from Hacker News

How Monty Python and the Holy Grail became a comedy legend

by sonabinu on 4/9/25, 7:58 PM with 104 comments

  • by riffraff on 4/13/25, 5:51 AM

    Coincidentally read a comment yesterday on the lines of "strange women lying in ponds distributing swords does seem like a decent basis for a system of government at this point".

    Absolute masterpiece.

  • by mdp2021 on 4/13/25, 9:18 AM

    Funny coincidence, I believe a few hours earlier I read a comment from Dang who called some complaints a "Help, help, I'm being repressed".

    Gives you a proportion of the extent...

  • by BLKNSLVR on 4/13/25, 5:29 AM

    Should be required watching for entry to adulthood.
  • by gbuk2013 on 4/13/25, 9:25 AM

    And there was much rejoicing! :)
  • by metalman on 4/13/25, 10:07 AM

    Cleese on a talk show with Taylor Swift is evidence of how efortless it is for him to totaly take over a situation, poke horrible fun at someone, without giving cause for offence, charm the hell out of woman 25% his age ,while talking about his own wife and her cat he's old now, but still formitable buddy got to work with him
  • by block_dagger on 4/13/25, 5:27 AM

    It's not dead yet.
  • by subjectsigma on 4/14/25, 5:07 AM

    I noticed this movie is heavily gendered, I’ve watched it with female relatives / friends / girlfriends / etc. and they never seem to find it funny, whereas male friends all find it hilarious. Could be a coincidence, could not be. It’s interesting to me though because if it isn’t a coincidence, I can’t think of a good reason why. I’ve seen some comedies that were obviously catered to a specific demographic but Holy Grail isn’t that, so why the discrepancy?
  • by alnwlsn on 4/14/25, 7:17 PM

    I was somewhat disappointed to learn that there's a lot less Monty Python on Youtube than there used to be. You can still find the Cheese Shop, Dead Parrot, or Silly Walks, but about 15 years back it seemed like nearly every sketch from Flying Circus was there. Most of which were uploaded by the official Monty Python youtube channel.

    Now, about 90% of them have been taken down. Which is a shame, as this is how I discovered them. Another loss for kids these days.

  • by jmpman on 4/15/25, 11:16 AM

    On a side note, Life of Brian used to be listed on the Apple iTunes Store as rated “PG” - it’s actually “R”. Great fun when I let my 11 and 13 year old boys watch it. Luckily their mother wasn’t home. Appears Apple eventually rectified that issue, but I tried to report it and man does Apple make it difficult.
  • by glimshe on 4/14/25, 4:33 PM

    I have an embarrassing confession to make. I absolutely hate Monty Python and don't find them funny almost at all. The jokes are childish, obscure and lazy from my Gen X point of view.

    People have told me "you need to like British humor to enjoy it" but I've seen a lot of funny jokes in British movies... And I know many funny people from the UK.

    So, PLEASE... Could anyone tell me what's funny about Monty Python?

  • by dvh on 4/13/25, 7:45 AM

    Can someone decipher what one of the prophets was talking about, the "thing with attachment", it always struck me as a perfect portrayal of a prophet that somehow seen future, but because himself being from a distant past cannot really comprehend or explain it.
  • by mdp2021 on 4/13/25, 9:51 PM

    Have you seen them at Graham Norton's?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhaBIU9TcJ0

  • by ggm on 4/13/25, 7:22 AM

    I enjoy python stuff but not all of it aged well. A lot of older comedy aged better. Jacques Tati films for example. Or Chaplin.

    They could be bizarrely homophobic and also celebrate gay culture in the same show. They were often very misogynist.

    I still laugh at it. I still watch it. But the adulation faded.

    No Australian enjoys their take on Australian wine. It's wincingly unpleasant. Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer and Clive James fed cultural stereotypes which died out when earl's court became too expensive for Australian backpackers. The abos armpit thing comes back to me far too often from naive British friends who would never use the N word, or make jokes about Irish being stupid. They don't know what they're saying.

    Eric Idle complained he had to do Spamelot to get some retirement income. George Harrison made bank on the films.

    The situationist surreal stuff, Terry Gilliams pasteup animation, very good. Dressing up as ladies.. tiresome.

    There's a line from pythons dressing up as working class women to little Britain making fun of incontinent old women.

  • by sema4hacker on 4/13/25, 8:27 PM

    It forever burned Castle Anthrax into my memory.
  • by myheartisinohio on 4/14/25, 1:34 PM

    Life of Brian is also a gem.
  • by omega3 on 4/13/25, 9:50 PM

    Is there anything even remotely comparable in quality to Monty Python right now?
  • by shreyshnaccount on 4/13/25, 7:40 AM

    while it hasn't aged the best, it is quiet entertaining
  • by jspash on 4/13/25, 9:25 AM

    Just curious. How does the leading word "How" get missed off from the headline to the submission headline? Its a totally different sentence now. Is there a word limit to HN headlines?