If you could show someone only one "Monty Python" episode....

[Pab Sungenis]

...which one would it be?

The 17 year old daughter of a good friend has only ever seen "The Parrot Sketch" and I want to introduce her to the show itself. What is the one episode you should use to hook someone in to wanting to see the rest of the Flying Circus?

[6000eliot]

1. Upper-Class Twit of the Year?

[kid shelleen]

2. Confuse a Cat or....

The Spanish Inquisition. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

[alfredo]

8. Spanish Inquisition on you tube, all three parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uprjmoSMJ-o

[sarge43]

9. Second that

Just about perfect Python.

[HopeHoops]

3. The Argument

[Duer 157099]

30. Seconded

I learned this one from an album long before I actually *saw* the skit. Just as funny.

[Gabi Hayes]

33. no you didn't

[Duer 157099]

36. I did!

[HopeHoops]

39. Shut your festering gob, ya tit. Your kind really makes me want to puke.

Oh, sorry. This is Abuse. Arguments are down the hall on the left.

[Duer 157099]

41. Heh

Yep, just reminds me again how funny that was :thumbsup:

[MorningGlow]

4. Cheese Shop

Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook

Nudge Nudge

[WinkyDink]

15. Seconding the Cheese Shop! Fresh out!

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. The Bicycle Trip

[surrealAmerican]

6. This is what I would suggest too.

"My lack of god - it's Trotsky!"

[SteppingRazor]

26. Ha! Just wrote the same thing. Hadn't read your response.

:toast:

[Bucky]

18. I just saw that one last night. A whole episode comprised of just one skit.

Wonderful, except for the "Blitish Embassy" scene, which was grating.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

20. Yeah, it's long enough to contain a bit of everything.

Including a few things that wouldn't fly today.

[baldguy]

23. The YMACA has nice, affordable rooms.

[Art_from_Ark]

34. And you can have your choice of a bugged or unbugged room

[SteppingRazor]

25. Seconded. It's the perfect Monty Python episode.

"My lack of God, it's Trotsky!"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

31. Yep, that is definitely the one.

I'm a big fan of the "Biggles" episode as well (#33) because it also included "Lifeboat," "Old lady snoopers," "Cheese shop," and "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days."

But the #1 spot's got to go to "The Bicycle Trip."

:toast:

[PassingFair]

7. Silly Walks

Nudge nudge.

"They mean to win Wimbledon!"

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. Episode 16 - it has Flying Lessons and The Poet MacTeagle

Not their most famous work, but it's an episode that wonderfully captures the absurdity of the group's thinking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1oMhMwUbgc

[A HERETIC I AM]

37. Angus Podgorney, Kilt maker;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljCQeqFouVU

"Angus, how are ye gonna get 48 million kilts into the van?"

"I'll have to make two goes."


...

"We'll be able to get writin' paper wi' our names on it."

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. the Hungarian phrasebook sketch.

http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode25.htm

"My nipples explode with delight." :rofl:

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. My hovercraft is full of eels!

:rofl:

God, I love that one, too, and the follow up trial scene.

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Episode 24 is another favorite - Conquistador Coffee, Agatha Christie Sketch, How Not to Be Seen

[Heidi]

14. Season 3, Episode 9.

At least one part is very TSA.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. The Ministry of Silly Walks

and that wonderful terribly not politically correct sketch about the morons who cannot cross a finish line..forget the name of it, but at the time we all howled.

[Arugula Latte]

27. I think you mean Upper Class Twit of the Year

[Bucky]

17. Monty Python format: Man walks into a shop which does not sell what it purports to. Man hides anger.

Sales clerk calls man a "loony," triggering Pavlovian laughter from studio audience. They repeat it a bit. Then Eric Idle walks on in a trench coat as a Scotland Yard inspector, drones on a bit, then starts singing a show-tune like song with "clever" lyrics. Cut to animation.

Whatever episode you show, try to avoid showing one where they do the Jerry Lewis-style Chinese shticks. Those haven't aged well.

[Iggo]

19. How Not To Be Seen

Yes, it was the middle one. :rofl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idXgVLpB6bY

[Maine-ah]

21. From The Meaning of Life

Every Sperm is Sacred :) My all time favorite. Yeah, I know you meant the TV show and not the movies...but imho this one beats them all

[zanana1]

22. The Ministry of Silly Walks.

Hilarious. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZlBUglE6Hc

[MissHoneychurch]

44. +1

was my first thought as well. :thumbsup:

:rofl:

[Arkansas Granny]

24. The Lumberjack Song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL7n5mEmXJo

[seaker]

38. That was

the first one I thought of.:thumbsup:

[El Supremo]

28. Full Frontal Nudity

[pokerfan]

29. Every Sperm is Sacred from Meaning of Life

The sketch is about a Catholic Yorkshire man, his wife and their sixty-three children, who are about to be sold for medical experimentation purposes because their parents can no longer afford to care for such a large family with the local mill being closed. When their children ask why they don't use contraception or sterilization, such as why the father doesn't perform self-castration, Dad explains that this is against God's wishes, and breaks into song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47P59ha9k9s

[ProfessorGAC]

32. The Cheese Shop

With the Peckinpaugh ending.
GAC

[Art_from_Ark]

35. Lots of great sketches

The Cheese Shop and Dead Parrot sketches are great, as are:

The Money Programme
The Lumberjack Sketch
The Bishop
The Oscar Wilde Sketch ("Your Majesty is like a stream of bat's piss...")
The Royal Navy Expedition to Lake Pahoe
Hell's Grannies
The Hospital Sketch
The quiz show featuring Karl Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tse Tung as contestants who try to answer obscure questions about English football

[HughBeaumont]

40. It's a Man's Life In the British Dental Association

Lemming . . . Lemming . . . Lemming of the BDA . . .
Lemming . . . Lemming . . . Lemming of the BD . . . Lemming of the BD . . . BD, BDA . . .

:rofl:

Thanks for reminding me, I'm busting that out and watching it tonight.

[peekaloo]

42. The Philosopher's Song

it's catchy

[tigereye]

43. wow, hard to pick just one, there are so many great ones...