According to Wiki:
“A number of European and North American species are long-distance migrants; by contrast, the West and South African swallows are non-migratory.”
So the Monty Python quip is actually true. I thought they just threw it in to be funny. Hell, to be honest I didn’t even know African Swallows really existed.
They were also right on target when they said that a five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut. It’s a simple question of weight ratio, y’see…
Monty Python owes a lot of its comic roots to Cambridge Footlights ( Footlights - Wikipedia ). That is, comedy performed and written by university students. This often seems to introduce a kind of academic layer under the comedy - sometimes more obvious than others. I bet if we dug deep enough, we’d find that the bits about being an anarcho-syndicalist commune were references to some social history textbook.
The Pythons were all university educated and that gave a unique depth to their humour. The obscure references in the various skits and movies are all drawn from intellectual subjects, especially philosophy.
PS: my 13yr daughter recently elected Socrates for a school project…because she knew him from Monty Python.
As I understand it, all the numbers in The Galaxy Song are roughly correct.
Same thing with Futurama. In one episode, aliens from Omicron Persei 8 come to Earth angry that the broadcast of their favorite TV show was interrupted 1,000 earlier. Omicron Persei is about 1,000 light years from Earth.
Cute. Still you gotta admit it is pretty clever while being damn funny.
The list of Famous Members is impressive, thanks for the link.
And 93 cents left in a savings account paying 2.25% interest for 1,000 years does indeed equal roughly $4 billion.
IIIIIIIIImmanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
Yeah, there was some pretty intellectual stuff going on under their clowning.
I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
I was highly amused years ago when I found out that the city of Amiens is (or was)an actual anarcho-syndaclist commune. I even posted about it here.
Just what IS the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Love the footnotes.
On the commentary track for Holy Grail, I thought Cleese said they were inspired by the countless student political groups that existed when they were at college: all of them very passionate and all of them a complete waste of time.