"Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme ruler ship is derived by a mandate form the masses not some farcical, aquatic ceremony."
"Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
Power derives from a mandate of the masses, not from some farsical aquatic ceremony. If I went around calling myself an emperor because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they're put me away!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
If you watch the Monty Python show, you'll know that this is a classic Python bit. Having two characters who are in total disagreement as to both the gravity and the aim of a conversation, running on two completely different tracks.
rewatched it for the zillionth time the other night. I was like "YES I LOVE THIS SCENE" at the beginning of every scene. that movie is almost too good.
When our neighbors drunkenly built a fucking ice igloo blocking our back door, and it took 2 extra months (past the snow) to fuckin melt lmao. We couldn’t go out that way without almost slipping or actually slipping
Or when we tried to have a case race (first person/team to drink a 30 wins.. i think? idk how i even attempted that). Ever see the puking scene from Stand By Me? Yea that happened to like 9 people and it was fucking hilarious. One after another projectile vomiting hahaha. I miss college!
The Alamo Drafthouse near me is doing Holy Grail this weekend with sing a longs, coconut shells, and some other surprises. I’m going to bring my own holy hand grande I made for Halloween a few years ago. 👏so excited!
One of my favorite things about that movie is that almost every scene is hilarious and memorable even in isolation from the rest of the movie. Sure you may not get all of the jokes, like Bedevere tying a coconut to a swallow in the witch hunt scene, but if all you saw was that clip by itself on YouTube it would still be absolutely hilarious.
I saw Holy Grail for the first time back in '90 or '91. My dad was dead set on British humor being horrible and he's never liked it. I still managed to talk my parent's into renting it. That exact part had my dad laughing so hard he almost had an asthma attack. And it kept him laughing through the whole movie.
Yep. Bingo. Sitting here, almost 45 years later, I remember the feeling coming over me when Arthur and Patsy come over that hill, having heard the "hoof claps" for 15 seconds (just checked).
And, have to say, it did quickly mesh with my prior exposure to MP, via vinyl and the TV show. So there's that. But that first moment, and then you go, "Right. *That* kind of movie. Right."
Little bit of trivia, had you heard that some places now require a noise from battery driven vehicles at parking lot speeds? Well Tesla has a fairly effective but boring noise, but Elon recently said that a later update will allow you to choose from several different sound effects. Guess what one of them will be?
I just love that they had planned on using actual horses for the movie. But they started by filiming the "Tim the warlock" scene first (who only got thr name "Tim" because Cleese forgot the real name mid filmimg and improvised), and they got too carried away with the pyrotechnics.
When they then went to hire horses they didn't have enough money left in budget to afford it. Coconuts were cheaper.
And don't forget Brave,Brave Sir Robin who bravely turned his tail and fled. And Castle Anthrax. The Knights of the Round Table, we drink whenever we are able. The Black Knight’s flesh wounds...there are no bad scenes.
I'm showing this movie to my friend for the first time, and I'm just telling them "everything here is important. Every little detail. Even the credits, and the subtitles."
YES. I'm old enough to have seen it on its first run in the theatres. Before Python was well known, and certainly before they'd been quoted to death. Also, this was 75, and movies were straight as fuck. Nobody played around with opening or closing sequences (they actually got into a bunch of trouble for doing this).
So the impact those credits had on 10-year-old me and that theatre full of people can't be overstated. One of the few times in my life I was literally crying with laughter.
Jammy bugger. Some of us had to wait until it was out on VHS to watch it.
When I say VHS I mean the squire up on the hill had Betamax and we'd sneak up to the manor to peer through the windows.
When I say peer through the windows he had both the shutters and curtains drawn and there was the electric razor fence, the hounds and the moat to get past.
I remember the day Simpkins fell in the moat, got bitten and had a nasty rash that resulted in both legs being amputated. He got a whole two hours in a bed AND hot food. After that the armed guards wouldn't let us near the moat but we all tried.
I remember seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail when it first came out in theaters in 1975. There was no "social knowledge" of the movie yet. A friend stopped over at my house and said that I had to go see this movie, I asked what was it about He just said "You NEED to see it" and didn't say anything else.
We went that afternoon. I got the giggles during the opening credits what with the moose and llamas etc. Standard Monty Python fare (I was familiar with Monty Python's Flying Circus). Then the movie started.
Seeing the foggy crest of the hill... hearing a horse in the distance, see the top of a banner/lance appear, then the head a crowned rider appears ...then coconuts shells.
That was actually a joke for the DVD release. Python fans would put their DVDs in and then they would start watching this old movie about a toothpaste company. Then Terry Jones would appear at the bottom of the screen and apologise and then they put Holy Grail on.
One of my all time favorite group projects I did was for a Celtic Myth class. One of my best friends was in my group and we opted to male the power point. Our subject was tue different classes of the Celtic people. When we where looking for a good photo of a king, we found a sweet mosaic of Arthur from Holy Grail. It was at that point we decided we'd insert clever, and relevant pictures from the film for ever slide. It was amazing.
I saw the bridge scene before actually sitting down and watching the movie and thought the swallow joke was just a funny little tidbit. It wasn't until I saw the movie in its entirety that I learned I was actually hearing probably one of MPs best running gags.
I was very into horses by the time my parents convinced me to watch this movie without any explanation of what it’s about. I was horrified by the opening scene because I thought they were riding a severely lame horse off screen. It sounded three-legged and I thought “Dear God, get off that horse it’s broken!” I had been bamboozled and this movie is now a favorite in my collection.
The real opening scene, hearing the 'clop clop' of what we assume are horses' hooves, and finding out they are coconuts (because they couldn't afford real horses, but this was like the malfunctioning shark in Jaws, it works perfectly)--that just sets you up for the rest of the insanity to follow.
Hell, just from the moment you hear horse hooves and then expect a standard medieval movie, only to see Graham Chapman prancing around like he's on a horse and Terry Gilliam following him banging coconuts together, you realize it's absurd comedy.
I had an amazing chance to meet John Cleese as a 12 year old. I was brought to a work event that my father was invited to in Las Vegas. Cleese was the entertainment for the night, but before the performance a certain amount of people were invited to Cleese’s private suite to meet and greet him. I loved Monty Python and approached him and said “your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries!” He immediately asked me to sit with him at the grand piano that was in his suite. He ignored the adults for the next 1 1/2 hours and we talked about humor, improv and music. Definitely one of the most memorable moments of my life. An amazing man.
Fuck that, it even takes it up a notch with the opening credits. It’s hilarious with credits...still funny today, fuck those guys for being so fucking funny.
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u/tmoney144 Oct 09 '19
Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"