40 years ago this week, Monty Python's Flying Circus first aired on UK TV - to the bemused guffaws of a live studio audience.

The Pythons' anarchy and audacity replotted the entire comedy map and their influence still looms, like some titanic (but dead) Noꦛrwegian Blue parrot, over any TV/movie writer who sits down with the intꦯention of being funny.

So, as the surviving members are honoured with a BAFTA Special Award, here's totalfilm.com 's Top 40 python sketches - from TV and mov﷽ies. Let us know your favourite - or the ones we misꦛsed...

40. The Funniest Joke In The World

Ernest Scribbler, joke writer, comes up with a gag so funny he laughs himself to death. Then, his final missive is unleashed upon an unsuspecting Hun in the form of a weapon...

Quote: “It was obvious the joke was lethal. Nobody could read it and live.&r♏dquo;

39. Venus In A Half-Shell

Terry Gilliam love♕d to bend, fold, spindle and mutilate famous works of art and Botticelli’s ‘The Birth Of Venus&rsquo✃; was a prime candidate for some animated mockery – just watch those legs fly!

The animator got to play with Venus again 17 years later, this time in real life and in the form of Uma Thurman in The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen .

38. Confuse-A-Cat

Is your cat staring 🦩into the distance for no discernible reason? Is it outside on the lawn, night and day? Are you worried sick about the poor kitty? What you need to do is… CONFUSE IT!

Cue extreme Python lunacy in the form of a crack team of confuse-a-cat commandos who, along the way, rather confuse us, too…

Quote: “Your cat is suffering from what we vets haven&rꦿsquo;t found a word for.”

37. Come Back To My Place

Short but perfectly formed, this earnest littl𒀰e sketch has Palin🀅 complaining about a stolen coat to a copper before the story goes somewhere else entirely...

Never did Python have more fun than when they were playing with authority figures – often in the naughtiest way they could. Bear in mind this was the BBC 40 years ago…

Quote: “Yeah, alright..."

Next: [page-break]

36. The Penguin On The Television

From the elongated death of Mary Queen of Scots on the radio, to the strangled look on Graham Chapman’s face as he tries his damnedest not to laugh after blurting out “Burma!”, this languid little skit features Chapman and Cleese in full drag and full flow.

Quote: “BURMA!”
“Why’d you say Burma?”
“I panicked.”

35. Hell’s Grannies

Pushing people off the pavement, graffiti-ing ‘Make tea not love’ on walls, rioting during screenings of The Sound Of Music … old ladies are the new hoodies🐟, according to this gleeful twist on standard moral panic.

And then there are the babysnatchers, not to mention the vicious gangs of ‘Keep Left’ signs. No wonder Chapman’s Sergeant Major steps in to stop the sketch for being “too silly”.

Quote: “This used to be a nice neighbourhood before the old ladies sꦜtarted moving in.”

34. Romans Go Home ( Life Of Brian )

Chapman’ไs Brian gets an impromptu lesson in Latin from a Roman centurion who c𒈔ollars him daubing protest graffiti on a wall.

Clearly written by men still holding bitter resentment for being forced to sit through endless, confusing and ultimately pointless Latin lessons at school.

Quote: “Understand? Now wr⛎ite it out 100 ti🎶mes.”

33. Every Sperm Is Sacred ( The Meaning Of Life )

Yes, the song’s mighty catchy, and the dance number is worthy of anything you’ll see in Oliver! (check out the Chinese dragon).

But this extended critique of Catholicism illustrates another key Python trait: equal-opportunity offending.

Quote: “Let the heathens spill theirs on the dusty ground
God shall make them pay for each sperm wh✨ich can’t be found.”

Next: [page-break]

32. Travel Agent Rant

Mr Smoketoomuch (Idle) tries to book a holiday with Mr Bounder (Palin) and launches into a hilariously sustained rant about the irritations of then-novel package holidays.

Quote: “Shut up! SHUT YOUR BLOODY GOB!!”

31. How Not To Be Seen

Another gem in which the entire budget no doubt went up in flames as various pieces of scrubland are blown up to illustrate the vagaries of detectability. Clue: don’t hide behind a bush.

Quote: “In this picture, there are 47 people. None of them can be seen.”

30. Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life ( The Life Of Brian )

Idle’s ch♊irpy cockney attempts to cheer up a mid-crucifixion Brian by singing him a s🎐ong about how things aren’t so bad, really.

Soiled by overfamiliarity - and being taken out of context - it's a potent example of an underrated Python trick: inky black humour.

Quote: “Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it…”

29. Dynamo Tension

Gil🔯liam gives the concept of body-building his own unique spin in this animation spoofing the famous Charles Atlas adverts that appealed to 90lb weaklings who got sand kicked in their faces.

You can almost hear Gilliams splutters of mirth as he draws increasingly larger and ludicrous muscles, scribbling at them until they strain and stretch and, eventually, pop…

Quote: “Would you like a body that can’t fail t▨o attract women?”

Next: [page-break]

28. Milkman Seducer

This short-and-not-very-sweet sketch features a busty lady luring Palin’s randy milkman inside her house for a quickie, only for him to discover she’s got a whole room full of other🌟 (bored, bearded, skeletal) bottle-droppers locked away, too.

A relative Python rarity - a proper punchline.

27. Philosopher’s Football Match

Sometimes the idea behind the sketch is enough. Here, it's 'Let's prick the dry pomposity of deep thinkers by forcing the൩m to shed their academic dignity and play football.'

The philosophers merely philosophise ("Marx is claiming it was offside!") – but it’s Palin’s cool narration, a tone-perfect imitation of a real sports announcer – that makes this one such a winner.

Quote: “Nietzsche has just been booked for arguing with the referee!”

26. French Taunter ( Monty Python And The Holy Grail )

Cleese’s Gallic soldier gives King Arthur and his pals a rough time as he shouts insults (and even hurls cows) from the battlements of two ca⭕stles the king visits in his quest for the Holy Grail.

Chapman’s baffled, very British incredulousness at the sheer CHEEK of this strange man is almost as funny as Cleese’s outrageous French accent and the blissfully random nature of his taunts.

Quote: “I fart in your general generation! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”

25. Mr Creosote ( The Meaning Of Life )

Cleese’s unflappable waiter oozes smarm aܫs he waits on Terry Jones' monstrously obese Mr Creosote ("Three hours in make-up!" - Jones),🧜 a grumpy git whose immense appetite is the catalyst for what is, without a doubt, Python’s most wilfully disgusting moment ever.

At first dumped for being ‘unfunny’ by the team as they were making Meaning Of Life , Cleese championed the sketch after deciding he liked the waiter and it was reinstated in all its vomitous glory.

Quote: “Finally,𝔉 monsieur – a wafer-thin mint.”

Next: [page-break]

24. Mrs Niggerbaiter

Cleese’s suave politician face♉s off 🌠with his mum and her best friend, the rather inflammatory (in both name and deed) Mrs Niggerbaiter - neeeever get away with that, these days.

They both coo over him as though he’s ꧑a wee baby despite the fact that he's clearly a grown m📖an.

It's Cleese’s cool indifference and a small issue of spontaneous combustion that seals it.

Quote: “Does he talk? Does he talk?”
&ldquoℱ;Of course I can talk. I’m Minister for Overseas Development.”

23. Bicycle Repair Man

It’s a clever reversal of the superhero cliché - a society filled with Supermen is sဣtaggered to find a cloth-capped, humble Bꦅicycle Repair Man in their midst.

The irony! The satire! The post-modernism! Or, even better, the hilarious Superman costumes with all the fake padding!

Quote: “Is it a stockbroker? Is it a quantity surveyor? Is it a churchไ warden? No! It’s Bicycle Repair Man!”

22. Live Organ Transplants ( The Meaning Of Life )

Half ridiculous farce, half genuinely horrific body-horror, this nasty piece of work from is lightened by Idle seguing into his finest music𒈔al moment - ‘The Galaxy Song’.

Taking Jones' bashful - and now widowed - housewife on a fact-packed tour of the universe, he succeeds in convincing 🗹her that she doesn't 🧜matter and seduces her into surrendering her liver, too.

Quote: “And pray that there’s intelligent life somewher𝐆e up in space because there’s bugger-all down here on Earth...”

21. Blackmail

Palin turns on the smarm – which seems to fit him so well &nd𒆙ash; as the host of a twisted game show in which he threatens to expose the dirty sexual secrets of members of the audience unless they phone in and offer him money to stop.

Audacious at the time, but the hilarious ker-chinging number-reel and illicit camerawork now feels like a clip from a depressingly plausible reality TV show.

Quote: “Three thousand pounds, please, to stop us from revealing your name, the names of the three other people involved, the youth organisation to which they belong and the shop where you bought 🍎tღhe equipment.”

Next: [page-break]

20. The Stoning ( The Life Of Brian )

Only the Pythons could take a scene in which a man is about to be brutally stoned to death for saying the Lord’s name and turn it into comedy heaven - by making the stonee dance in defiance of his captors, the guard in charge of the whole thing an imperiously indignant Cleese and the crowd a bunch of women wearing fake beards.

Quote: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and I all I said to my wife was that that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”
“BLASPHEMY!”

19. Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Salad Days’

Lashings of hard-boiled eggs and gallons of ginger beer become slashings of body parts and gallons of spurting blood in this tongue-in-cheek homage to Peckinpah’s love of gratuitous gore.

Quote: “I say, anyone for tennis?”

18. Killer Bunny ( Monty Python And The Holy Grail )

It&r🦩squo;s got nasty, big, pointy teeth, a vicious streak a mile wide and, uh, a cute🦋 twitchy nose.

This unlikely guardian is more than a match for Arthur and his silly ker-nigguts, as he discovers when he encounters the brute on his hunt for the Holy Grail.

Quote: “You tit! I 𒐪soiled my armour, I was so scared!”

17. The Dirty Fork

A Python speciality: an ordinary, everyday event𒈔 given an increasingly histrionic spin.

In this case, two diners offer a mild complaint about a dirty knife and ask f𝔍or a fresh one from the waiter, only for the response to escalate into a Shakespearean tragedy.

The punchline at the end is so priceless it gets its own title card…

Quote: “Nothing I can do. Can alter the fact... That in this restaurant. You have bไeen given. A dirty, filthy, smelly piece of cutlery!&r🥂dquo;

Next: [page-break]

16. The Killer Cars

Terry Gilliam’s animations often c🍨ombined hilarious with just plain dist♋urbing, and this sequence is one of his finest – from the little old lady who trips up a bus to the creepy vigilante cars who leap on innocent pedestrians and gobble them up.

The monstrous, building-gobbling cat is the cherry on top.

Quote: “VROOM!”

15. The Bruces

“G’day, Bruce!” A room full of comic-book Aussies, cork-hats a-bobbing, drawling about Sheilas and complaining about the heat&he🐻llip;

It can only be the philosophy department at the University of Woolloomooloo, about to receive a Pommie viဣsitor (Jones, wonderfully nebbish-like).

The Pythons excel in this hilarious bout of Oz-mockery that deliciously dances around the edges of out-and-out xenophobia. 'The Philosopher’s Song' it later spawned is one of the team’s best singalongs ever ("Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle...")

Quote: “Is your name not Bruce, then?”
“No, it’s Michael.”
“I’m🔯 afraid that’s going to cause a little confusion. Mind if we call you Br﷽uce?”

14. The Black Knight ( Monty Python And The Holy Grail )

King Arthur and his faithf⭕ul 'steed', Patsy, encounter an immovable object in the middle of a forest: the fearsome Black Knight, who refuses to concede he’s lost a fight even when he’s being hacked into tiny pieces.

Gleefully gory and fuelled🌞 by patent🔜ed Python po-faced British stoicism.

Gilliam says he once saw the movie in New York during the Vietnam War and nobody laughed. "It took the audience a while before they twigged and realised, 'Oh, there’s something funny going on…'"

Quote: “Tis but a scratch!”

13. Defence Against Fresh Fruit

Four reluctant trainees, one screaminℱg, militaristic instructor.

Cleese's feral self-defence teacher is only interested in teaching his weary recruits about how to cope with the u🀅nlikely situation of facing an assailant "armed with a piece of fresh fruit".

Best, is Cleese's throbbing-veined apoplexy🌺 at Idle's suggestion that he should teach them about how to defend themselves against someone "armed with a pointed stick". Deliciously daft.

Quote: “Let me tell you something, my lad – whꦗen you’re walking ’ome tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you👍 with a bunch of loganberries, don’t come crying to me!”

Next: [page-break]

12. Argument

Fancy🌱 an argument? In Pythonland there’s actually a place you can visit to scratch that particular itch, although we’re not sure a disagreement with Cleese’s stony-faced desk-jockey would be our ideal choice of row.

His determination that Palin’s fight-seeking nerd doesn&rsqu🗹o;t get a single disagreement that he hasn’t paid for is wonderfully niggly and, well, postmodern before postmodern had been invented.

No it isn’t.

Yes it is...

Quote: &ldquo🌞;Is this the right room for an argument?&rdquoꩵ;

11. The Fish-Slapping Dance

🉐Filmed at London's Teddington Lock, where a signed photo of Michael Palin still hangs in the Lock-keeper’s cottage to this day (see below), this 16-second sketch basically consists of two grown men hitting each other wit♒h fish.

Rather painfully, the tide went out between rehearsal and the final take, so Palin fell a lot furth🌄er into the water than he was happy with.

10. Nudge Nudge

One of the sketches deemed good enough to remake for 1971’s And Now For Something Completely Different US compilation movie, this is Eric Idle’s finest acting hour, as his sleazy, double entendre-spouting stranger accosts Jones’ terribly ser﷽ious businessman in a bar and casts asper𒐪sions on the sexual veracity of his wife.

Know what I mean?

Quote: “A💟 nod’s as good as a wink to 🔯a blind bat!”

9. Spam

Terry Jones was never shriller aꦯs the waitres🧔s extolling the virtues of Spam (the tinned processed meat not unsolicited email) to customers Idle and Chapman.

The sketch was later praised for helping make the notoriously nasty Spam cool aga🃏in (the Pythons’ tribute is even mentioned on the company’s ).

The trick is simple: repetition of an absurd word. The more they say 'Spam', the funnier it gets – and the fact that the Green Midget Cafe is filled with Vikings seems to make perfect sense, too.

Quote: “Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!”

Next: [page-break]

8. The Four Yorkshiremen

Originally wr༒itten for the 1967 'At Last The 1948 Show', this has become an honorary Python sketch by virtue of the performance at the Hollywood Bowl in 1982.

It's a brilliantly observed, over-quoted tak𝔍e on four chippy Northerners comparing notes on the harshness of their respective 💙childhoods.

It succeeds because, despite the escalating absu♏rdity, it's utterly recognisable - we’ve all seen old folks trying to outdo each other by recounting the miseries of theꦦir youth.

Though, as the young of today, we don’t believe 'em...

Quote: “A 🔯cardboard box? You were🍌 lucky! We lived for three months in a rolled-up newspaper in a septic tank!”

7. The Spanish Inquisition

It’s true: nobody expected them. Three not-very-scary, scarlet-🔴clad🌳 Inquisitors led by Palin’s ridiculously-accented Cardinal with a Biggles-goggled Jones at his side (for no reason we can determine) and a hilariously gurning Gilliam stealing the scene in the background.

It’s the burst of dramatic music that accompanies their every entrance that slays us, though ('JARRING CHORD!' in the script book). Now, where’s that comfy chair?

Quote: &ldquoꦆ;Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

6. The Ministry Of Silly Walks

It’s not so much the idea of an official Ministry of Silly Walks that makes it a🌜 classic. And the script, with Palin asking Cleese’s bureaucrat for a government grant to make his own walk sillier, is only mildly amusing.

What kicks here is Cleese's performance - a 🐻tall, bowler-hatted, straight-faced and stiff-upper-lipped civil servant striding through the streets with hi𒉰s legs twisting and flailing, all without the faintest whiff of self-awareness or embarrassment.

Gotta love the impractically silly-walking secretary, too.

Quote: “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but I’m afraid my walk h🐽as become rather sillier recently.&ꦛrdquo;

5. The Upper Class Twit Of The Year

Again, the Pythons take an ordinary event – the Horse Of The Year Show – and 🦂warp i💛t with a simple but absurd twist... Thoroughbreds replaced with in-breds.

It's a beautifully structured round of sustained slapstick, with plenty of old-school pratfalling from the Pythons – resplendent in goofy teeth and bowler hats - all tied together by another supreme performance from Cleese as the frantic narrator.

Quote: &𒁏ldquo;And Oliver has run himself over! What a brave twit!”

Next: [page-break]

4. Lumberjack Song

Palin&rs🌠quo;s the hairdresser who’s afraid of hair with a secret longing to be... a 𓄧lumberjack!

Leaping from tree to tree as t🔯hey float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia! With his best girly by his side!

But as the hearty ode to log-felling turns into a cross-dressing confessional, the acco꧟mpanying manly Mounties grumble and wander off, followed by disillusioned girly Connie Booth (Cleese's future wife).

Quote: &ldqꦆuo;I wish I’d been a girly, just like my dear papa!”

3. Dead Parrot

According to Palin, the mother of all sketches was inspired by a mechanic he hired who explained away every fault on his car with increasingly ridiculous justifications (“The doors have 𓃲fallen off!”... “Well, they do that...”)

After a brief dalliance with car salesmen, the sketch was revamped by Chapman and Cleese to feature a demised Norwegian blue as the central, undeniably broken item. Beautiful plumage...

Quote: &ld🔯quo;Now that’s what I call a de🤪ad parrot.”

2. The Cheese Shop

Enthusiastic epicure🌞 Cleese attempts to buy some cheese from a cheese shop that doesn't seem to actually have any cheese for sale.

Cue the Python's finest two-hander as Cleese and vendor Palin spar over an increasingly bizarre list of world cheeses before Cleese finally cracks under the strain of the i𓄧n-store bouzouki player.

Rece♔ntly homaged by Stewart Lee in the almost equally joyous .

Quote: “Venezuelan beaver cheese?”
“Not today, sir, no.”

1. The Piranha Brothers

Showcasing ♋everything you could wish to find in a single Python sketch, this is a merciless send-up of the (then recent) real-life reign of terror inflicted on London’s East End by the Kray tw🤡ins.

Taking the form of a current-affairs show catchily entitled ‘Ethel The Frog’, it’s the s💖orry story of gangsters Doug (who used sarcasm as a bitter weapon) and Dinsdal⭕e (who lived in fear of a giant hedgehog named Spiny Norman) Piranha.

The extended tale follows their lives from the brothers' birth – on pro✅bation – to their fall at the hands of a frustrated thespian Scotland Yard ch♔ief (Inspector Harry 'Snapper' Organs).

It's a show-off showcase of the team at their absolute pe🍸ak, from Cleese glamming up as the haughty lady Dinsdale used to step out with, to Chapman’s sleazy schoolteacher miming somebody’s guts falling out.

Watch out for a guest appearance from Spiny Norman at the end, too...

Quote: “Dinsdale was a gentleman. And what’s more, he knew how to treat a female impersonator.”

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