Fifty Years of an Iconic Comedy

By Marissa Lafferty

In 1975, the British comedy troupe Monty Python (also called Python) produced the iconic film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. The bizarre and wacky film based on Arthurian quickly formed a cult following and is still a staple work of comedy to this day. Despite how popular it is now they only had a budget of £229,575 ($306,828.14). The budget came due to 10 investors, three of those investors being the rock bands Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Genesis who were convinced by their producer (who worked with Monty Pythons on their music albums) to fund the movie. Because of such a tight budget they were forced to make lots of shortcuts, like the elimination of horses in the film. This made for some of the most rememberable scenes in the movie, like the use of coconuts to imitate the sound of hooves clacking. On the opening night in New York City free coconuts were given out to the first 1,000 ticket buyers. A reference to the lack of horses in the movie.

The troupe themselves are quite interesting as well. The team brought together Oxbridge graduates Graham Chapman, John Cleese Terry Jones, and Michael Palin with Terry Gilliam, a cartoonist/animator, and Eric Idle who was a musical satirist. Together they brought the hit gags and slapstick comedy that they’re beloved for. Before “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” Python has a TV show with the BBC called “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. The show’s original videotapes were lined up for erasure by the BBC to save tape, but luckily Terry Gilliam bought them and saved them all from becoming lost forever.

They even have multiple music albums, the first of which being from there TV show the other ones followed quickly after making one album each year till around 1977 after which the albums were a bit more sporadic. Their albums are full of fun and comedy just like all there other visual media has.

Due to their fame Python has had a plethora of documentaries made about them and has inspired a few stage plays. One of which was “Spamalot” which was inspired by “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. They’ve also made a bunch of books, a good amount of merchandise. After this film they went on to create three more movies, a few TV shows, music albums, and they even have downloadable apps!

While “The Holy Grail” wasn’t banned one of Python’s later films “Monty Python’s The Life of Brain” was banned in Norway, after which Sweden marketed it as “so funny it was banned in Norway.”

“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and all of Python’s other media will no doubt continue on to make generations of people giggle and laugh. Whether it’s quoting the movie by saying “Ni!” or “Tis but a flesh wound”. Or forcing loved ones to watch it with you. There is no doubt that this movie will continue to be shared and love. To that we say Happy 50^th Anniversary.