruitbat Gilbert (sings) 'We'll keep a welcome in the' (three shots, stops singing) Williams If I Could Walk That Way Jenkin (squeaker) Tiger-drawers Pratt Thompson (sings) 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head' Darcy Carter (horn) Pussycat 'Don't Sleep In The Subway' Barton Mannering (hoot, 'whoop') Smith. [[hottip:*:He received two votes, causing the Sensible Party to defeat the Silly Party by only one vote.]]
** Why is it that the world never remembered the name of Johann Gambolputty de von [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dingle-dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein von Knacker-thrasher-applebanger-horowitz-ticolensic- grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer]]-[[GratuitousGerman -spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mitz-weimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönedanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft]] of Ulm?
* OvertOperative: Played with in the "Mr. Neutron" episode with Teddy Salad, a retired CIA agent who now breeds rabbits in the Yukon. When his services are needed, Captain Carpenter goes to the Yukon believing Salad would've maintained the secrecy of his old job, and says Teddy Salad is a ballet organizer (or a hen teaser), which confuses everyone as the only Teddy Salad they know of is the CIA man.
* PantomimeAnimal: Two pantomime horses fight over a job at a merchant bank, a pantomime goose kills Terence Rattigan, and the recurring pantomime Princess Margaret.
-->'''Biggles:''' Get back in the cupboard you pantomimetic royal person!
* PenultimateOutburst: "If there's any more StockFootage of women applauding, I shall be forced to clear the court!"
* PerfectlyCromulentWord: "Splunge"
* PirateParrot: Seen in several sketches, including one with Long John Silver impersonators playing football.
* PlanetOfSteves
** The Bruces
** There was an ''incredible'' number of people named Arthur, and an even greater number named Ken or Eric.
** In the "Fish License" sketch, Eric Praline (one of the recurring characters, most known for being the customer in both the Dead Parrot sketch and the Cheese Shop) argues with another apparently called Eric. It also turns out that ''all of his pets are called Eric, [[MundaneMadeAwesome and he carries around books documenting the same thing with other people in case people would call him a loony for it.]]''
* {{Pseudolympics}}:
** One sketch is about the Olympic Hide-and-Seek finals.
** One of the German specials features the Silly Olympics with events such as the 50-meter dash for people with no sense of direction, a swim race for people who can't swim ("we'll return to this event as soon as all the corpses are fished out") and the cross-country race for incontinent people.
* PoliceAreUseless: The sketch "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOqfPG1ohKw I Wish To Report A Burglary]]." Someone goes to the police station to [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin report a burglary]], but due to some issues, HilarityEnsues as he is shuffled from officer to officer, all along the while being asked to make his report in different vocal registers.
** I'm sorry, I can't read this, sir. Could you try it in a different font?
*** '''CALLING ALL SQUAD CARS IN THE AREA!!!!!'''
* PursueTheDreamJob:
** A barber gives it all up to become a lumberjack. He has a hair phobia and he never really wanted to be a barber anyway.
** A chartered accountant wants to pursue a career as a lion tamer, but he is discouraged from doing that by a vocation guidance counsellor, who says his aptitude test shows he's perfectly suited for a career in chartered accountancy. Sadly, his ideas about lions are also quite twisted.
[[/folder]]


[[folder:Q-S]]
* QueerPeopleAreFunny
* RailEnthusiast: Two appearances, first the "Camel Spotting" sketch (in which camels are numbered, just above the cylinder box) and a murder mystery that quickly devolves into an extended discussion of trivia about railway timetables, which it turns out was written by one Neville Shunt. In the latter case, the trainspotter is played by Michael Palin, who is one of these in RealLife (indeed, Palin's first travel documentary was "Confessions of a Trainspotter").
* RapidFireNo: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tABcyXqv98 No, no, no, no, bloody fairy, no, no...]]
* ReadingAheadInTheScript: In several episodes characters would read the script to find out what was going on or what they (or another character) were supposed to do.
* RecurringCharacters: Oddly enough, there are a few, including gangster Luigi Vercotti (Michael Palin) and Eric Praline (John Cleese) who attempts to buy a fish license, attempts to return a pet parrot for having died, and arrests Terry Jones for making disgusting confections. Palin also plays a number of smarmy television hosts who are quite similar.
* RecurringExtra: In the first season a knight in armor would knock various characters over the head with a rubber chicken at least once in every episode.
* ReducedToRatburgers: "One slice of strawberry tart without so much rat in it later..."
* RefugeInAudacity: Actually instead of taking refuge, they seemed to have moved into audacity, built a nice little bungalow, and regularly invite people over for tea.
* ReluctantWarrior: From the "Full Frontal Nudity" episode:
-->'''Colonel''': Watkins, you've only been in the army a day.\\
'''Watkins''': I know, sir, but people get killed, properly dead, sir, no barley cross fingers, sir. A bloke was telling me, if you're in the army and there's a war, you have to go and fight.\\
'''Colonel''': That's true.\\
'''Watkins''': Well I mean, blimey, I mean if it was a big war somebody could be hurt.\\
'''Colonel''': Watkins, why did you join the army?\\
'''Watkins''': For the water-skiing and for the travel, sir. And not for the killing, sir. I asked them to put it on my form, sir - no killing.
* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: In the "How Not to Be Seen" sketch, "When we called at their house, we found that they had gone away on two weeks' holiday... However, a neighbor told us where they were." (Blows them up.) "And here is the neighbor who told us where they were." (Blows him up.)
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The second half of the Architect Sketch, in which the model of proposed block of flats collapses and catches fire, is a reference to the then-recent controversy around the partial collapse of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point Ronan Point]]. Of course, the show promptly [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this with the word "SATIRE" flashing on screen in huge green letters.
* RockPaperScissors: And one of the players has no arms.
* RuleOfFunny
** Until they get stopped for being silly by the Colonel.
** Or the Knight with a Rubber Chicken comes to slap someone.
** Or the 16-ton weight drops on someone. Or...
** One sketch was abandoned by having a boxer (Gilliam) punch out the woman (Idle) who was speaking.
* RuleOfThree: The Spanish Inquisition appeared three times, the Bishop theme was played (or at least started) three times, the "piston engine" gag was done three times in a row, and "Mr. Neutron" started with the post office commissioning a new postal box with a speech in English, French, and German.
* RunningGag: Quite a few, the most well-known of which is probably, "[[MemeticMutation Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition]]!" This particular gag subverts itself at the end of the episode, when it has become so routine for the Inquisition to appear when someone says they weren't expecting them that, well, everyone is expecting them to, but they're stuck in traffic so they can't arrive on cue.
* SarcasmBlind: Mr Pither in the episode "The Cycling Tour":
-->'''Cafe Proprietor:''' 35 p please.\\
'''Mr Pither:''' Ah... oh, I have only a fifty. You have change?\\
'''Cafe Proprietor:''' Well, I'll have a look, but I may have to go to the bank.\\
'''Mr Pither:''' I'm most awfully sorry.
* SawAWomanInHalf: "Conjuring Today" tried to demonstrate it with a rather crazy-looking stage magician with a bloody saw.
-->'''Conjuror:''' Good evening, last week we learned how to saw a lady in half. This week we're going to learn how to saw a lady into three bits and dispose of the [[ChaseScene body...]]
* ScienceHero: The "Science Fiction Sketch" has Charles, the Chief Scientist at the Anthropological Research Institute at Butley Down, who is an expert on what makes a person change from one nationality to another, perfect for [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman determining why people are turning into Scotsmen]]. Although he figures out the Blancmanges' nefarious plan to win Wimbledon, he has nothing to do with their defeat; instead they are (b)eaten by Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Brainsample.
* SdrawkcabName: Notlob. First mentioned in the "Dead Parrot" sketch as the palindrome of Bolton, then a news reader says "Notlob" when he meant to say "Bolton", and later there was a Mr. Notlob who went to a psychiatrist when he heard folk music wherever he went.
* SecretIdentityChangeTrick: In "Bicycle Repairman".
* SelfDeprecation: They got David Hamilton, who was working for Thames (a rival TV station) to dish out this beauty:
-->'''David Hamilton:''' Good evening. We've got an action-packed evening for you tonight on Thames, but right now here's a rotten old BBC programme.
** Also, this bit, which also leans on the Fourth Wall:
--> '''Cleese (narrating):''' Number 29, the interior of a country house.
--> '''Cleese (on camera):''' That's not a part of the body.
--> '''Cleveland:''' No, it's a link, though.
--> '''Chapman:''' I don't think it was very good.
--> '''Cleese:''' No, it's the end of the series, they must be running out of ideas.
* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: In ''Mr. Neutron'', a American spy talks like this to a British spy; partially {{Justified|Trope}} in that they were in the Yukon and the British spy was dressed like an Eskimo, but he's already confirmed that he's not an Eskimo and speaks clear English. The American figures it out after a couple of lines of shouting broken English.
* SeriousBusiness: Alien Blancmanges travel 2,200,000 light years and turn everyone in England into Scotsmen to... win Wimbledon?
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness
* SexSells: The Soho Motors ad has hot women draped over cars, the announcer uses vague language, and at the end it becomes clear its an ad for an escort service disguised as a sexy car ad.
* ShameIfSomethingHappened: Used by Luigi and Dino Vercotti when they try the old protection racket bit on an Army base, insisting it would be a shame if someone were to set fire to the paratroopers; unfortunately for them, the colonel has an [[TheComicallySerious aversion to silly things]] and stops the sketch in its tracks.
-->'''Luigi:''' It's only because you couldn't think of a punch line.\\
'''Colonel:''' Not true! Not true!
* ShapedLikeItself: The Oxford Dictionary defines the word "pythonesque" as "after the style of or resembling the absurdist or surrealist humor of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a British television comedy series (1969–74)".
* ShoutOut
** The "Confess!" segment of the Spanish Inquisition sketch is very similar to a scene in ''Series/ThePrisoner'' episode "Fall Out".
** In "Silly Election", the exchange "What about the nylon dot cardigan and plastic mule rest? / There's no such thing! / Thank you, Spike!" is a direct ShoutOut to ''Radio/TheGoonShow'' and its creator, Spike Milligan.
** "The Bishop" is a very obvious lampoon of ''Series/TheSaint''.
* SiblingsInCrime: The Piranha Brothers, known for policies of protection money, nailing heads to floors, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking sarcasm]].
* SixthRanger (or seventh)
** Carol Cleveland, who was in more sketches than anyone else who wasn't a writer for the show.
** Neil Innes can also make a claim for this title, given that he contributed much of the music for the shows and films and was an indispensable part of the troupe's stage shows.
** Aside from Cleveland, the woman most frequently seen was Cleese's then-wife Connie Booth (she's the woman Michael Palin is holding in the Lumberjack Song). She'd be even more important to ''FawltyTowers'', which she co-wrote with Cleese and in which she played Polly.
** Not to mention Eric's then-wife, Lyn Ashley, who was always credited solely as "Mrs Idle".
** And then there's Ian Davidson, who made guest appearances in almost every episode of the first series.
** DouglasAdams became Graham Chapman's writing partner after John Cleese left in the fourth series and was the only non-Python besides Neil Innes to get a writing credit on the show (for co-writing the "Patient Abuse" sketch). He also appeared in that and a few other sketches.
* SketchComedy
* SlidingScaleOfFourthWallHardness: Pretty much worn out by the end of the series' run.
* SmallReferencePools: Completely averted. To cite one of many examples: a joke from the very first episode requires the viewer not only to have heard of the painter Toulouse-Lautrec, but to be familiar enough with his disability to be able to identify a caricature of him by sight.
* SmarmyHost: A repeated target.
* SmashToBlack: At the end of episode "Michael Ellis", the characters are discussing how to end the episode. They reject a happy ending, [[RidingIntoTheSunset walking into the sunset]], a FadeToBlack, then finally:
--> '''Assistant''': Well, how about a sudden ending?
--> SmashToBlack
* SomewhereAnOrnithologistIsCrying: Done intentionally in the "Dead Parrot" sketch, where a pet store owner tries to sell an unsuspecting customer a dead Norwegian Blue Parrot. It's easy to miss, because the whole "dead parrot" thing is the focus of the sketch, but the "Norwegian Blue" thing is an immediate red flag as well. It seems pretty innocuous until you remember that parrots are tropical birds...[[FridgeBrilliance and Norway is right on the edge of the Arctic Circle]].
* SoundtrackDissonance: "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days" has a nice cheery piano number to match the bright scenery, which is totally opposed to the carnage that takes place.
* SpaceClothes: One scientist in the Algon-1 sketch, who discovered lingerie on another planet, believes that alien women's underwear gets [[{{Stripperiffic}} naughtier and naughtier]] the further away you go.
* SpeakOfTheDevil: Look, I'm not expecting the Spanish Inquisition here, okay?
-->"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"\\
"Now put her in... THE COMFY CHAIR!!"
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Raymond Luxury-Yacht insists that his name is spelled "Luxury-Yacht", but pronounced "Throatwobbler Mangrove".
* SpontaneousHumanCombustion: Mrs. Niggerbaiter
-->"It's funny, isn't it, how... how your best friend could just... blow up like that. I mean, you wouldn't think it was medically possible, would you?"
* SpySpeak: Played for laughs.
* StockFootage: One common gag involved cutting to stock footage of old women smiling approvingly and applauding in a music-hall theatre on the punchline of a sketch, often evoking dissonance by using it with BlackComedy sketches.
* StopTrick
** When Eric Idle gets fed up with the "Mary... Army Recruitment" sketch, Graham Chapman suggests a scene change; Eric stays the same when the recruitment office spontaneously changes to a bus.
** Also used a lot in the "Confuse-a-Cat" sketch, among others.
* StraightGay: Graham Chapman, who passably played his share of aggressively heterosexual characters. In one sketch, he ''shoots'' another character for being gay.
* StudioAudience: In the "Undertakers' Sketch", they rush the stage in mock indignation. Apparently, letting the audience react this way was a condition of the BBC letting them use the skit. The BBC agreed to let them do the sketch only if they made it clear that the studio audience disapproved of it. The Pythons responded by taking it UpToEleven, having the audience loudly boo practically every joke and then rush the stage at the end. It was AllPartOfTheShow, of course.
* StuffBlowingUp: "The Exploding Version of the Blue Danube" is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
** When shooting people just isn't enough in "How Not To Be Seen".
** "Well, it's just after eight o'clock, and time for the penguin on top of your television set to explode."
* StupidCrooks: The "Non-Illegal Robbery" sketch is about a group of criminals who aren't even plotting anything that's criminal. Upon learning that [[FelonyMisdemeanor their parking meter may have run out]], they panic, planning to leave the country, get plastic surgery, and so forth.
** They are forced to abandon the plan when one of them points out that blowing up the building would be illegal.
* SufferTheSlings: An impromptu one is made from underwear to fight a giant electric penguin.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial
** The smuggler, as well as being a BadLiar: "Nothing to declare, no, nothing in my suitcase..." and "No, no watches at all. No precision watches, no."
** The sketch about the Nazi leaders hiding in England had a lot of these:
-->'''Heinrich Bimmler:''' I am retired vindow cleaner and pacifist, without doing war crimes.
** And may I take this opportunity of emphasizing that there is no cannibalism in the Royal Navy.
* SwitchToEnglish: In the episode "The Cycling Tour," John Cleese is a Soviet officer making a speech in Russian to fellow Soviets, pausing for the subtitles to show, and then says in Russian, [[FunWithSubtitles "Forgive me if I continue in English in order to save time."]]
[[/folder]]


[[folder:T-Z]]
* TakeOurWordForIt: The PunchLine to the "Jokes and Novelties Salesman" sketch: "Ha, ha, ha, very good. What a good punchline. Pity we missed that. Still, never mind, we can always do it again."
* TakeThat: Numerous.
** Generally assume that a character named "Maudling" is one of these against Reginald Maudling, an MP who was embroiled in financial scandals. The Pythons make frequent mockery of him, though one sketch used him as a springboard to make [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98oeOocy2yI&t=23m54s a tremendous slam]] against PM MargaretThatcher.
--->''[Image shows a shin]'' '''Cleese:''' Number Twenty-three: the shin.
--->''[Image shows Reginald Maudling]'' '''Cleese:''' Number Twenty-four: Reginald Maudling's shin. ''[An arrow points at his shin]''
--->''[Image shows a brain]'' '''Cleese:''' Number Twenty-five: the brain.
--->''[Image shows Margaret Thatcher]'' '''Cleese:''' Number Twenty-six: Margaret Thatcher's brain. ''[An arrow points '''to her shin'''. Cue tremendous audience applause.]''
** One sketch involved a narcissistic actor named "Timmy Williams," played by Idle, who is constantly distracted in furthering his career from an old friend's desperate pleas for help, to the point where the friend shoots himself and Timmy takes it in stride. This is followed by credits for "The Timmy Williams Show," which - while written "entirely" by Williams - features a list of "contributors" that takes up several seconds, including Ralph Emerson, Burt Ancaster, and Monty Python. This is based largely off of the Python's experiences working with David Frost's "Frost Report."
** The "Killer Joke" sketch refers to it as being 'over 60,000 times as powerful as Britain's great pre-war joke', which is narrated over footage of NevilleChamberlain holding up the Munich Agreement.
* TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat: Used in the "Barber Sketch" where the barber leaves a recording of himself chatting with the customer, the deception was so good that it repeated a line when the customer said he didn't hear it.
* TapOnTheHead: The scientist to his female assistant during the Blancmange sketch.
* ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: The chef in the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdzqTGmEcZE "Dirty Fork" sketch]].
-->'''[[LargeHam John Cleese]]:''' ''[[YouBastard You bastards]]!'' You vicious, heartless bastards! Look what you've done to him! He's worked his fingers to the bone to make this place what it is, and you come in with your petty, feeble quibbling and you grind him into the dirt! This fine, honorable man whose boots you are but worthy to kiss! ''({{beat}})'' Oh, it makes me mad.
* ThatsAllFolks: "Look there's not really a great deal of point in your, sort of hanging on at your end, because I'm afraid there aren't any more jokes or anything."
** Palin at the end of "Scott Of The Antarctic":
-->Well, that's about it for tonight, ladies and gentlemen. But remember, if you've enjoyed watching the show just half as much as we've enjoyed doing it, then we've enjoyed it twice as much as you!
* ThemeTune: First movement of Sousa's "Liberty Bell", chosen as it is public domain, to save money. Nowadays, people know it as "[[WeirdAlEffect The Monty Python Song]]", and as one of the references to British comedy present in HogsOfWar, the Monty Python version of the song (although rearranged) is the main theme of said game.
* ThereIsNoRuleSix: TropeNamer by way of the Bruces sketch.
* ThisIsWhatTheBuildingWillLookLike: The architect sketch.
* ThoseWackyNazis: "Hitler in England"[[hottip:*:It's "HILTER".]]
* ThrownFromTheZeppelin: Literally. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_von_Zeppelin Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin]] threw the entire German government out of his airship during its maiden voyage; it wasn't for not supporting him, but for [[BerserkButton calling his airship a "balloon"]].
* TimeMarchesOn: The ''New Brain'' sketch has captions pointing out that the sketch was written before [[UsefulNotes/OldBritishMoney currency decimalization]], so whenever a monetary value in the old pound/shilling/pence system is mentioned, the caption translates it to the modern value.
* TinyHeadedBehemoth: According to one theory about the Brontosaurus, it was thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle, and then thin again at the far end.
* TitleSequence: The episode "Scott of the Antarctic" featured its namesake sketch at the beginning -- 18 minutes long -- before ever showing the show's Title Sequence. This is probably the first ever example of a show delaying its title sequence to anywhere near or (in this case) beyond its halfway mark. It only possible thanks to the BBC having no commercial breaks, and thus not having to identify the show upon returning from such a break.
* [[TokenMinority Token American]]: Creator/TerryGilliam, referred to on the back of the first DVD as the "imported American animator."
* TooDumbToLive
** The twits from the "Upper Class Twit of the Year Show" take part in an obstacle course involving jumping over a line of matchboxes to waking a sleeping neighbour; the last challenge involves shooting themselves. Honourable mention goes to Oliver St. John-Mollusc who managed to run himself over with his own car.
** Ron Obvious tried to run to Mercury (the planet) at the behest of his manager, [[TheMafia Luigi Vercotti]]. Other exploits attempted include jumping across the English Channel, eating Chichester Cathedral, and digging a tunnel to Java.
* TheTopicOfCancer: In an animated segment a prince sees a black spot on his face, but ignores it. Then he dies of cancer.
* TrapDoor: Used on a man collecting money for charity in the "Merchant Banker" sketch.
** Because the set had to be raised to accommodate the space beneath the trapdoor, it's audibly obvious that Cleese and Jones are walking on wooden boards rather than the concrete studio floor. This does however help in the later part of the scene, when the pantomime horses have to tap on the floor.
* TrappedBehindEnemyLines: The "Ypres 1914" sketch.
* TropeMakers: They coined their own genre, "pythonesque". c.f. SeinfeldIsUnfunny.
* UncleTomFoolery: Attila the Hun's butler played by Eric Idle in black face, he was named "Uncle Tom" and very stereotypical.
* UnfortunateItemSwap: In the "Police Raid" sketch, Graham Chapman plays the role of a policeman who intrudes on two guys having lunch, claiming he's got a warrant to search the premises. After a brief awkward silence, Graham produces a paper bag from his pocket, drops it on the table, and begins loudly declaring that he has discovered a bag which may indeed contain illicit substances. Eric Idle searches the bag to find... a sandwich. Dismayed, Graham looks at the camera and inquires, "Blimey! Whatever did I give the wife?"
* UnsatisfiableCustomer: One sketch inverts this and has Unsatisfiable Waitstaff, who angst over ''one'' dirty fork, resulting in utter carnage.
* UnusualEuphemism: "Semprini" and the "Nudge Nudge" sketch.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: The "Dull Life of a City Stockbroker" sketch, in which a stockbroker goes to work and doesn't react at all to the fact that a nude girl sells him his morning newspaper, that a Frankenstein monster kills everyone else on his bus or that his office seems to be the scene of orgy, murder and suicide -- and then he sits down at his desk and starts furtively reading a comic book called ''Thrills and Adventure''. For the inverse, see MundaneMadeAwesome above.
* UnwittingPawn: Angus Podgorny was one to the Blancmanges, making him a literal CosmicPlaything. The rules for Wimbledon said that there must be at least one human being involved in the final; so the Blancmanges arrange for the Scottish tailor to enter the tournament, and then eat all the other human players, leaving the final down to a Blancmange, and Angus who is hopelessly incompetent at tennis.
* UpperClassTwit: the TropeNamer, from "The Upper Class Twit of the Year Contest".
* UseYourHead: In "The Bishop" sketch. The villain's door is locked, so the Bishop's assistants pick up one of their number and use him as a battering ram.
* VerbalBackspace: The Spanish Inquisition
** "This expedition is primarily to investigate reports of cannibalism and necrophilia in- This expeditions is primarily to investigate reports of ''unusual marine life'' in the as yet uncharted Lake Paho."
* VideoInsideFilmOutside: "Good Lord, I'm on film!"
* ViewersAreGeniuses: The Pythons loved referencing history, arts and culture to an extent that most modern shows would never get away with.
* ViewersAreMorons: [[SarcasmMode It's a good thing they put up those captions]], someone might think [[StraightMan Reverend Morrison]] was simply [[CannotTellAJoke bad at telling knock-knock jokes]].
* VomitingCop: Live performances of the "Crunchy Frog" sketch had Constable Parrot (Terry Gilliam) vomit into his hat, [[VomitIndiscretionShot onstage]], after Inspector Praline mentions "Anthrax Ripple," as seen in ''Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl''. After having done so, Praline orders Parrot to put the hat back on -- which he does. [[{{Squick}} Cue the vomit sliding down Gilliam's face.]] [[note]]After running offstage pretending to be sick, Gilliam had filled his mouth with cold beef stew before going back onstage.[[/note]]
* VoxPops: Ask the man on the street what he thinks? Woman: "I am not a man you silly billy!" Man on rooftop: "I'm not on the street you fairy!"; Man in street: "Well, speaking as a man on the street..." *cue speeding car*
* WalkThisWay: The (Less Naughty) Chemist Sketch:
-->'''Man:''' Good morning. I'd like some aftershave, please.\\
'''Chemist:''' Ah, certainly. Walk this way, please.\\
'''Man:''' If I could walk that way I wouldn't need aftershave.\\
''(policeman bursts in and arrests him)''
* WeInterruptThisProgram: ...to annoy you, and to make things generally more irritating.
* WeaponsGradeVocabulary: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gpjk_MaCGM People died by a JOKE.]]
* WeirdnessMagnet: The starring character of the "Michael Ellis" episode.
* WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife: Invoked by John Cleese's character in the "Cheese Shop" sketch after he shoots the shopkeeper of a cheese shop, because he just found out that the shop is completely devoid of cheese after five minutes of questioning the shopkeeper.
* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Subverted. Bicycle Repair Man's power (to mend bikes really quickly) is incredibly useful in a world where everyone else is Superman.
* WhenEldersAttack: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygy7UDADXDg Hell's Grannies]]"
* WhenIWasYourAge: The "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch.
* WheresTheFunInThat: The "Mosquito Hunters" sketch
-->'''Hank:''' Well, I follow the moth in the helicopter to lure it away from the flowers, and then Roy comes along in the Lockheed Starfighter and attacks it with air-to-air missiles.\\
'''Roy:''' A lot of people have asked us why we don't use fly spray. Well, where's the sport in that?
** A sketch about a man going camel-spotting ends with the interviewer noting that, in fact, he's ''train''-spotting, to which the man replies, "Oh, you're no fun anymore." This line is then used by mischevious band members, a woman who's vampiric lover loses his fangs, and a man who undergoes the lash ("Cut him down!" "Oh, you're no fun anymore!") This causes the original to threaten action agaisnt anyone else that uses the line, which he acts upon in the next sketch.
* WhoopeeCushion
* WigDressAccent: The best-known example in modern times.
* WildlifeCommentarySpoof: "Here ve see a large pantomime horse engaged in a life or death struggle..."
* WilliamTelling: One of the German episodes begins with a William Tell sketch. It has Tell successfully shooting the apple, then the camera zooms out to show his son's body is riddled with arrows from previous attempts.
* WordSaladTitle: The team specifically wanted a nonsensical title for the programme and considered several. The runners-up were mostly reused as episode titles for Series 1, such as "The Ant, an Introduction" and "Owl-Stretching Time".
** One title that was never used in an episode (although it was referenced in "Royal Episode 13") is "The Toad Elevating Moment".
* WorldOfChaos: Most of their animated interludes are set there.
* WorstNewsJudgmentEver
** Nationwide decides that the theory that sitting down in a comfortable chair can rest your legs is worth reporting on, instead of the start of WorldWarThree.
** While another news programme sent its reporters to scenes of civil war, largely to find out what the military leaders' kept in their storage jars.
* WriteWhatYouKnow: Most of the members of Python were veteran British comedy writers from TheSixties. Much of their humor was deliberately made to [[TakeThat send up]], [[InvertedTrope invert]], [[SubvertedTrope subvert]], [[{{Flanderization}} flanderize to ridiculous proportions]] and/or just plain do away with many of the tropes, idioms and devices British comedy writers used at the time, [[BitingTheHandHumor along with British TV in general]].
* YaoiFangirl: Sir Philip Sidney's wife.
* YouCanLeaveYourHatOn: Two episodes involve a rather naughty strip-tease... and both are performed not by lovely ladies, but by a doughy Welshman. With a [[FanDisservice moustache.]]
[[/folder]]
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"NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPA -- oh, bugger!"
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