This one and "The Life of Brian" top their list, in my humble opinion. Each time this rolls around on cable TV I expect finally to find it boring but rarely do. If I can make it to the second sketch, the aquarium with the fish, I'm hooked. Now, I can't spell out too many of the situations without ruining the surprises, but I can't resist those fish.
We see an underwater scene with a fake fish swimming slowly back and forth. Another fish enters and they exchange gruff, "Good mornings." One by one other fish swim into the scene and each time, there is the same "good morning" exchange, very ritualized and formal. There is a brief conversation between the fishes. (All of them have hideous humanoid face.) "Anything new?" "Wot?" "I say, anything new?" "No, nothing much new." One of the fishes faces the camera and exclaims, "Look! Howard's being EATEN." And the camera shows us that the fish are in a restaurant aquarium, the kind from which ultra-fresh live fish are hand picked to serve as an entrée.
We see the fussily dressed waiter bending down to show the customer his nicely prepared decapitate piscine preparation.
"Hmmm," one of the fish wonders aloud. "Makes you THINK, doesn't it?" Then the opening credits roll -- "Monty Python's Meaning of Life." Granted this description loses something in being transposed from one medium to another, but if you don't find this amusing you may not appreciate the rest of the film.
There are some dozen or so sketches, none of which fall entirely flat, but some of which are stronger than others. The most offensive by far is the fat man, M. Creosote, who waddles into a fancy French restaurant in the fattest FAT SUIT known to man or beast. He literally drags his belly along the floor. The staff rush to seat him and cater to him. (Throughout the film, much of the humor derives from the unflappability of the cast, no matter how dire the circumstances -- selling one's children for use is scientific experiments, losing a leg ("Woke up and -- one sock too many") or death. The waiters provide the rebarbative M. Creosote with a bucket to puke into and M. Creosote uses it -- not delicately but voluminously, all over the floor and the other diners. When he's eaten and drunk what appears to be the entire stock of the restaurant, no more than a tiny head on a balloon of a body, dribbling vomit, the waiter entices him into trying just one more dessert, wafer thin. The waiter gingerly feeds it to him, then dives behind a wall as M. Creosote explodes like a bomb, drenching the entire interior of the establishment and causing all the other customers to become ill.
I see I've already ruined two gags. Okay. I'll try reining myself in. But I'm compelled to mention some dialog in the scene in which death visits a quartet of diners at home because of some tainted salmon mousse. An American man in a loud jacket and tie removes his pipe and begins to argue with the Grim Reaper. "Shuddup!" orders the Reaper. "All you Americans talk too much. You talk and talk. You say things like, 'I wanna tell you something,' and 'Just lemme say this!'" I'm laughing too hard to go on and it's just as well that I quit now. But maybe I should add that the last sketch, following Death, shows us a heaven staged like a Las Vegas show, and it's ridiculed. Maybe Monty Python, in deliberately throwing away any attempt to define the meaning of life, has bootlegged a philosophy into the story after all. Marcus Aurelius recommended "waiting for death with a cheerful mind" and observed that "death looks at all of us and the best we can do is smile back." Like other Stoics, he assumed that people should not fear that which is natural. "Why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature" Albert Einstein described his own attitude towards death in similar terms. "It is a natural event." If you're uncertain about this being your cup of tea, my advice would be to watch it for ten or fifteen minutes. If you aren't grabbed by then, watch something else.
We see an underwater scene with a fake fish swimming slowly back and forth. Another fish enters and they exchange gruff, "Good mornings." One by one other fish swim into the scene and each time, there is the same "good morning" exchange, very ritualized and formal. There is a brief conversation between the fishes. (All of them have hideous humanoid face.) "Anything new?" "Wot?" "I say, anything new?" "No, nothing much new." One of the fishes faces the camera and exclaims, "Look! Howard's being EATEN." And the camera shows us that the fish are in a restaurant aquarium, the kind from which ultra-fresh live fish are hand picked to serve as an entrée.
We see the fussily dressed waiter bending down to show the customer his nicely prepared decapitate piscine preparation.
"Hmmm," one of the fish wonders aloud. "Makes you THINK, doesn't it?" Then the opening credits roll -- "Monty Python's Meaning of Life." Granted this description loses something in being transposed from one medium to another, but if you don't find this amusing you may not appreciate the rest of the film.
There are some dozen or so sketches, none of which fall entirely flat, but some of which are stronger than others. The most offensive by far is the fat man, M. Creosote, who waddles into a fancy French restaurant in the fattest FAT SUIT known to man or beast. He literally drags his belly along the floor. The staff rush to seat him and cater to him. (Throughout the film, much of the humor derives from the unflappability of the cast, no matter how dire the circumstances -- selling one's children for use is scientific experiments, losing a leg ("Woke up and -- one sock too many") or death. The waiters provide the rebarbative M. Creosote with a bucket to puke into and M. Creosote uses it -- not delicately but voluminously, all over the floor and the other diners. When he's eaten and drunk what appears to be the entire stock of the restaurant, no more than a tiny head on a balloon of a body, dribbling vomit, the waiter entices him into trying just one more dessert, wafer thin. The waiter gingerly feeds it to him, then dives behind a wall as M. Creosote explodes like a bomb, drenching the entire interior of the establishment and causing all the other customers to become ill.
I see I've already ruined two gags. Okay. I'll try reining myself in. But I'm compelled to mention some dialog in the scene in which death visits a quartet of diners at home because of some tainted salmon mousse. An American man in a loud jacket and tie removes his pipe and begins to argue with the Grim Reaper. "Shuddup!" orders the Reaper. "All you Americans talk too much. You talk and talk. You say things like, 'I wanna tell you something,' and 'Just lemme say this!'" I'm laughing too hard to go on and it's just as well that I quit now. But maybe I should add that the last sketch, following Death, shows us a heaven staged like a Las Vegas show, and it's ridiculed. Maybe Monty Python, in deliberately throwing away any attempt to define the meaning of life, has bootlegged a philosophy into the story after all. Marcus Aurelius recommended "waiting for death with a cheerful mind" and observed that "death looks at all of us and the best we can do is smile back." Like other Stoics, he assumed that people should not fear that which is natural. "Why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature" Albert Einstein described his own attitude towards death in similar terms. "It is a natural event." If you're uncertain about this being your cup of tea, my advice would be to watch it for ten or fifteen minutes. If you aren't grabbed by then, watch something else.