What Does The Word “Pythonesque” Refer To?

Pythonesque humour is hard to define, yet impossible to mistake. The word is used to refer to anything resembling the highly eccentric, anarchic and surreal comedy created in 1969 by Cambridge graduates John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman and (though not in the cast ) Barry Took. The show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, was introduced with the line "And now for something completely different," which summed up its approach. Though of uneven quality, some of its sketches have passed into legend, most notably the Parrot Sketch, in which a pet shop owner refuses to admit that the parrot being returned to his shop is dead ("It's a Norwegian Blue; they always sleep like that.") The series closed in 1974, but has been an inspiration to comics ever since. The Python team also produced some hugely successful films like Life of Brian, The Holy Grail and Erik the Viking.

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