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Celebrating 40 years of Monty Python, Almost the Truth: The Lawyer’s Cut brings the six-part IFC documentary series to DVD with a host of extras.
Chronicling the hugely influential comedy troupe’s entire history, Almost the Truth spans decades of Pythonism, and features tributes from the likes of Russell Brand, Jimmy Fallon, Simon Pegg, Steve Coogan, Dan Aykroyd, and Seth Green. It’s rounded out by sketches, film clips, and revelations, such as the lengths George Harrison went to in order to fund The Life of Brian.
Enter to win! We have a copy of the DVD to give away to one lucky reader. To enter, leave a comment below revealing your favorite moment from Monty Python history. Be sure to use a valid email address when entering, so we can contact you if you win.
Visit the IFC documentary website, check out footage from the troupe’s recent NYC reunion, watch the series on demand
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48 Responses
i love the scene in Holy Grail when the killer bunny attacks!!
After-dinner mint
and the black knight! none shall pass!!
You’ve got no arms! It’s a flesh wound…
Sheer brilliance
The dead parrot sketch is a popular favorite, I know, but it was the first thing I thought of when my parents’ cat died and my mom decided to take it to the vet for confirmation. As she told me about the vet informing her that the family pet had indeed passed on, all I could picture was John Cleese knocking the stiff against an examining table: “Madam, this cat is DECIDEDLY DECEASED.” Sick, maybe, but these are the cultural references I have to turn to for comfort in times of tribulation. Thanks, Monty Python.
“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
“What’s on the telly?”
There’s a penguin on the telly.”
…
This is humor completely dependent on the brilliant characters and the setting that would never make it out of a conventional writer’s room.
Every sperm is sacred!
How to spot trees from a long distance away. Number 1. The Larch.
The Larch.
The Larch.
My fave moment is/was Twit of the Year.
#2 moment New Brain.
#3 The Larch.
Monty Python skits have become our family’s way of determining if newcomers have a sense of humor! My 8th grader can perfectly recite much of it from memory! One of the few things that’ll bring my WHOLE family to the living room!
“ever sperm is sacred” – it just makes me laugh. That or the Black Knight. Oh or “shrubbery.” Crap, I have to pick ONE? I pick shrubbery.
“Cyril Connolly?”
“No, ’semi-carnally’!”
anything john cleese!
We are the knights who saaaAAAY: Niii, Niiiiii, Niiiiiiii!
Bring us…a SHRUBBERY!
Gets me every time. :)
My favorite: Philosophers’ football.
“Nietzsche is saying that the referee has no free will, and Confucius say, “Name go in book.’” Unbeatable, especially for a university student…
SPAM!
Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!
and I sure wish I’d been at the Hollywood Bowl in 1982.
After all these years, my favorite is John Cleese coming into the home of a married couple, unfolding a cardboard TV screen and stepping behind it, and proceeding to narrate a scholarly documentary about mollusks, occasionally holding up a sea shell or squid for illustration (“vis, the squid”). The audience of two expresses boredom, until the narrator begins to talk about the mollusks’ sex lives. This gets them very excited, as each succeeding mollusk is described as being more depraved than the one before it, and at the end he shakes the viewers’ hands by sticking his own hand through the imaginary tv screen.
I’m a lumberjack, and I’m okay…
As a parent there are many things that make me
proud about my son (age 28) & daughter (age 23).
But one I hadn’t expected
(kind of like the Spanish Inquisition)
is that they both have grown up big Monty Python fans.
the bartering scene from Life of Brian
i fart in your general direction!
From Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when God said….Every time I try to talk to someone it’s “sorry this” and “forgive me that” and “I’m not worthy”…
I remember the endless “What is your name? What is your quest?” for months after watching “The Grail.”
“Meaning of Life” –John Cleese as Humphrey (the teacher) inculcating bored Brit lads in sex ed:
[student]: …rubbing the clitoris, sir?
Humphrey: What’s wrong with a kiss, boy? Hmm? Why not start her off with a nice kiss? You don’t have to go leaping straight for the clitoris like a bull at a gate. Give her a kiss, boy.
[another student]: Suck the nipple, sir?
Humphrey: Good. Good. Well done, Wymer.
[another student]: Uh, stroking the thighs, sir.
Humphrey: Yes. Yes, I suppose so. Hmm?
[another student]: Oh, sir. Biting the neck.
Humphrey: Yes. Good. Nibbling the earlobe, uhh, kneading the buttocks, and so on and so forth. So, we have all these possibilities before we stampede towards the clitoris, Watson.
Watson: Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.
Winner here is the Upperclass Twit of the Year
Ministry of Silly Walks is my fav.
Cheers -
I love the bits that come back in later shows, or elsewhere on the recordings, like The Spanish Inquisition, and Spiny Norman (Dimmesdale Piranha’s hedgehog).
Bring out your dead….but I’m not dead. You’re almost dead! hehehehehe…
Enough of this. It’s silly. Now nobody enjoys a good laugh more than I do. Except maybe my wife. And some of her friends. Come to think of it, most people. But that’s not the point. Get on with a good sketch. Perhaps some singing.
John Cleese in the Ministry of Silly Walks, doing a silly walk~
This parrot is DEAD! Dead, dead, DEAD!
My initiation to Monty Python, over which I have never gotten…
Clip Clop Clip Clop. But there are no horses! Coconut shells yes!
Holy Grail
My favorite moment is a cumlative effect. As a little boy, I got my hands on my dad’s Python cassette tapes and loved them. Knew all the sketches and songs by heart. I experienced them as if Python was just a radio show. (I was a big Goon Show fan. I know. Odd child.)
Then, I saw Python episodes & movies on TV. It blew my little mind.
Then, when I was a little older, I started to GET ALL THE JOKES. And my world was complete.
Ministry of funny walks
My favorites are “The Argument Clinic” and “Silly Olympics”.
Nothing beats eyeball grasping aliens saving a falling Brian.
My favorite sketch has always been the first one in Episode 13. “They’ll never stop talking, he’ll be the ruination of her, RHYTHM METHOD!”
Got to love the expired parrot!
The Fish Slapping Dance still makes me laugh
One dead unjugged rabbit fish later…
Life Of Brian is full of fave moments:
1) “He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”
2) “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life”…classic Eric Idle!
3) Cleese as Roman soldier correcting grammar
4) “Loretta” & the People’s Liberation Front et al
5) The Life Of Brian opening theme song!
It’s clear why George Harrison was such a solid Hand Made backer, “Brian” is brilliant satire & silliness!
“How can you tell he’s a king?”
He ‘asn’t got shit on ‘im
Good evening. In the late 1960s, a comic force emerged which was so original, so zany, so fabulously different that many people felt that the world of entertainment had been changed forever. Intelligent – some would even say intellectual, yet massively popular. Subtle, but also simple. Dangerous but warm; visual but still enormously literate. Big-hearted, generous, anarchic, and above all, funny. Brilliantly funny. But enough about me. What about this “Monty Python” crowd? Well, some people like ‘em, I guess.
(The opening by Steve Martin of Parrot Sketch Not Included, 1989)
I love Monty Python so much and there are so many! it’s hard to choose just one, but I’ll try. As a professional writer, I frequently enter my boss’s office and begin conversations with “I’ve written a…” Every time I do this, I hear Eric Idle, impersonating a school child, shyly and high pitchedly saying “I’ve written a sketch.” This then leads into the “hey, hey, nudge, nudge” bit, which is another favorite. I also really like the “funniest joke in the world,” because the Pythons freqhently make me laugh so hard I think I’ll die.
the killer rabbit with “nasty, big, pointy teeth!” in holy grail. love it.
I often express my pleasure saying “My nipples explode with delight!” – an absolute gem from the tobacconist sketch – Monty Python lives on