Monty Python and the Holy Grail was a 1975 comedy film starring the Monty Python comedy group (the most famous member in America being John Cleese). This movie for some reason just came out of nowhere when I was in high school. All of a sudden everyone at school was talking about it. I am not sure what triggered this sudden interest. Before I knew it, kids everywhere were repeating lines from the movie. Since I hadn’t seen the movie, I didn’t really get the jokes.
I told my parents about all this talk at school. My dad happened to know about Monty Python, as he used to occasionally watch the TV show in his early years. I was eager to be in the know by seeing the movie. We rented the videotape one night. The humor was so different than American humor but still funny in its own way. I saw it again during a youth group movie night. Eventually, my parents bought me the DVD as a surprise birthday gift. I’ve seen the movie several times now.
There are so many scenes from this movie that I remember. I continually see pop culture references to the movie all over the place. It’s in movies, video games, music. I still don’t know why this movie got so popular after it had been out so many years. As far I know, it wasn’t very popular when it first came out. Maybe it was ahead of its time.
I have seen bits and pieces of the other Monty Python films but never watched them all the way through. I think my interest in Monty Python was not so much that I loved the humor, but that everyone I knew was talking about it. That is the mind of a teenager. They want to be popular. They want to have things to say to others. That causes a herd mentality. A few other kids they respect or admire talk about a movie, and they want to see the film to fit in. I have a lot of nostalgia tied in with Holy Grail, so I will always remember it.
The Catholic Optimizer 