[slight nitpic]That one is not a Monty Python sketch, it’s older than Monty Python[/slight nitpic]. On the other hand it’s one of their (Jones/Palin?) best and I love it.
Mr Cazzle is a mad Python fan, and I turned to him and asked what he thought the best Python sketch was.
After much giggling, he announced that the two best sketches were two that involved hijacking. I suggested that at this point in time, that might be a little insensitive, and perhaps he could think of another.
This resulted in “Just the Words” being hauled off the bookcase, and I haven’t been able to get any sense out of him ever since.
Therefore, as a Python fan-but-not-addict, I will nominate the 10 sketches that stood out in my mind after watching all the videos when I first met Mr Cazzle:
- “Very tinny word, that”
- “Confuse-A-Cat”
- “Inspector Lookout of the Yard”
- Mr Pithers Cycling Tour
- The Parrot Sketch
- Eric the Fish Licence
- The Upper Class Twit of the Year
- Nudge Nudge
- The Cheese Shop
- The Most Awful Family In Britain
Meanwhile, I still haven’t had a sensible answer to the question “Would you like a cup of tea?”. He always answers “A cup of cold tea. Without milk. Or sugar. Or tea. In a cracked cup.” Also, when asked what he would like to name his son should he ever have one, he answered “Tarquin Fin-tim-lim-bim-lim-bin-bim-bin-bim bus stop F’tang F’tang Ole Biscuitbarrel”, but then he suggested the same name for the cat.
My favorite (already obliquely mentioned above)is Graham Chapman giving Terry Jones a Flying Lesson.
“Oh, an aeroplane. Oh, I say, we are grand, aren’t we? Oh, oh, no more buttered scones for me, mater. I’m off to play the grand piano. Pardon me while I fly my aeroplane. Now get on the table!”
“Oh, a gahp. A gahp in one’s hoop. Pardon me, but I’m off to play the grand piano.”
Love that random bile Chapman could do.
HUGE Python fan checking in.
I pretty much love them all, but the one that had me cracking up the hardest (Dead Parrot being a close second…), was The Four Yorkshiremen.
Four old men sitting around one-upping each other about how difficult their childhoods were. It’s the source of that quote, cazzle:
Also such gems as “a lump of ice-cold poison” for dinner.
It ends with one man saying that every day:
“…our dad would kill us, and dance on our graves singing hallelujah.”
::men ponder this for a moment::
“If you told the children of today that, they wouldn’t believe you.”
Yup, I know that Tapswiller… oh boy, do I know that…
I know it on CD AND MP3. Over and over…
It’s a good thing I love the sound of Mr Cazzle laughing, or I might have a slight grudge against Monty Python. And I happen to like the Four Yorkshiremen despite their being overplayed. 
I am just cracking up, thanks for reminding me all these great sketches.
Olympic Hide-and-seek - oh man, that one is hilarious - how creative. Watched it this morning before work in fact 
(somebody…stop me!)
Four Yorkshiremen - I like the version of this sketch where “we had to get up in the morning at 10 o’clock the night before, drink a cup of sulphuric acid and eat a handful of cold gravel…” Cazzle - your husband sounds like a great bloke!
Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson - pure genius.
German composer with the long name… “…of Ulm.”
Of the Pythons themselves, I prefer Graham Chapman - his facial expressions are priceless. I remember one sketch where he was dressed as a doctor, walking in front of a building. A stethoscope is thrown out of the window and lands on his head - he tosses it aside with a shudder as if it were something disgusting. Also, any sketch with him in it where he wears those big cheap looking plastic glasses with the thick lenses, and does his sort of psychotic shudder at something. A huge loss to the world of comedy.
I’ve heard the Four Yorkshiremen sketch never appeared in the series, only on records and in live performances? Can anyone confirm? I certainly haven’t been able to locate it on the DVDs yet.
Speaking of the DVDs - does anyone know how to skip the introduction each time you insert one of them? The 30 second introduction is great the first few times, but eventually… Whatever I try, my DVD player says “This operation is currently prohibited by the disk”. Is it because A&E wants to spam (how ironic!) us every time we watch one of the DVDs?
Real life Pythonisms - well, I recently took an Italian class and (unrelatedly) bought a bed…say no more.
I remember a post a long time ago on one of these bulletin boards where someone said something like, "I saw a sci-fi movie where the enemy ship decloaked and was immediately blown to bits. My immediate thought was, ‘This shows the importance of not being seen’ ".
One last thing - I must be strange, but those sketches which are frequently mentioned by people who have seen a bit of MPFC usually seem to be the ones I find least funny. I’m thinking of The Dead Parrot sketch, the Argument Clinic… I wonder why? Overkill maybe?
A lot of the ones everybody knows are the ones that show up in one form or another in all of MPFC’s records/shows/etc. Which is probably why everybody thinks they are funny - they’re the ones that show up the most. Real MPFC fans, like me, got all the original episodes on tape and have All The Words, which is all you’ll really need. Except maybe copies of the German episodes.
Since nobody apparently has mentioned it, I’ll cast a vote for the “How Not to be Seen” lessons.
BOOM!
The one that always makes me laugh is the first bit of the Rival Documentaries sketch, with Cleese and Palin fighting over the microphone.
Other favorites that come to mind:
Salad Days
Most Awful Family in Britain
The polite hijacker
That archaeology one (just for the line “Don’t forget… I’m six-foot five”)
I think the Fish Slapping Dance is the most wonderful little piece of absurdism ever made. So pointless and so hillarious.
Police Fairy Stories, mainly for the cops around the ouija board. “U.P.Y.O.U.R.S.”
And, since I haven’t seen it mentioned, the one where Palin (my favorite Python) goes up to police officer Cleese and tells him about his missing wallet. Cleese tells him there’s nothing that can really be done. Pause. Palin:“Want you come back to my place?” Pause. Cleese:“Yeah, all right.”
Most of my favorites have already been mentioned, but I thought I’d put in my 2 cents.
[$0.02]
I liked the ‘Summarize Proust’ competition.
[/$0.02]
We’re Knights of the Round Table.
We dance whene’er we’re able.
We do routines and chorus scenes
With footwork impeccable.
We dine well here in Camelot.
We eat ham and jam and spam a lot.
Now sing it with Legos[sup]TM[/sup]!:
http://www.lego.com/studios/screening/movie.asp?title=montypython
Another Palin classic, not mentioned so far.
And just look at that, they’re upstairs already… whoah, boy, this is fun!
A very brave man, our contestant tonight.
Who-ho-ho!! This is no Tupperware party!
Very brave man, they don’t usually get this far…
What’s – what’s that, what’s she’s doing to his…is that a chicken up there? No, no, it’s just the way she’s holding the grapefruit…
brrrringg…brrrringg
Mr Cazzle finally answered!!
He nominates Prawn Salad Ltd, and the aforementioned flight school one - “Oh, a gahp. A gahp in one’s hhhhhoop. Pardon me, but I’m off to play the grand piano”.
The line is:
“No more buttered scones for me, mater, I’m off to play the grahnd piahno.”
“We are here today to celebrate the opening of a new Box…”
Mr. Neutron! The man who can destroy fruit machines with his wrists!
“All forces on eternal standby!”
“Surround everyone with everything we’ve got!”
I can’t believe no one mentioned Mr. Neutron. I know I deserve to be punished for such callousness, but I couldn’t help thinking of the Mr. Neutron sketch when, after the tragedy of September 11, Bush put our armed forces on alert status.
Other faves are:
The whole Michael Ellis sequence (Buying an ant–what household would be complete without an orangutan to forge prescriptions for the heroin addicted tiger–the Victorian Poets and the King of Ants)
Silly Walks (I love how the secretary comes in with the tea on a platter, but she has her own silly walk which has completely spilled all the tea by the time she arrives–JC merely says, “Very good, thank you”, and she turns around and leaves without serving any tea).
“I think there should be a tax on people who are standing in Water. Ohh!”
The People’s Golden Global Choice Awards (although I think Eric Idle as the MC is funnier by far than most of the nominated films that are shown).
Mr Pither and the Bicycle Tour: I hope you have change for 50p.
I love this little speech from Holy Grail -
Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some… farcical aquatic ceremony. You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you…I mean, if I went 'round, saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bink had lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away…
Aha! Now we see the violence inherent in the system. Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I’m being repressed!
laugh my ass off at that one, and NOBODY gets it!!!
i also like the ones with the “ladies recreation society” recreates some famous battle, and they all just jump in the mud and beat each other with their purses.
and the “are you easily embarrassed” bit.
“john, i’d like to show you something”
- zzzziiippp… thump…thump*
now, how would you rate your embarrassment?"
Crunchy Frog