The Life of Python – 20 Greatest Monty Python Sketches
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The Holy Grail of Python’s 20 most hilarious sketches, celebrating their 40th anniversary.
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.
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.
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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.
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Ken Clean-Air Systems.
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2 sheds.
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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?
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What doth the storm toss’d mariner offer her most tempestuous prayers to? Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!
Genius.
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WHATNOTROUT
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That’s a long time.
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… 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.
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