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
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.
How brilliant! It’s my personal favorite, it takes me right back to the first time that I saw it… all those years ago.
I cried with laughter with this sketch – excellent!
Perfect. Great choice.
Not actually a Python sketch, more a sketch that the Pythons performed in live shows.
Monty Python gives meaning to life, they are the greatest people alive, thank you for your wisdom.
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
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
Apart from the contradiction sketch…
Wow, totally amazing, you sure did pick some good ones!
Lo mejor de Gran Bretaña son los Monty.
Saludos desde España.
The BEST EVER.
Is this the part where I pedantically point out the Four Yorkshiremen is not a Monty Python sketch…
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.
Jumping the matchboxes, undoing the bra, shooting yourself in the head…
Dreadful omission.
Exactly. This sketch makes me cry every time they try to wake the neighbor. Way funnier than “Four Yorkshiremen”.
They even had the Tony Blair lookalike, years before Tony Blair.
Masters of the whole universe!!!
Greetings from Spain!
That one used to leave my friends and I in stitches. Would have like to see that one here.
Aristotle – very much the man in form.
You couldn’t write this stuff. Hang on, they did.
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!
I’ve heard this sketch is greeeat, greeeat!
I’ll say it is… let’s dig a hole and have him stand on a box… irrefutable brilliance in spatial logic.
I still think the Philosophers Football Match is the best.
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.
Personally, The Dead Parrot sketch is second only to The Silly Olympics. But I love all of them on this list. Great job fellas.
“There are some people who question the need for our bank to have even one pantomime horse!”
Upper Class Twit of the Year?!
for posting all your material on YouTube! Now everyone, go buy it (as if you hadn’t already).
This is one of my favorites… but again, you can’t get ‘em all! Love them!
OK, Devious… don’t move!
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.
Where are the Twits? Quite possibly my favorite MP sketch of them all.
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…
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.
So what about the fish slapping dance?
OK, so what, about of flu, the subject of, word association football?
I’ll have the blow on the head, please Michael.
Flying sheep anyone?
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.
Looking back, the Yorkshire accents were not their greatest asset.
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.
They are so evergreen…
That’s a rather personal question!
No crunchy frogs? Damn.
Now that was comedy gold!!
There could another 20 easily. Gumby brain specialist, fish licence, Mr Creosote, Scott of the Sahara, 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!
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…
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.
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?
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.
“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.
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).
Crunchy Frog or the Architect skit???????????
Especially the Architect skit.
I design slaughterhouses.
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.
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.
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
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)
Any list that omits Upper Class Twit Of The Year and Election Night Special is incomplete. Architect also is in MY top 20.