# Explain: Monty Python's Church Police? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 29, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575 "2016-01-29T15:21:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/21 "2016-02-01T16:12:10Z")
The Church cop character breaks in saying “What’s all this then, AH-men?”, with the first part being a Brit cop’s initial phrase when investigating some minor brouhaha, and the AH-men constituting the church element. Zaniness dissected. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/22 "2016-02-01T18:07:57Z")
To explain a joke is, as ever, to kill it. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/23 "2016-02-01T18:10:43Z")
It’s not dead. It’s merely resting. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/24 "2016-02-02T08:58:29Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > No, it’s neither sarcastic nor biting social satire … It’s silliness for its own sake. It was only years later, while talking with an anglophile public servant, that I found out that the “Ministry of Silly Walks” was not mearly absurdist, but satirical. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/25 "2016-02-02T12:07:29Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > It’s not dead. It’s merely resting. It’s joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. It is an ex-joke. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/26 "2016-02-02T12:50:48Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Connie Booth says this, quickly, in _Holy Grail_ after being deemed _“A witch!!”_ From the time I first heard that line in the theater in '76 it was probably 15 years before I found out what the hell she even said, let alone what it means (it’s a completely unknown phrase in American English). Nitpick, that was Carol Cleveland, not Connie Booth. Carol was often featured in Monty Python sketches. Connie played Polly in “Fawlty Towers” and IIRC was married to John Cleese. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/27 "2016-02-02T13:04:44Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > Nitpick, that was Carol Cleveland, not Connie Booth. Carol was often featured in Monty Python sketches. Connie played Polly in “Fawlty Towers” and IIRC was married to John Cleese. Nope, Connie Booth was the witch in Holy Grail. [Cite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g) and [cite](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/?ref_=nv_sr_1). Connie Booth played a few roles in Monty Python’s Flying Circus as well, including [Bevis the lumberjack’s best girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaRd4d8hOY#t=30s). Carol Cleveland played Zoot and Dingo “You must give all a good spanking!” in Holy Grail. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/28 "2016-02-02T13:21:56Z")
Wait - so St. Loony Up the Cream Bun and Jam was a catholic church? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/29 "2016-02-02T13:54:08Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > No, it’s neither sarcastic nor biting social satire… It’s silliness for its own sake. > [@Melbourne](#): > > It was only years later, while talking with an anglophile public servant, that I found out that the “Ministry of Silly Walks” was not mearly absurdist, but satirical. Unsurprisingly, Britons have enjoyed – since way back – taking the mickey out of the ridiculous side of their country’s Civil Service, often in a zany-ly silly way. Decades before Python, the humorist Beachcomber was writing of the absurd doings of the Ministry of Bubbleblowing. Dickens does much the same thing in _Little Dorrit_, where characters have to spend much time frustratingly in the toils of an inefficient and seemingly useless bureaucratic department called the Circumlocution Office. It emerges late in the book, that in fact the C.O. fills a worthwhile role: i.e., it provides make-work for bothersome upper-middle-class nitwits who, with more time on their hands, might wreak genuine active mischief. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/30 "2016-02-02T15:35:28Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > Kid (after being fingered by God as the one who killed the Bishop of Leicester in response to a prayer by the Church Police): > > “It’s a fair cop, but society’s to blame” > > Church cop: “Right. We will be arresting them too. Now, we shall conclude this harrest with an 'ymn.” All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise ans wonderful, The Church Fuzz nicked them all. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/31 "2016-02-02T15:54:26Z")
> [@Mollie\_Magill](#): > > All things bright and beautiful, > All creatures great and small, > All things wise ans wonderful, > The Church Fuzz nicked them all. That goes into the Favorite Hymn thread. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/32 "2016-02-02T16:51:29Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > It’s joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. It is an ex-joke. Well, he’s…he’s, ah…probably pining for the fjords. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/33 "2016-02-02T17:27:30Z")
Lovely plumage. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/34 "2016-02-04T10:04:45Z")
> [@hail ants](#): > > connie booth says this, quickly, in _holy grail_ after being deemed _“a witch!!”_ from the time i first heard that line in the theater in '76 it was probably 15 years before i found out what the hell she even said, let alone what it means (it’s a completely unknown phrase in american english). a witch a witch! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/35 "2016-02-04T13:28:29Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Connie Booth says this, quickly, in _Holy Grail_ after being deemed _“A witch!!”_ From the time I first heard that line in the theater in '76 it was probably 15 years before I found out what the hell she even said, let alone what it means (it’s a completely unknown phrase in American English). Do Americans not have the expression “cop a feel”, used by adolescent boys? “cop” in that phrase is the same as in “fair cop” - the idea of being grabbed or touched. The reason “cop” became synonomous for an arrest was that in English common law, the peace officer had to actually physically seize the individual. Once the peace office touched the individual, the individual was under arrest and from that point running away was resisting arrest. Since “cop” is a term meaning to touch, it became by extension a term for arrest. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/36 "2016-02-04T16:21:16Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Do Americans not have the expression “cop a feel”, used by adolescent boys? “cop” in that phrase is the same as in “fair cop” - the idea of being grabbed or touched. > > The reason “cop” became synonomous for an arrest was that in English common law, the peace officer had to actually physically seize the individual. Once the peace office touched the individual, the individual was under arrest and from that point running away was resisting arrest. Since “cop” is a term meaning to touch, it became by extension a term for arrest. We do indeed have the term ‘cop a feel’ meaning to slyly grab a woman’s breast. I think the confusion is because ‘a fair cop’ has to do with being arrested, but in America ‘cop’ almost always means ‘police officer’. In that context it’s a noun, not a verb. Though we do have the phrase ‘cop a plea’ meaning to accept a plea bargain, and the phrase ‘cop out’ which means to dodge something with a flimsy excuse (anything, not just legal matters). Before I knew for sure I thought the British phrase was 'it’s a fair _court’_… ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575/37 "2016-02-04T18:19:11Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Nope, Connie Booth was the witch in Holy Grail. [Cite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g) and [cite](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/?ref_=nv_sr_1). Connie Booth played a few roles in Monty Python’s Flying Circus as well, including [Bevis the lumberjack’s best girl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaRd4d8hOY#t=30s). Carol Cleveland played Zoot and Dingo “You must give all a good spanking!” in Holy Grail. Damn! You’re right. It must have been the nose that threw me off. 😉 Seriously, I think I got so used to Carol Cleveland being the token Python female that I never even thought about it being anyone else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-monty-pythons-church-police/744575.md?page=1)