Monty Python Owns a Fifth of My Soul
Monty Python All The Words Volumes One and Two.
Monty Python owns a fifth of my soul (or thereabouts). I was hooked in the late 1980s when MTV aired the original series as part of their Sunday night British comedy line-up. I was twelve. And a girl. And American. My fandom was alleged to be impossible, but against the odds I had been born with a fully intact and functioning British sense of humor, and so Python became a weekly event with me and several of my friends gathering around the TV. We never missed it. I don’t think my friends really got it or were into it as much as I was. When I truly love something, I am gifted or cursed with an enthusiasm that can bring others along in its wake.
Many loves are quick and intense, hanging out for a year or two and then fading, but Python has traveled with me year in and year out throughout an entire lifetime (this year marks 35 years). I’ve watched the complete original series many times, but after my mom died in 2019, I watched ONLY Python for some weeks and created a list of my top 47 favorite sketches. I’m not sure why. You do strange things.
For no other reason than that I did this, below are the sketches (with extremely random commentary).
First, some disclaimers:
Rankings are of course bogus. Every experience ranks number one while you’re experiencing it; and I can’t, for example, really decide between Cheese Shop or Spanish Inquisition as being “number one.”
Some of these may not properly be sketches (more like vignettes or segues).
I gave some sketches their “correct” names while others are only the names by which I happen to think of them.
If I performed the same exercise today (i.e., not in a haze of post-caregiver exhaustion), I’d likely come up with a totally different list.
No parrot sketch – I recognize its brilliance (Cleese’s performance of it is like music), but I think I simply became tired of it because it was so over-played on “best of” shows, Python documentaries, etc. Told so many times that the sketch was brilliant and funny, I was never allowed to discover it on my own terms and form my own convictions about its brilliance and funniness.
The list:
Cheese Shop. I understand that Graham Chapman saved this sketch, bless him. Cleese was contemplating throwing it out, unsure whether it was funny. Chapman explained to him that it was.
Spanish Inquisition. This is my whole life, from the point of view of any of the parties in the sketch – the Spanish Inquisition, having the wrong words, showing up with the wrong torture accoutrements; or the victims being accosted by the totally expected Inquisition, confusion on their faces, not really sure what they’re supposed to be doing.
Johann Gombolputty. I somehow overlooked this sketch until later in my life. Once I had discovered my error (during grad school), I began pulling my NC State friends back to my bedroom to watch it (that’s where my TV was).
Lumberjack Song. The segue from the butchering barber to the song came about because Palin and Jones were tired after a long writing session and wanted to stop and get a bite to eat, so this was the link they decided on. It makes one want to be tired and hungry more often.
Twit of the Year. This is the sketch that should be shown to aliens to explain the extinction of the human race.
Court Scene with Inspector Dim (witness in coffin/Cardinal Richelieu). I believe this is the first real “ensemble” scene of Pythons (well, minus Gilliam) in the first season. I’m not sure why I like it except that I think there’s something special about seeing the chemistry of all the Pythons together in a single scene. There is also something special about the sight of John Cleese singing and dancing while everyone else just stares at him.
Confuse-a-Cat. “For one ghastly moment I thought I was…too late.” And, “Your cat is suffering from what we vets haven’t found a word for.”
Close Order Swanning About.
Poet Reader. There’s something that seems right about every home having a poet tucked away in a funny little access closet and needing a repairman to come and do adjustments.
Restaurant Sketch. A few times, I’ve tried showing this to business writing students as an example of the incorrect way of responding to a customer complaint. None of them laugh. They just stare at me – much as everyone stares at John Cleese in the court scene when he’s singing, “If I were not in the CIB, an engine driver, me.”
Terry Jones stripping. There are two different notable sketches where Jones strips. He just goes for it. Just absolutely goes for it despite the fact that he’s this little average-looking dude. It’s the absolute height of commitment.
Management Training Course. This represents my understanding of jobs. To the degree that I understand what is going on with that (i.e., nothing), someone may as well be ringing a bell in my face and singing various nonsense words. Early in my career, I did a teaching demo for a prospective job where I was laughed at in much the same manner that everyone laughs at the poor applicant at the end of this sketch – holding up the signs “scoring” him, falling on the floor in paroxysms of glee that the whole thing was just a cruel hoax.
David Frost parody (the Timmy Williams Show). I loved this sketch long before having any idea who David Frost was. This is just a lovely and perfect skewering of someone being narcissistic; you don’t need to know specifically who it was skewering.
Gangs of Old Ladies
Village Idiot (The Idiot in Society)
Election Night Special (Silly/Sensible Parties)
Beethoven’s Mynah Bird
Woody and Tinny Words
It just came off the wall (accidents sketch)
Silly Walks
Bicycle Repair Man
Travel Agent sketch
Summarize Proust
Argument Clinic
Spam
Déjà vu
Archaeology Today
Royal Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things
I Wish to Report a Burglary (police station silly voices)
The Poet McTeagle
Mosquito Hunter
Gay Judges
Filling out paperwork while bleeding to death
Queen Victoria Handicap
Father-in-law sleeping with them
Room of Captured Milkmen
Stolen News Reader
Awards Show parody
Dueling Documentaries
Dennis Moore
Olympic Hide-and-Seek Final
Homoerotic soccer players
Money Programme (“There is nothing quite so wonderful as money”)
Fish Slapping Dance
Sinking ship. For some reason, this “abandon ship” sketch kept coming into mind for me at the height of the pandemic: “There is no need for panic. Do not rush for the lifeboats…women, children, spacemen, and a sort of idealized version of complete Renaissance men first!”
Hospital for Overacting
Buying a Bed
