Monty Python

I love them and their stuff, especially Flying Circus, Holy Grail, and Life of Brian.

Here's a crowner where you can vote on your favorite sketch. My favorites are Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook, Fish License, and the Chemist Sketch.

I've seen Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life, and I found them very funny, although the latter was a bit inconsistent. I've also read some of the scripts for Flying Circus (I have a book of them) and it's very surreal.

I been a fan of theirs for as long as I can remember. Holy Grail was my first exposure, then Comedy Central started running Flying Circus in the afternoons. When they were released on DVD I got every episode of the series, all three movies, and the two-disc set that includes documentaries plus the "lost" German episode.

Unlike some others, I really like the fourth series, the one without Cleese. The episodes went from being sketches to being an almost continuous story, and the tone of the humor changed a little. The Golden Age of Ballooning has some of my favorite bits ever, such as Ferdinand Von Zeppelin going berserk whenever people call his airship a "balloon". Michael Ellis and Mister Neutron were also hilarious to me.

Meaning of Life wasn't as good as Life of Brian, but any film that has a song that takes the sheer utter piss out of the Catholic Church's policy on forcing folks not to use contraception by taking it to the logical extreme suits the way my warped mind works.

My favorite thing about Life of Brian was the controversy that surrounded it, particularly from uptight people who hadn't actually seen the movie, and took their objections about it from other people who hadn't seen it and got the entire movie completely wrong. It's a beautiful parallel to the actual content of the movie itself. Life imitating art, you know.

That song... I honestly feel that it stops being funny about halfway through. It was twice as long as it needed to be and utterly drove the joke into the ground.

Actually, I'm just not a big fan of Meaning of Life in general. It occupies this fascinating place in my head where I get all the jokes and understand why they would be funny, but almost all of them botch the execution or delivery. It's especially odd since I love Monty Python, and laugh my ass off at Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and the vast majority of Flying Circus.

Well, I would admit the song keeps dropping anvils, but the point I would like to make is that for me, personally, some anvils need to be dropped. Repeatedly.

Can anyone help me understand Monty Python stories?

Maybe. Although I'm American, I am a huge fan of the series, the films, the albums and the live shows. Do you have any particular questions about the humor or a particular sketch? A lot of it is borderline surrealist which may or may not translate well, but some others may make better sense in a particular cultural context.

I had a problem with the whole King Arthur going on a quest by God and what that even means. I also want to know about the Black beast sketch. Monty Python is really sureal and I may need to rewatch it again.

The character of King Arthur is a legendary fictional King of England who has been the subject of a great deal of stories. One recurring element in Arthurian legend is that of the Holy Grail, supposedly the cup or chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper and was given to Joseph of Arimathea. He's the one who carved the message on the wall of the Cave of Caerbannog. The Grail is alleged to have magical properties, such as healing sickness or wounds, or even granting immortality. So Arthur and his Knights go on a massive Fetch Quest because God told them to.

The Black Beast was part of the joke involving the carving. "He who is valiant and pure of spirit shall find the Holy Grail in the Castle of Aaaargh." They argue between themselves as to whether that's the name of the castle or whether Joseph died while carving it. Bedevere suggests he was dictating. Then when the monster shows up, Brother Maynard yells, "It's the legendary Black Beast of Aaaargh!" (He screams while being eaten). And apparently the writers decided that the only way to end the chase was for the animator to die of a sudden heart attack. So the joke is that it was a complete Deus ex Machina. That actually fits in with their style of humor; if a sketch went on too long or they couldn't decide on a punch line, they just ended it abruptly, which was often funnier because it subverted audience expectations.

edited 26th May '16 8:17:25 AM by Lawyerdude

Wasn't the worst beast in Holy Grail the killer bunny known as the "Rabbit of Caerbannog?"

It did kill five of them, Gawaine, Ector, and Bors.

Bizzarely, the Monty Python version of the Holy Grail legend is actually one of the more historically accurate in history, thanks to actual Arthur scholars within the team.

Yeah. Terry Jones really should be called Terry Von Jones Von Uber History Geek. He did at least one really good documentary series on the Middle Ages for the BBC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Jones%27_Medieval_Lives

He also did one on the "barbarians"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Jones%27_Barbarians

"Accurate" in the sense of "true to the source material", of course.

There were also other elements that had historical precedent, such as the French throwing the cow over the castle wall. That's a reference to a siege where a besieged city was down to its last pig and last sack of grain. So somebody got the idea to feed all the grain to the pig and then hurl it at the besieging army, in order to bluff them into believing that the defenders had food to waste. Supposedly, it worked and the attackers gave up.

Also, I read either here or elsewhere that the earliest version of Lancelot was a barrel-chested berserker who would go into a frenzy and kill tons of people, only to calm down and apologize after. "Sorry, I just get sort of carried away, you see?"

edited 26th May '16 2:46:10 PM by Lawyerdude

I think the original French creators of Lancelot Du Lac, and much of the rest of the so-called Matter of Britain, stole him lock stock and barrel from the earlier Celtic sagas starring a guy called Lugh Lámhfhada - the stories of both men's sneakiness and battle prowess are spookily similar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugh#Lugh.27s_name_and_nature

Though there are other candidates of course.

edit: this is totally new to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPriOQkKd6k

Snerkles. "All things dull and ugly."

edited 26th May '16 3:15:06 PM by TamH70

Lancelot had one creator, Chretien de Troyes. I don't know if he was swiping from Celtic legend for Lancelot or not (Lugh Lámhfhada -or Lugh of the Long Hand, or Lugh the Many Talented, was specifically an Irish character; his Welsh name was Llew Llaw Gyffes) but in making Lancelot the "greatest" knight, he was just doing what everyone did when they wrote an Arthurian romance; the hero of pretty much every romance is the "greatest" knight for at least the space of his story. Usually he get's to beat Sir Gawain at something, the official best knight, to demonstrate his greatness. What made Lancelot different is that he got to sleep with Guenevere, which follows in the grand tradition of French romances about cuckolded husbands. To be fair, while she was never given a specific lover until Lancelot, Guenevere's fidelity was in question as far back as a lot of the Welsh originals (you'd have been insulting a Welsh woman if you called her "Guenevere" as recently as the early 20th century).

At the time of it's release, Holy Grail was perhaps the most visually accurate depiction of King Arthur, in terms of the time and place the romances set him in, that had ever been seen on film. The armor and weaponry are right, the atmosphere is right, the peasants are dressed appriopriately. The Pythons knew their stuff, and did their homework.

edited 30th May '16 10:27:17 PM by Robbery

@Thread

This Monty Python must really know his stuff even if I don't understand the madness these comedies. Speaking of which is the Holy Grail a parody or satire of something political or ordinary?

In a broad sense, it's a parody of epic films. Other than that, I don't think it's meant to be parodying or satirizing anything in particular.

Your question seems to suggest that you think "Monty Python" was a real person. The group's TV show was called "Monty Python's Flying Circus". They invented the name Monty Python as a sort of fictional "sponsor" for the show. Later on, the label came to mean the group as a whole: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.

In the show and films, there are quite a few references to British culture, politics, history and so on. A few of the references don't make a lot of sense if you don't understand the context, but they're often still hilarious.

For example, the scene in Holy Grail where Arthur has a discussion with Dennis the peasant is poking fun at certain ultra-leftist political movements that were popular in the 60s and 70s while at the same time skewering the idea that a King could claim rule by divine right or, as Dennis puts it, a "farcical aquatic ceremony".

That bit in Life of Brian about "we are struggling together!" was an even more pointed kick in the goolies to the left wing establishment. I'd still say that Lo B was Python's best film, but Holy Grail does come close.

That explains a lot of things. Thank You for that.

Really I didn't know that.

Yep, the whole "Judean People's Front/People's Front of Judea" is a specific parody of groups who splinter over semantic differences that end up becoming more important to them than the real enemies they should both be targeting.

In the UK, this was happening a lot on both the right and the left wings in the 70s, with the National Front (essentially the British Nazi party, though there was never an official connection as such) eventually splintering repeatedly to the point where it had no serious political impact. Even today, that trend has continued, with the British National Party and English Defence League having been cannibalised by Britain First, who are at at their peak, but for who knows how long.

The left wing was more famous for it back then, and that too has continued. The Scottish Socialist Party split in two a few years ago, divided their support completely and lost all political representation.

I agree that Life of Brian is the better film, but both are very enjoyable.

That makes sense especially as it isn't limited to political groups but also religious denominations.....that is all I have to say about that.

edited 2nd Jun '16 3:23:06 PM by GAP