I'll bite your legs off if you don't watch this film!

“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!” Wait… what?! If you don’t know where that iconic movie quote is from then you’re missing out. Monty Python and the Holy Grail may be one of the dumbest movies on the planet, but it has some hilarious moments. The best comparison to the reading I can make is John Morreall and the Incongruity Theory in “Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor.” If you’ve ever seen this film, I believe you would agree.

Morreall brings up the point that many say that using the word “incongruity” only works for some things due to the meaning of the word. Incongruity, in the point that Paul McGhee makes, for films such as Monty Python it means “’something unexpected, out of context, inappropriate, unreasonable, illogical, exaggerated, and so forth.’” This film is ALL of those things. For example, in the opening credits of the film where it states the filmmakers, actors, and the like, there are subtitles supposedly in another language. If you pay close attention to those subtitles you begin to see that they aren’t in another language, just a strange font. At one point, the subtitles say, “A moose once bit my sister…No really! She was carving her initials on the moose with the sharpened end of an interspace toothbrush given to her by Svenge – her brother-in-law – an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian movies: ‘The Hot Hands of an Oslo Dentist’, ‘Fillings of Passion’, ‘The Huge Molars of Horst Nordfink’…” Obviously, just from seeing this part, if you haven’t seen any other part of this movie, you can tell that it’s going to be very silly. This is the unexpected part of the Incongruity Theory.

Here’s one more for you from the first scene of the movie. This one coincides with, I guess you could say, the illogical aspect of this theory. In this scene, you hear clopping sounds similar to that of a horses hooves. It just so turns out that it isn’t a horse, but one of King Arthur’s men, known as Patsy, clapping two halves of an empty coconut together. This scene is one of the best in the movie. It’s so insanely illogical and dumb, but it’s definitely worth the watch. The following dialogue between King Arthur and the guard on top of the castle make it even better. I won’t spoil it though, you’ll have to watch it for yourself.

PLEASE! Take the time to watch this movie, you will not regret it! My parents and I quote it all the time! :)

gif 1: https://giphy.com/gifs/monty-python-favorite-movies-and-the-holy-grail-fLa2pULjWnDxu
gif 2: https://giphy.com/gifs/reaction-crazy-monty-python-Zb4Cwdpub5g0U