12 thoughts on “History According to Monty Python

  1. I have found excuses to post the ‘bad naughty Zoot’ clip several times this week. Anything Monty Python is OK by me! [Remember Wuthering Heights in semaphore?]

  2. Ages ago, in graduate school, (pre-internet, youtube, etc.) someone mentioned that the Python’s did a sketch in which the Arlofini Wedding Portrait came to life … yet I have never found any evidence. Those costumes would be great to see ‘interpreted’ ….

    1. It was one of Terry Gilliam’s animations using the actual Arnolfini painting, not a live-action sketch.

  3. My Dad was born on the Island of Puerto Rico in 1916 and did not move to the mainland until 1931. Since he was much older then my mother and quite conservative in his views on women, when ever he would start on a harangue my mother would yell: “girls come quick, it the Spanish Inquisition!” When he would start on some topic or another my sister and I would nudge each other and say” no one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.”
    To this day that skit makes me tear up with love and laughter.

  4. My undergrad required 4 years of philosophy to get out the door. As a result I get every single one of the references in the Philosphers’ Football sketch. Every single one.

    And who said we’d never use what we learned in college? :-)

  5. Ooh, the “Romans go home” bit brings back memories of high school Latin… bad memories….

    But seriously, for comedy shows and movies made on small budgets, the Pythons got sooo much right about aestheics, historiography, and other things; where shows and movies with bigger budgets than get so much wrong? Why?

    all could also apply to Blackadder as well

  6. Idk if this counts as Monty Python or not, but since then Terry Jones has gone on to do some awesome historical series. Including ones about the Crusades, “Barbarians”, and medieval people’s everyday lives.

  7. Almost a half a year later…

    “Well I didn’t vote for you!”
    The scen from The Holy Grail, with Dennis and his Wife (?) who lives in an anarcho-syndicalist commune.

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