The Life of Python - 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches
This Anniversary Special marks the day that Monty Python made its sparkling debut on television when the very first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969.
The irresistible Oxbridge partnership of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, mixed with the dazzlingly surreal artworks of American Terry Gilliam, celebrates four decades and 45 episodes of risqué silliness.
The comedy of Monty Python was streaks ahead of its time. Famous for its innovation and radical splendor, Python sketches broke the mould of building to a specific punchline, delivering some of the funniest and most enduring sketches of our lifetime.
In honour of 40 phenomenal years of comedy, we take a look at the 20 greatest Python sketches ever.
1. Dead Parrot
Undeniably the most popular and well known of the Monty Python sketches, and for good reason too. The dead parrot – or “resting” Norwegian Blue, depending on which comedian you believe rightly – deserves its place at the peak of this list. Quintessentially Python, Cleese’s ranting complaints are deftly sidestepped by Palin’s slippery shopkeeper. Quite how this sketch only came second in the UK in Channel 4’s 50 Greatest Comedy Moments to Little Britain is anyone’s guess. Pure comedy gold doesn’t get better than this.
2. The Lumberjack Song
The best Python song, barring perhaps Always Look On The Bright Side of Life, The Lumberjack Song is both eminently hum-able and achingly funny. Way before Eddie Izzard made cross-dressing cool as his executive transvestite, Python made it a topic of comedy.
3. The Ministry of Silly Walks
The versatility of Python is amazing, as are John Cleese’s legs on the evidence of this sketch. Hardly the most intellectually demanding of skits, it’s a tribute to the brilliance of the show that it can flutter between scintillating word play and slapstick silliness. Great physical comedy.
4. Self Defence Against Fresh Fruit
Cleese delivers a knockout performance as the crazed Army instructor, helping his lackluster crew of misfits defend themselves from the dangers of passion fruit, bananas and other assorted fresh fruit.
5. The Spanish Inquisition
Given how memorable the great Python sketches are its amazing how few are successfully quotable. That’s because invariably the sketches were far too lyrically dense to be contracted to single catchphrases. One exception to the rule is, “Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!” which is enough to get tears rolling about the plethora of weapons the Inquisition has at its disposal.
6. Four Yorkshiremen
A brilliant bidding war of which hard-bitten Yorkshireman had the toughest of upbringings.
7. Candid Photography, AKA Nudge Nudge
Idle takes the innuendo of a bit of slap and tickle to the furthest extreme. Say no more…
8. The Bruces
Howlingly un-PC yet still terribly funny… for all non-poofters.
9. Argument Clinic
This is the best sketch Monty Python ever did. No it isn’t. Yes it is. No it isn’t.
10. The Funniest Joke in the World
The ultimate weapon to win the war and destroy the Nazis. The atom bomb? Nope, humour.
11. Spam
Hmm, lovely spam.
12. Cheese Shop
A simple premise: man walks into an empty cheese shop, asking for every cheese under the sun, none of which are available. Cleese again delivers with consummate skill for a superb sketch.
13. The Bruces’ Philosophers Song
Any sketch that can ridicule history’s greatest thinkers with lines such as “René Descartes was a drunken fart – I drink, therefore I am,” deserves the utmost praise.
14. How Not to Be Seen
Done in the style of a public service announcement, How Not to Be Seen is as amusing as it is ridiculous.
15. Hitler in England
Hitler lodged in a Somerset boarding house, wonderful.
16. Silly Olympics
Insensitive to the disabled. Rude, crude, and brilliant.
17. The Philosophers’ Football Match
As clever as it is funny, philosophy undergraduates could get all the basics of Ancient and Continental philosophy in this four-minute summary.
18. Woody and Tinny Words
Another intellectually stimulating masterpiece of word play discussing the qualities of “Gone” versus “Litter Bin”.
19. Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook
Forget the floundering ineptitudes of Borat, this is the original and best example of ‘lost in translation’.
20. How to Contradict People
Short, succinct and beautifully played. Actually it’s long, verbose and awful…
More Monty Python Links
The Monty Python YouTube Channel.
On the BBC: Monty Python's Flying Circus 40th anniversary.
The official Monty Python website: Python Online
Monty Python's Words/Quotes/Full Scripts
This website has the scripts of all 45 episodes from the original Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series.
Scripts from the Monty Python sketches.
Index of all Monty Python's Characters linked to quote pages.
The Monty Python Rip-Off Script.
TV news posted by DanBrown on Sunday, October 04, 2009
Comments
John Cleese's fruity defence training
How brilliant! It's my personal favorite, it takes me right back to the first time that I saw it... all those years ago.
Comment posted by Master Chief on 10/4/2009 11:26:58 AM
Love Philosopher's football
I cried with laughter with this sketch - excellent!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/8/2009 9:57:32 PM
4 Yorkshiremen
Perfect. Great choice.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/4/2009 12:39:46 PM
Re:4 Yorkshiremen
Not actually a Python sketch, more a sketch that the Pythons performed in live shows.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/14/2009 2:53:09 PM
Monty Python gives meaning to life, they are the greatest people alive, thank you for your wisdom.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/4/2009 7:49:00 PM
OMG all in one place... supposed to be working...
My fav is... hmm, very hard but the Cheese Shop just kills it for me. :) I had a client once the same. I used to use this sketch as an example every guitar people ordered from the website was some reason we couldn't do it, haha.
Firespin
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 10:48:28 AM
It's funny
It's funny as it's 1. Funny and 2. Inane which is funny as well. A double bubble of hilarity. :) Attacking you from at least 2 angles of mirth.
James
Comment posted by James on 10/5/2009 10:51:17 AM
Re:It`s funny
Apart from the contradiction sketch...
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 1:39:43 PM
Amazing
Wow, totally amazing, you sure did pick some good ones!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 1:48:52 PM
Geniales
Lo mejor de Gran Bretaña son los Monty.
Saludos desde España.
:-)
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 2:57:12 PM
Not quite
Is this the part where I pedantically point out the Four Yorkshiremen is not a Monty Python sketch...
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 4:48:14 PM
We 'ad REAL attributions in my day
While performed pretty well at the Bowl, we all of course know that Four Yorkshiremen is not a Python original...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MtKNLfhT6M
Written for At Last The 1948 Show, with Chapman and Cleese with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Marty Feldman.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 4:56:09 PM
No "Upperclass Twit of the Year?"
Jumping the matchboxes, undoing the bra, shooting yourself in the head...
Dreadful omission.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 4:57:13 PM
Re:No "Upperclass Twit of the Year?"
Exactly. This sketch makes me cry every time they try to wake the neighbor. Way funnier than "Four Yorkshiremen".
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/7/2009 5:05:07 PM
Re:No "Upperclass Twit of the Year?"
They even had the Tony Blair lookalike, years before Tony Blair.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/9/2009 10:10:42 PM
I love M.P.
Masters of the whole universe!!!
Greetings from Spain!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 6:01:32 PM
The twin peaks of Kilimanjaro
That one used to leave my friends and I in stitches. Would have like to see that one here.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 7:58:18 PM
Philosophers football match
Aristotle - very much the man in form.
You couldn't write this stuff. Hang on, they did.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/5/2009 9:07:47 PM
OMG, you missed an opportunity
You did a post called the 20 Greatest Monty Python skits and actually included 20 skits??????? What a missed opportunity. You should have done ANY number EXCEPT 20, you Upper Class Twit of the Year candidate!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/6/2009 3:51:44 AM
Scott of the Antarctic
I've heard this sketch is greeeat, greeeat!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/6/2009 8:18:23 AM
Re:Scott of the Antarctic
I'll say it is... let's dig a hole and have him stand on a box... irrefutable brilliance in spatial logic.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/6/2009 10:15:15 PM
from Prodnose in London, England
I still think the Philosophers Football Match is the best.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/6/2009 8:21:15 AM
Where's the Penguin or Spiny Norman??
Penguin on the television set is missing!
So is Spiny Norman the hedgehog and the Dinsdale brothers...
Too many good skits to list, I guess.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/6/2009 6:07:36 PM
Personally, The Dead Parrot sketch is second only to The Silly Olympics. But I love all of them on this list. Great job fellas.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/7/2009 1:16:02 PM
Best skit ever...
"There are some people who question the need for our bank to have even one pantomime horse!"
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/7/2009 3:26:00 PM
Oh and Nigel has run himself over!
Upper Class Twit of the Year?!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/7/2009 3:36:29 PM
Thank you Monty Python...
for posting all your material on YouTube! Now everyone, go buy it (as if you hadn't already).
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/7/2009 3:41:22 PM
Inspector Lookout
This is one of my favorites... but again, you can't get 'em all! Love them!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/7/2009 8:46:46 PM
Where's "The Bishop"???
OK, Devious... don't move!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/7/2009 9:16:19 PM
Greatest? Or greatest known?
It seems to me that this is a list of great Monty Python sketches as written by someone who doesn't understand the finer points of some of their lesser known work.
Too obvious for my likings.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/7/2009 11:16:32 PM
Wait a second...
Where are the Twits? Quite possibly my favorite MP sketch of them all.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/8/2009 12:59:24 AM
Lake Paho?
Upper Class Twit of the Year award was certainly a grave omission but am I the only fan of the Expedition to Lake Paho?
Found in a suburban basement...
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/8/2009 10:08:15 AM
Get it right
Four Yorkshiremen isn't a Python sketch. It's an "At Last The 1948 Show" sketch performed by Python on some of their live albums and Secret Policeman's Ball... But it ain't a Python sketch.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/8/2009 10:38:07 AM
Wordplay
OK, so what, about of flu, the subject of, word association football?
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/8/2009 2:13:37 PM
Spot the brain cell anyone
I'll have the blow on the head, please Michael.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/8/2009 2:22:18 PM
Python changed comedy
We had to wait till Christmas '69 to see a Python show on BBC1 as it was broadcast on BBC2 at first and not everyone had BBC2. It certainly changed comedy but not entirely. We had had the "At Last the 1948 Show" on ITV and the marvellous Marty Feldman sketch show, so Python was the final part of the process of this new wave of comedy.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/9/2009 9:28:12 PM
Yorkshire accents
Looking back, the Yorkshire accents were not their greatest asset.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/11/2009 2:32:45 PM
Funny name
Great choice overall. Thanks. Their YouTube channel is also excellent. Now, in the "How Not to Be Seen" sketch, one of the women is named B.J. Smegma. Gross! Just thought I'd point that out. :)
Comment posted by Gabe on 10/12/2009 1:59:28 PM
The Monty Pythons
They are so evergreen...
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/14/2009 12:49:39 AM
How long is it?
That's a rather personal question!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/15/2009 4:29:06 AM
Pantomime horses anyone?
Now that was comedy gold!!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/20/2009 4:37:02 AM
Too short!
There could another 20 easily. Gumby brain specialist, fish licence, Mr Creosote, Scott of the Sahara, Upper-class twit of the year...
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/21/2009 11:48:02 AM
Upper class twit of the year
I'd take off Philosophy Football and put the Twit of the Year and I'm ordering you to do it. I've got a banana and I'm not afraid to use it!
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/22/2009 9:42:43 AM
Dead mother in the sack at the undertakers
I think we've got an eater!!! Quite possibly the most gross of their wonderful sketches... then again, the visitors to the romantic evening... "What's brown and sounds like a bell?"... DUNG!! Goats going poos, smelly Audrey and her beaked beans... oh, just sooooo many...
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/25/2009 1:50:50 PM
Philosopher's football - absolute genius
This is my all-time favourite Python sketch. So clever, it's frightening, and absolutely hilarious... still die with laughter every time I see it.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/25/2009 8:06:53 PM
And who could forget...
Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?
Comment posted by Drew on 10/26/2009 5:31:37 PM
Argument Clinic at number 9?
It shouldn't be there; it should be in the top three. And you're missing Upperclass Twit, too. Pure fluff. It's just gone 8 o'clock and now it's time for the penguin on your television to explode.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/27/2009 3:17:03 AM
Very witty Wilde
"Your Majesty is like a stream of bat's piss. ....... When all else is dark as pitch you stand out like a shaft of gold" Or summat like that. I want that one.
Comment posted by Aussie on 10/27/2009 4:12:06 PM
Python movies
I wonder if a similar list could be compiled for Python movies...
Perhaps related but not strictly Python projects like Erik the Viking, Jabberwocky, Ripping Yarns, etc, could be included as well, since there are really only three films (discounting Hollywood Bowl and Something Completely Different).
Comment posted by Anonymous on 10/28/2009 2:33:16 AM
How can you leave out...
Crunchy Frog or the Architect skit???????????
Especially the Architect skit.
I design slaughterhouses.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 12/11/2009 4:05:28 AM
No Architect skit?
Are you crazy? By far the best one is the Architect skit!
Mr Wiggin: Good morning, gentlemen. This is a 12-storey block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive in the entrance hall here, and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort and past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last 20 feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these...
First City Gent: Excuse me....
Mr Wiggin: Hm?
First City Gent: Did you say knives?
Mr Wiggin: Rotating knives, yes.
Second City Gent: Are you proposing to slaughter our tenants?
Mr Wiggin: Does that not fit in with your plans?
First City Gent: No, it does not. We asked for a simple block of flats.
Comment posted by John Ross Harvey on 12/11/2009 4:10:34 AM
Re:No Architect skit?
Mr Wiggin: Oh, I see. I hadn't correctly divined your attitude towards your tenants. You see I mainly design slaughter houses. Yes, pity. Mind you, this is a real beaut. I mean, none of your blood caked on the walls and flesh flying out of the windows, inconveniencing the passers-by with this one. I mean, my life has been building up to this.
Second City Gent: Yes, and well done, but we want a block of flats.
Mr Wiggin: May I ask you to reconsider. I mean, you wouldn't regret it. Think of the tourist trade.
First City Gent: No, no, it's just that we wanted a block of flats, not an abattoir.
Comment posted by John Ross Harvey on 12/11/2009 12:36:31 PM
Re:No Architect skit?
Mr Wiggin: Yes, well, of course, this is just the sort 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 masonic handshakes! 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.
Second City Gent: Well, we're sorry you feel like that but we, er, did want a block of flats. Nice though the abattoir is.
Mr Wiggin: Oh (blows raspberry) the abattoir, that's not important. But if any of you could put in a word for me I'd love to be a freemason. Freemasonry opens doors. I mean, I was...I was a bit on edge just now, but if I were a mason I'd sit at the back and not get in anyo
Comment posted by John Ross Harvey on 12/11/2009 12:41:03 PM
Re:No Architect skit?
ne's way.
First City Gent: Thank you.
Mr Wiggin: I've got a second-hand apron.
Second City Gent: Thank you.
Mr Wiggin: (going to door but stopping) I nearly got in at Hendon.
First City Gent: Thank you.
(found at http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode17.htm#1)
Comment posted by John Ross Harvey on 12/11/2009 12:48:07 PM
No UCTOTY
Any list that omits Upper Class Twit Of The Year and Election Night Special is incomplete. Architect also is in MY top 20.
Comment posted by Elliot Brand on 12/11/2009 7:23:50 PM
Reg Pithers cycling tour?
Reg Pither (as in brotherhood but with a Pi instead of a Bro and no hood) cycling tour. Made Ben Hur look like an Eric.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 12/16/2009 1:03:26 PM
Frank Tutankhamun, "Wrong Way" Norris, Spam, Marriage Guidance Counsellor, Blackmail, Mao Tse Tung - "sing little birdy", The Architects, Dennis Moore, Oscar Wilde sketch... it's endless and unsurpassed.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 12/16/2009 1:08:14 PM
Lobby
Ron Obvious's attempt to jump the channel, Norman Vole's claim to have written all the works normally attributed to Shakespeare, mice men, travel agent "Torremolinos" sketch, Hilter, gas cooker sketch, Blackmail, and Court sketch with Eric Idle apologising as Mr Larch... Well, I'd just like to say, m'lud, I've got a family... a wife and six kids... and I hope very much you don't have to take away my freedom... because... well, because m'lud freedom is a state much prized within the realm of civilized society. It is a bond wherewith the savage man may charm the outward hatchments of his soul, and soothe the troubled breast into a magnitude of quiet. It is most precious as a blessed balm, the saviour of princes, the harbinger of happiness, yea, the very stuff and pith of all we hold most dear. What frees the prisoner in his lonely cell, chained within the of rude walls, far from the owl of Thebes? What fires and stirs the woodcock in his springe or wakes the drowsy apricot betides?
Comment posted by Anonymous on 12/16/2009 1:34:41 PM
Re:Lobby
What doth the storm toss'd mariner offer her most tempestuous prayers to? Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!
Genius.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 12/16/2009 3:48:47 PM
Monty Python is still around?
That's a long time.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 2/18/2010 9:45:07 PM
I don't know the name of the sketch
... but it starts with Graham Chapman suspended near the ceiling. I believe he's wearing a tutu. He's talking on the phone when the sketch begins, and he ends the conversation and just throws the phone down onto the desk. For some reason this has always made me howl with laughter.
Comment posted by Anonymous on 3/12/2010 9:25:28 AM
