Monty Python Overview

And now for something completely different. It's 1969, love and social criticism are in the air. Throw together five well-educated Britons and one American (that makes six cross-dressed men all together), add a dead parrot and a wicked sense of the... [more]

And now for something completely different. It's 1969, love and social criticism are in the air. Throw together five well-educated Britons and one American (that makes six cross-dressed men all together), add a dead parrot and a wicked sense of the absurd, and "Monty Python's Flying Circus" is born. The English comedy troupe comprised of John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Graham Chapman revamped and ruled British television comedy for five years. Each episode contained a series of random skits that brutally spoofed the archaic British class system, mocked prominent intellectual and cultural figures, took stabs at the British sense of prosperity and properness, and opened fire on British history. The Americans had never seen anything like it. And the British, for their part, jumped at the chance to have a belly-wrenching laugh at their own expense. "Monty Python's Flying Circus" commanded smart yet physical humor to expose the guts of the entire spectrum of British society. The "upper-class twit," with his ironed face, uncompromising societal standards, and offending naivete, received just as nasty a beating as the lower-class housewife with her shrill voice and dirty slippers. Nothing emerged unsullied from Monty Python's grip. Dragging everything down to its own absurd level, the show reveled relentlessly in British society's ridiculousness. And sometimes it just got plain weird. In one surreal skit entitled "Fish Slapping Dance," two uniformed men face each other on a pier. One repeatedly prances up to the other and gives him a dainty yet firm slap across the face with a fish. This slimy assault continues until the victim finally deals his assailant a blow to the head. Fish in hand, the man lands in the water with a fat slap. The audience roars. But why is this funny? The fact that you don't know exactly why you're laughing is all part of Monty Python's game. The show allows its audience to laugh at nothing and something simultaneously: the nothingness of grown men abusing each other with sea life, and the somethingness of stupid military rituals and manners. Even more widely watched than the Flying Circus were the Monty Python movies, each a spoof on a different era of history. The films ridicule everything they get their hands on, from the Trojan War to the Knights of the Round Table, by inserting hilarious, unexpected substitutions for the commonplace. In "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," a legendary monster turns out to be a white bunny rather than the usual fire-spewing dragon. Of course, this is no everyday rabbit: just when the knights are almost out of harm's way, the rabbit leaps through the air, digs its teeth into one of the knight's necks, and chews its way through. The scene -- as well as the entire movie -- renders England's tradition of knighthood comically absurd. Throughout almost all of Monty Python's work runs a thoughtful surrealism; when matched with intelligent references and inventive word play, this surrealism produces a Lewis Carroll-like experience. The ridiculous reigns supreme, history parodically repeats itself, serious things are flipped over, and the humor in everything is revealed. [show less]