The Best Monty Python Comedy Sketches

First airing on The BBC on October 5, 1969, Monty Python's Flying Circus would go on to redefine comedy as we know it. Running for five years and across forty-five episodes, the show eschewed traditional comedic structure, breaking all the rules regarding how sketch comedy and television should function.

The show's name - and the eventual name of the troupe composed of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin - came about in a similarly surreal fashion. Reportedly Michael Mills - Head of Comedy at The BBC - wanted the show to have the word 'circus" in it, playing off the wild reputation of the comedians involved. The word "flying" was added to appease those who tuned in expecting an actual circus. Eric Idle and John Cleese added the name "Monty Python" - Idle suggesting "Monty" as the quintessential sleazy showbiz name and Cleese liking the slimy sound of the word "Python".

Despite their influence on modern comedy, many people are only familiar with Monty Python through their five films, particularly The Holy Grail, and have never seen Monty Python's Flying Circus! Thankfully, with Netflix having recently acquired the streaming rights to the entire Monty Python catalog, fans everywhere will soon be able to see these classic works of comedy.

In anticipation of the official release, here are twenty of funniest sketches from Monty Python's Flying Circus, free for the watching now via YouTube.

20. I Wish To Report A Burglary!

The simple premise of this sketch is based around a series of silly voices. What should be a fairly straight-forward premise - a man reporting that his home has been burgled to the police - becomes a chaotic nightmare as the man (Terry Jones) finds that the desk sergeant (John Cleese) is unable to understand his normal tone of voice, requiring that he shout in a shrill, nasal tone in order to be understood. Things grow more complicated as another sergeant (Graham Chapman) and a detective inspector (Eric Idle) are introduced.

While the sketch is amusing enough on its own, it is also a wonderful display of the Pythons' skill as performers. The four actors flawlessly and smoothly switch voices as they speak to one another, depending on what tone of voice is required for the targeted listener.

19. The Fish Slapping Dance

Another simple sketch that somehow became a classic, despite its relative brevity. There's no set-up to it. No introduction beyond a brief bit of Terry Gilliam's animation. Just two men dressed as if they are going on safari, performing what appears to be some intricate variation of Morris dancing involving slapping each other in the face with fish. The only joke is the sheer absurdity of folk-dancing with fish.

Despite this, later Python productions made reference to this skit. Michael Palin produced a short film about the history of the art of fish slapping. The Monty Python musical Spamalot also worked The Fish Slapping Dance into its opening musical number, along with a classic Monty Python song about the wonders of Finland, appropriately titled The Finland Song.

Read More: Top 10 Parody Films

18. Self Defense Against Fresh Fruit

This early Monty Python skit is fairly traditional by the standards of sketch comedy, but showed how the troupe was pushing against expectations even in their first year on the air. The skit depicts a Sergeant Major (John Cleese) overseeing a self-defense class. For reasons which are never explained, the Sergeant Major is obsessed with the idea of people attacking him with fresh fruit and has spent the last nine weeks teaching his charges how to handle the unlikely occurrence of a mugger coming at you with a banana or (heaven help you) a pineapple.

While many people go into martial arts classes with unrealistic expectations of learning how to throw a person on their first day, one has to sympathize with the students in this case - even the one played by Eric Idle, who seems to be similarly preoccupied by the thought of being attacked with a pointed stick.

17. The Ministry Of Silly Walks

While Monty Python's Flying Circus was best known for avant-garde, intellectual and surrealist humor, The Pythons were not above a little bit of visual humor or slapstick as appropriate. That fact is readily apparent in this skit, in which John Cleese spends the better part of a minute walking down the road in a peculiar manner, finally revealing that his destination is The Ministry of Silly Walks.

Cleese reportedly grew to hate this sketch in later years, as fans who encountered him demanded that he do a silly walk for them. Cleese also felt the base idea of the sketch - mocking the frivolous things the British government at the time would spend money on - was weak and that the only thing that made it work was the physicality of the whole thing.

Be that as it may, it IS a very silly walk and quite funny!

16. Hell's Grannies

In the early days of the show, Monty Python's Flying Circus would purposely try to confuse its viewership, crafting skits that might look like any other BBC program up until a certain point. In this case, the show disguised itself as a news program and satirized the reporting of increasing gang activity among young people with a mock report about "gangs of old ladies attacking defenseless fit young men." Young people complain about the mischief the "senile delinquents" are causing, as beleaguered children wonder if they're responsible for what has become of their poor mothers.

What really sells this skit, however, is the inclusion of Graham Chapman's Colonel character at the end. One of Monty Python's few reoccurring characters. The Colonel would frequently appear between sketches and onish the program for being "far too silly" and link the way to something different.

15. Confuse-A-Cat

Perhaps the most overtly surreal sketch Monty Python's Flying Circus ever produced, the Confuse A Cat skit could be said to have predicted the development of animal psychiatry. While the merits of the science are still debated today, most animal experts agree that pets can pick up on the emotions of their owners and will respond in kind. Some theorize that dogs, cats, horses and birds may be capable of experiencing depression and feel like they are in a rut.

Regardless of the legitimacy of the idea in the real world, that concept lies at the heart of this sketch, in which a company that specializes in confusing cats is summoned to throw one apparently bored cat into sharp relief after its owners become concerned about their cat being unresponsive and uninterested to everything around it. What follows is stop-motion magic.

14. The Bishop

It was rare for Monty Python's Flying Circus to do direct parodies of any one particular show or genre. The Bishop marks one of those rare occasions, with Terry Jones playing a gun-toting, crime-busting Church of England bishop, in the same vein as the many historical priest detective characters as well as the classic 1960's action series The Saint.

Everything about this sketch is dead on perfect - from Terry Gilliam's animated credit sequence to the Jimmy Durante impression Jones adopts, as he races around trying to thwart an apparent plot to kill other holy men through increasingly cartoonish means. From the chase scenes featuring convertible muscle cars to The Bishop's moving to confront a villain with the unlikely name of Ron Devious, every element of the skit goes over the top in just the right way.

13. The Funniest Joke In The World

Perhaps the longest running single sketch that Monty Python's Flying Circus ever produced at just under ten minutes long, The Funniest Joke In The World presents a mock historical documentary/news program about how one joke writer accidentally created a joke that would literally cause anyone who read it to die laughing. Talk about slaying your audience!

The sketch quickly moves from the creation of the joke and the efforts of the police to retrieve it, to how the British Army attempted to weaponize the joke by translating it, one word at a time, into German, in order to use it during World War II. Graham Chapman's Colonel character narrates part of middle segment involving the war-time history of The Funniest Joke In The World, before a thrilling conclusion in which a British agent uses the joke to escape from his Gestapo captors.

12. The Architects Sketch

While one could hardly accuse Monty Python's Flying Circus of ever being subtle in their satire, the show reached new heights of absurdity with The Architects Sketch. Opening with an introduction by five Gumbys - the show's distinctive yokel characters, who were easily identified by their toothbrush mustaches, sweater-vests, wire-rimmed glasses, gum boots, and a distinctive way of talking that emphasized each syllable - the sketch quickly progresses into a segment where two rival architects show off their designs.

One can see the beginnings of the Basil Fawlty character whom John Cleese would later play in his series Fawlty Towers in this sketch, as his architect character loses his cool only to become immediately apologetic after an explosive temper tantrum. Things become even more ridiculous as the other architect, played by Eric Idle, begins his presentation.

11. The Cheese Shop Sketch

It's hard to quantify just what makes The Cheese Shop work so well. Unlike many skits from Monty Python's Flying Circus, there's no over the top insanity, no silly voices and no colorful costumes. Not even so much as a rude innuendo. The humor here comes from the absurd extremes to which John Cleese's customer is willing to go to try and guess what specific kinds of cheese The Cheese Shop run by Michael Palin has in stock at the moment.

The comedy builds as Palin responds to each request with a sad smile and a reasonable excuse about how a delivery van broke down or how they don't ever have that particular cheese at the end of the week, until the excuses become a bit less reasonable and Cleese quietly becomes more unhinged and sarcastic in response.