Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974), British sketch comedy television show

Italian Lesson

Francesco: Milano è tanto meglio di Napoli. Milano è la citta la più bella di tutti… nel mondo…

Giuseppe: He say "Milan is better than Napoli".

Instructor: Oh, he shouldn't be saying that — we haven't done comparatives yet.

Whizzo Butter

Pepperpot #1: I can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and this dead crab.

Interviewer: Yes, we find that 9 out of 10 British housewives can't tell the difference between Whizzo Butter and a dead crab.

Various Pepperpots: It's true… We can't… No.

Pepperpot #2: Here. Here! You're on television, aren't you?

Interviewer: [humbly] Yes, yes…

Pepperpot #2: He does the thing with one of those silly women who can't tell Whizzo Butter from a dead crab.

Various Pepperpots: Yeah, yeah.

Pepperpot #3: You try that around here, young man, and we'll slit your face.

Pepperpot #4: [quietly] Yeah, with a razor.

The Funniest Joke in the World

Voiceover: It was a fantastic success. Over 60,000 times as powerful as Britain's great pre-war joke [Cut to stock footage of Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich and holding up the Munich Agreement, the "this is peace in our time"-bit.], and one which Hitler just couldn't match.

[Cut to stock footage of Hitler giving a speech.]

Hitler: [subtitle] My dog's got no nose!

Soldier: [subtitle] How does he smell?

Hitler: [subtitle] Awful!

. . .

Various: Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.

. . .

Narrator (in person): In 1945, peace broke out. It was the end of the Joke. Joke warfare was banned at a special session of the Geneva Convention, and in 1950 the last remaining copy of the joke was laid to rest here in the Berkshire countryside, never to be told again.

Working-Class Playwright

Ken: I'll tell you what's wrong with you: your head's addled with novels and poems! You come home reeking of Chateau L'Auteur! And look what you've done to mother! She's worn out from meeting film stars, attending premieres, and attending gala luncheons!

Father: THERE'S NAUGHT WRONG WITH GALA LUNCHES, LAD! I've had more gala luncheons than you've had hot dinners!

---

Neighbor: And now for something completely different: a man with three buttocks…

Mum, Dad: [from upstairs] We've done that!

Neighbor: Oh, all right. All right! A man with nine legs.

Off-Camera Voice: He ran away.

Neighbor: Oh… bloody hell! Er… a Scotsman on a horse!

How to Recognise Different Types of Trees From Quite a Long Way Away [1.03]

Arthur Nudge: Eh? know what I mean? Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge! Know what I mean? Say no more! A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, say no more, say no more!

Bicycle Repair Man

Superman One: Oh look... is it a stockbroker?

Superman Two: Is it a quantity Surveyor?

Superman Three: Is it a church warden?

All Supermen: NO! It's Bicycle Repair Man!

Owl Stretching Time [1.04]

Teacher: The great advantage of the tiger in unarmed combat is that he eats not only the raspberry-laden foe but also the raspberries.

It's the Arts [1.06]

Mr. Figgis: Why is it the world never remembered the name of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwurstle-gerspurten-mit-tzwei-macheluber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shoenendanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?

---

Constable Henry "Snapper" Organs: Now, this item, "Crunchy Frog". Am I to understand there's a real frog in here?

Whizzo Chocolate Company owner: Yes, a little one.

Constable Henry "Snapper" Organs: What sort of frog?

Whizzo Chocolate Company owner: A dead frog.

Constable Henry "Snapper" Organs: Is it cooked?

Whizzo Chocolate Company owner: No.

Constable Henry "Snapper" Organs: What, a raw frog?!

Whizzo Chocolate Company owner: We use only the finest baby frogs, dew picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.

Constable Henry "Snapper" Organs: That's as may be — it's still a frog! Do you even take the bones out?

Whizzo Chocolate Company owner: If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy, would it?

Full Frontal Nudity [1.08]

Mr. Praline: It's not pining, it's passed on! This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies! It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot!

The Ant, an Introduction [1.09]

Woman: I object to all this sex on the television. I mean, I keep falling off.

---

Bevis: I always preferred the outdoor life…hunting…shooting…fishing…getting out there with a gun and slaughtering a few of God’s creatures.

Vocational Guidance Counselor Sketch

Counselor: Well, er, yes Mr. Anchovy, but you see your report here says that you are an extremely dull person. You see, our experts describe you as an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. And whereas in most professions these would be considerable drawbacks, in chartered accountancy, they're a positive boon.

The Agatha Christie sketch [1.11]

Inspector Tiger:: This house is surrounded. I'm afraid I must not ask anyone to leave the room. No, I must ask nobody ... no, I must ask everybody to... I must not ask anyone to leave the room. No one must be asked by me to leave the room. No, no one must ask the room to leave. I ... I ... ask the room shall by someone be left. Not. Ask nobody the room somebody leave shall I. Shall I leave the room? Everyone must leave the room... as it is... with them in it. Phew. Understand?

Colonel Pickering: You don't want anybody to leave the room.

Inspector Tiger: [clicking fingers to indicate Colonel Pickering has hit the nail on the head] Now, alduce me to introlow myslef. I'm sorry. Alself me to myduce introlow myslef. Introme-to-lose mlow alself. Alme to you introself mylowduce. Excuse me a moment. (bangs himself on the side of the head) Allow me to introduce myself. I'm afraid I must ask that no one leave the room. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Inspector Tiger.

Everybody: Tiger?

Inspector Tiger: [whirling around] WHERE? WHERE?

---

Chief Constable There'samanbehindyou: Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Chief Constable There'samanbehindyou.

Everybody: There's a man behind you?

Chief Constable There'samanbehindyou: No, you're not going to fool me with that one.

The Naked Ant [1.12]

Mr. Bimmler: Pleased to meet you, squire. I also am not of Minehead being born but I in your Peterborough Lincolnshire was given birth to. But am staying in Peterborough Lincolnshire house all time during vor, due to jolly old running sores, and vos unable to go in the streets or to go visit football matches or go to Nuremburg. Ha ha. Am retired vindow cleaner and pacifist, without doing war crimes. Oh... and am glad England vin Vorld Cup. Bobby Charlton. Martin Peters. And eating I am lots of chips and fish and hole in the toads and Dundee cakes on Piccadilly Line, don't you know old chap, vot! And I vos head of Gestapo for 10 years. [Mr. Hilter elbows him in the ribs] Ah! Five years! [Hilter elbows him again, harder] Nein! No! Oh. NOT head of Gestapo AT ALL! I was not, I make joke!

---

Announcer: This man, he doesn't know when he's beaten! He doesn't know when he's winning, either. He has no… sort of… sensory apparatus…

Face the Press [2.1]

Interviewer: Minister, in your plan, "A Better Britain For Us", you promised to build 88 thousand million billion houses a year in the greater London area alone. In fact, you've built only three in the last 15 years.

---

Vince: One day, I was sitting at home, threatening the kids, when this tank drives up. One of Dinsdale's boys gets out all nice and friendly like, and says Dinsdale wants to have a talk with me. So, he chains me to the back of the tank, and takes me for a scrape round to Dinsdale's place. Dinsdale's there in the conversation pit with Doug, Charles Paisley the Baby Crusher, a couple of film producers and a fellow called Kierkegaard who just sits there, biting the heads off whippets. And Dinsdale says 'I hear you've been a naughty boy, Clement', and he splits my nostrils open, saws my leg off and pulls my liver out. And I says, 'My name's not Clement', and then he loses his temper and nails my head to the floor.

---

Criminologist: It's easy for us to judge Dinsdale Piranha too harshly; he only did what most of us simply dream of doing. After all, a murderer is only an extroverted suicide. Dinsdale was a loony, but he was a happy loony. Lucky bastard!

The Spanish Inquisition [2.2]

Reg: Mr. Wentworth just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at the mill, that's all - I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition!

[Three men in red uniforms burst through the door]

Cardinal Ximinez: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

---

Judge Kilbraken: [referring to his death sentence for contempt of court] Blimey! I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

[The whole court expectantly looks towards the door. Cut to the Inquisition running out of a house in suburbia and leaping onto a bus]

Ximinez: Two, er, three to the Old Bailey please.

[Credits start]

Biggles: Look they've started the credits.

Ximinez: Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.

Biggles: Come on hurry. Hurry!

Ximinez: There's the lighting credit, only five left. Hell, it's the producer - quick!

[The Inquistion leaps of the bus and bursts through into the courtroom]

Ximinez: Nobody expects the Spa... [Smash cut to a frame saying "The End"] Oh bugger!

Déjà Vu [2.3]

Psychiatrist Milkman: Mrs. Ratbag, if you don't mind me saying so, you're badly in need of an expensive course of psychiatric treatment. Now, I'm not going to say that a trip to our dairy will cure you, but it will give hundreds of lower-paid workers a good laugh.

The Architect Sketch [2.4]

Mr. Wiggin: This is a 12-story block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these...

Client 1: Excuse me.

Mr. Wiggin: Yes?

Client 1: Did you say 'knives'?

Mr. Wiggin: Rotating knives, yes.

Client 2: Do I take it that you are proposing to slaughter our tenants?

Mr. Wiggin: ...Does that not fit in with your plans?

Client 1: Not really. We asked for a simple block of flats.

Scientist: If we increase the size of the penguin until it is the same height as the man and then compare the relative brain size, we now find that the penguin's brain is still smaller. But, and this is the point, it is larger than it was!

It's A Living [2.06]

Election announcer: Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel...

Linkman: Silly Party.

Archaeology Today [2.08]

Hank Spim: I love animals, that's why I like to kill 'em.

---

Reverend Belling: There are a great many people in the country today, who through no fault of their own, are sane. Some of them were born sane, while others became sane later in their lives. It is up to people like us, who are out of our tiny minds, to help them.

How to Recognise Different Parts of the Body [2.09]

Bruce: Rule Six — there is NO Rule Six. Rule Seven, no pooftahs!

---

Interviewer: Good evening. I have with me in the studio tonight one of the country's leading skin specialists, Raymond Luxury-Yacht.

Raymond Luxury-Yacht: [wearing a large foam nose] That's not my name!

Interviewer: I'm sorry; Raymond Luxury-Ya-chet.

Raymond Luxury-Yacht: No no no, it's spelled "Raymond Luxury-Ya-chet," but it's pronounced "Throatwobbler Mangrove".

Interviewer: You are a very silly man, and I'm not going to interview you.

Raymond Luxury-Yacht: A-ha! Anti-Semitism!

Interviewer: Not at all, it's not even a proper nose. [Removes foam nose] It's polystyrene!

Raymond Luxury-Yacht: Give me my nose back!

Interviewer: You can get it back at reception, now go away.

Raymond Luxury-Yacht: I want to be on television!

Interviewer: Well, you can't.

---

Woman 1: It's funny that penguin being there, isn't it? What's it doing there?

Woman 2: Standing.

Woman 1: I can see that! Where did it come from?

Woman 2: Perhaps it comes from next door.

Woman 1: Penguins don't come from next door; they come from the Antarctic!

Woman 2: BURMA!

Woman 1: Why'd you say "Burma"?

Woman 2: I panicked.

. . .

TV Announcer: It's just gone eight o'clock and time for the penguin on top of your television set to explode.

[The penguin explodes]

Woman 1: How did he know that was going to happen?

TV Announcer: It was an inspired guess.

Spam [2.12]

Narrator: In 1970 the British Empire lay in ruins, foreign nationals frequented the streets - many of them Hungarians (not the streets - the foreign nationals). Anyway, many of these Hungarians went into tobacconists shops to buy cigarettes...

---

Hungarian: My hovercraft is full of eels.

---

Mrs Bun: Have you got anything without SPAM?

Waitress: Well, there's SPAM, egg, sausage, and SPAM; that's not got much SPAM in it.

Mrs Bun: I don't want any SPAM!

Mr Bun: Why can't she have egg, bacon, SPAM, and sausage?

Mrs Bun: That's got SPAM in it!

Mr Bun: Hasn't got as much SPAM in it as SPAM, egg, sausage, and SPAM, has it?

Vikings: [singing] SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM... Lovely SPAM! Wonderful SPAM!

Mr. & Mrs. Brian Norris' Ford Popular [3.02]

Mrs. Shazam: Mrs. Nigger-Baiter's exploded!

Mrs. Shazam's son: Good thing, too.

Mrs. Shazam: She was my best friend!

Mrs. Shazam's son: Oh, don't be so sentimental, mother. Things explode everyday.

---

Host: Tschaikowsky: Was he the tortured soul who poured out his immortal longings into dignified passages of stately music, or was he just an old poof who wrote tunes?

The Money Programme [3.03]

Woman: Well there's rat cake ... rat sorbet... rat pudding... or strawberry tart.

Man: Strawberry tart?!

Woman: Well it's got some rat in it.

Man: How much?

Woman: Three, rather a lot really.

Man: ... well, I'll have a slice without so much rat in it.

Dennis Moore [3.11]

Mrs O: [reading her horoscope] You have green, scaly skin, and a soft yellow underbelly with a series of fin-like ridges running down your spine and tail. Although lizardlike in shape, you can grow anything up to thirty feet in length with huge teeth that can bite off great rocks and trees. You inhabit arid subtropical zones, and you wear spectacles.

Mrs Trepidatious: It's very good about the spectacles.

Mrs O: It's amazing!

Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror [3.14]

Merchant Banker: Ah, Mr. Victim, I'm glad to say we've got the go-ahead to lend you the money you required. We will, of course, need for security the deed to your house, the deed to your aunt's house, of your wife's parents' house, and of your granny's bungalow. And we will in addition need a controlling interest in the stock of your new company, unrestricted access to your private bank accounts, the deposit of your three children in our vaults as hostages, and a full legal indemnity in case of any embezzlement carried out against you by members of our staff during the normal course of their duties. No, I'm afraid we couldn't accept your dog instead of your youngest child, but we would like to suggest a brand new scheme of ours in which 51 percent of your wife and your dog pass to us in the event of your suffering a serious accident.

Other Quotes

• "IT'S..." A hermit right before the opening titles

• We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this programme. It was never our intention to imply that politicians are weak-kneed, political time-servers who are more concerned with their personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government, nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well-being of the people they supposedly represent, nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today. Nor indeed do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby, ulcerous, little self-seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addiction to alcohol and certain explicit sexual practices which some people might find offensive. We are sorry if this impression has come across.

• I like TITS!!! - The Dirty Vicar Sketch

• Bishop The text, Vic, Don't say the text!

-Election Night Sketch

Announcer: And we move to Bristol where they have a special, Very Silly candidate...

Election Offical: Malcom Peter-Brian-Telescope-Adrian-Umbrella Stand-Jasper-Wednesday-Stoat Gobbler-John-Raw Vegetable-Artur-Norman-Michael-*honk*-Featherstone-Smith-*Whistle*-Northgot-Edwards-Harris-*bang*-WOOOOOO-Mason-chuffchuffchuffchuff-Frampton-Jones-Fruit Bat-Gilbert-we'll keep a welcome in the-*bang bang bang*-Williams-If I could Walk That Way-Jenkin-*vvvt vvt vvvt vvvvewwww*-Tiger Drawers-Pratt-Thompson-Raindrops keep fallin on my head-Darcy-Carter-*honk*-Pussycat-Don't sleep in the subway-Barton-Mannering-*squeek*-mmmmm-Smith...

Anouncer: "Very Silly Party"

Election Offical: "two votes"

-Secret Service Dentistry

Customer: There IS something going on!

Shopkeeper: There is nothing going on. Is there something going on?

(Man with machinegun enters)

Gunman: No, there is nothing going on.

(Man with machinegun leaves)

Shopkeeper: See, there's nothing going on.

Customer: Who was that?

Major cast

All players assumed many various roles.

• Graham Chapman
• John Cleese
• Terry Gilliam
• Eric Idle
• Terry Jones
• Michael Palin
• Carol Cleveland

See also

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Life of Brian
• The Meaning of Life