I Fart in Your General Direction

For this month’s induction to the Scooter Hall of Fame I picked one of the crown jewels of my DVD collection. Surprisingly I first watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail while I was in high school. Now when I say I was in high school, I mean I was actually sitting in English Lit class as a learning experience. Not surprisingly, this class was taught by the same teacher who gave away beer mugs, which he tried to convince everyone were milk mugs. Needless to say this was the greatest class I had in my educational career.

But the great thing about Monty Python I that it actually works on an educational level with high brow comedy that the uneducated may not get. There were plenty of references that dealt with obscure British history may not get so while watching it in class we would watch a scene and laugh at it’s sophomoric humor, then the teacher would rewind it and point out the little things that us, the uneducated wouldn’t get, then have a laugh at the deeper meaning.

Yet it is still the silliness that draws people to the Monty Python franchise, and there is plenty of that in the Holy Gail. In addition to the French dude that uttered the title phrase, some of my personal favorite parts are, the Black Knight who wouldn’t die, the Holy Hand Grenade and the Knights Who Say Ni. And as part of the English Lit class, we learned the “Ni” was actually a curse word back in olden times, so for me that added to the humor of the scene.

And unlike virtually every DVD released, all the extras are worth checking out and also boasts what I think is the only movie that offers for your listening pleasure a “Mono soundtrack in glorious old-fashioned mono!” Plus as an added bonus there is “A glorious 24 seconds absolutely free!” although don’t ask me where that is from. There are also there rare audio commentaries that are actually interesting, one with Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones and another with John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin. Also there a plenty of great documentaries, three sin-alongs, and a cast directory to keep track of how many characters each actor played. And if you can’t get enough ridiculousness, you can watch the film in Japanese with English Subtitles as they search for the holy sake cup and even a Lego version of the film. No seriously, well at least a scene of them. And there’s even an educational film on to use your coconuts. And really, what else do you need in your life?