Monty Python’s 50th anniversary proves they’re still comedy legends

Monty Python turns 50 this year, and this week’s Deeper Cut celebrates how the British comedy icons still make us laugh, from Flying Circus to Holy Grail.

It’s hard to believe that Monty Python has turned 50. It makes sense, of course. They’re people and people get older — and one of them is dead. But Monty Python the entity, the collective thing that is their comedy, seems like a hilarious thing that’s just always been here.

When Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Terry Jones formed the comedy troupe in 1969, there’s no way they envisioned we’d still be talking about them five decades later. That’s half a century! But from their absurd TV show to a series of even more absurd films, a stage play, and all kinds of random ventures, they’ve remained a part of our pop-culture consciousness.

There’s just so much to love about the Pythons, first and foremost the fact that they never took themselves too seriously. In fact, it was the exact opposite; many of their sketches and projects contain at least one moment in which they are utterly bonkers.

Remember the opening credits of 1975’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which start with a ton of fake not-really-Swedish subtitles and devolve into insisting that the film was mostly directed by llamas? Or the sketch about a man with a tape recorder up his nose? Or the repeatedly appearing, totally out of context Spanish Inquisition, considered the 12th greatest British comedy sketch of all time?

A fair amount of Python is so far out on a limb that you can’t find the tree anymore, and that’s the charm of it. It either leaves you baffled or surprised or both — but always impressed at their sheer bravado.

It isn’t all zany humor, though. That might have gotten you in the door, but Monty Python is far more than just slightly crazy people doing crazy things. There’s an intellectual level to a lot of what they do, either putting their own spin on something or making a point about it. The best comedy always has an element of truth to it, something to say beyond getting a laugh, and their work is no exception.

The Ministry of Silly Walks, for example, is one of the group’s best-known bits and another of the greatest British sketches of all time. We laugh at it because of John Cleese and his exaggerated walks, but Cleese is also skewering bureaucracy by giving us a useless political drone with a title that should not exist. Mr. Teabag may be silly, but he’s an example of bureaucratic excess which is absolutely real.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus also gives us the Dead Parrot sketch, a piece of comedy that is still as laugh out loud funny now as it was then because it comes from Cleese’s exasperation at the fact that the pet shop owner (played perfectly deadpan by Michael Palin) can’t recognize that the bird is deceased. There’s nothing bizarre about it. The laughs are born out of simple human interaction, and its origins come from an actual encounter Palin had with a car salesman.

Even in their wilder adventures, some of the funniest parts aren’t that ridiculous. Holy Grail hits a high part early on when King Arthur, played by Chapman, arrives at a castle looking to recruit some knights for the Round Table. He is immediately mocked for banging coconuts together instead of riding a horse. This turns into a whole lengthy discussion about swallows, their migratory pattern, and whether they’re African or European. It’s a hilarious exchange and it all comes from the film’s budget being too small to afford horses. The Pythons turned a production issue into a comedy goldmine.

They came up with humor in different permutations and from the most odd of subjects, showing that there were laughs to be had everywhere. Whether in a film or across four seasons of TV, from a whole bit about Spam to having fun with the story of Jesus’s birth in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, they always took the more interesting road. Sometimes it was by necessity, sometimes it was on purpose, but the Pythons could never be accused of being boring.

Therein lies their staying power. Whether it’s getting an audience to laugh so hard that they cry, or causing utter confusion because the viewer has no idea what they were trying to do, every Monty Python sketch generates a reaction. You can’t passively watch Monty Python. Even if you hate it, you still remember it. Not many comedians can say that.

And unlike most comedians, they’re not just riffing on relationships or their pet peeves. They’re cracking jokes about lumberjacks, cheese shops, and bicycle repair.

That combination of creativity and freewheeling fearlessness has left an impact on the world in ways that you probably never knew. It’s because of Monty Python that we have the term
“spam” emails. Elon Musk used his SpaceX program for a Python tribute in 2010. And celebrity chef Alton Brown cited Python as an influence on his series Good Eats.

This was happening even during the group’s heyday. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were among those who helped pay for Holy Grail. George Harrison was the primary financier for Life of Brian and had a cameo in the movie. So many people, whether in Britain or elsewhere and from all different walks of life, could find something to love in this quintet of comedians who could do a little bit of everything and weren’t scared of anything.

It’s important to note that all five of the Pythons had experience in comedy before they came together, and they went on to do other great things separately. Terry Gilliam is now a well-known director of films like 12 Monkeys, Eric Idle is an accomplished songwriter who wrote the book and lyrics for the Tony Award-winning Python musical Spamalot, Michael Palin has established himself in the travel space, and John Cleese went on to give us Fawlty Towers. They were no one-hit wonders.

They’re like the Beatles of comedy: great in their own individual ways but legendary when they’re together. There’s a reason why tickets for their 2013 reunion show sold out in 43 seconds and they had to add more dates. They played so well off one another, complementing each other in some ways and contrasting in others. And they captured a certain reckless joy: not to shock or to go viral on social media, but just doing whatever it took for a laugh.

Comedy has changed quite a bit since 1969, and there are elements of Python that don’t come off the same as they did back then, given their fair amount of sexual innuendoes, violence and darker punchlines. But in a way, that also contributes to their longevity. What they created was special, a unique body of work in comedy history that can never be copied or continued or made again. They stand, and will always stand, uniquely on their own.

Stream Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Monty Python’s Life of Brian on Netflix. Find the latest Deeper Cut every Wednesday in the Entertainment category at FanSided.