June 30- July 6 Puke Week!: Throwing up isn’t very funny, but making your internet friends watch a puke movie is!
The Meaning of Life was the last feature film to star all six Python members before the death of Graham Chapman in 1989 and it’s pretty perfect because it has no interest in a story to connect anything. It’s just life, from the miracle of birth to a Catholic man reminding you that “Every Sperm Is Sacred” in a song that I quote from often, including most of this speech that follows it:
Harry Blackitt: That’s what being a Protestant’s all about. That’s why it’s the church for me. That’s why it’s the church for anyone who respects the individual and the individual’s right to decide for him or herself. When Martin Luther nailed his protest up to the church door in fifteen-seventeen, he may not have realised the full significance of what he was doing, but four hundred years later, thanks to him, my dear, I can wear whatever I want on my John Thomas. And Protestantism doesn’t stop at the simple condom. Oh, no. I can wear French Ticklers if I want.
Mrs. Blackitt: You what?
Harry Blackitt: French Ticklers. Black Mambos. Crocodile Ribs. Sheaths that are designed not only to protect, but also to enhance the stimulation of sexual congress.
Mrs. Blackitt: Have you got one?
Harry Blackitt: Have I got one? Uh, well, no, but I can go down the road any time I want and walk into Harry’s and hold my head up high and say in a loud, steady voice, “Harry, I want you to sell me a condom. In fact, today, I think I’ll have a French Tickler, for I am a Protestant.”
Mrs. Blackitt: Well, why don’t you?
Harry Blackitt: But they – Well, they cannot, ’cause their church never made the great leap out of the Middle Ages and the domination of alien Episcopal supremacy.
School, war, finding an elusive fish, live organ surgery, man’s place in the galaxy — “The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know Twelve million miles a minute, and that’s the fastest speed there is So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure How amazingly unlikely is your birth And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space ‘Cause there’s buggerall down here on Earth!” — Christmas in Heaven, The Crimson Permanent Assurance, choosing how you wish to die and, of course, Mr. Creosote.
This sketch was filmed at Porchester Hall in Queensway, where hundreds of pounds of fake vomit had to be cleaned due to a wedding being scheduled hours later. There’s so much puke and it’s beyond gross — ribs sticking out of an exploded man — starting with this order:
Maitre d’: Would monsieur care for an apéritif, or would he prefer to order straight away? Today we have, uh, for appetizers: Excuse me. Mhmm. Uh, moules marinières, pâté de foie gras, beluga caviar, eggs Benedictine, tart de poireaux– that’s leek tart,– frogs’ legs amandine, or oeufs de caille Richard Shepherd– c’est à dire, little quails’ eggs on a bed of puréed mushroom. It’s very delicate. Very subtle.
Mr. Creosote: I’ll have the lot.
After all of this death and destruction and, well, puke, Maria arrives to clean up the dead body and again, all the puke. She reveals to us the meaning of life: “I used to work in the Académie Française, but it didn’t do me any good at all. And I once worked in the library in the Prado in Madrid but it didn’t teach me nothing I recall. And the Library of Congress, you would have thought, would hold some key, but it didn’t, and neither did the Bodleian Library. At the British Museum, I hoped to find a clue. I worked there from nine till six, read every volume through, but it didn’t teach me nothing about life’s mystery. I just kept getting older, and it got more difficult to see. Till eventually my eyes went, and my arthritis got bad. So now I’m cleaning up in here, but I can’t really be sad. You see, I feel that life’s a game. You sometimes win or lose, and though I may be down right now, at least I don’t work for Jews.”
I grew up obsessed with Monty Python in a non-Internet time when you never knew when you would get the chance to watch it again. I love that this won the Grand Prix at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, which suggests that even though this movie is ridiculous, it still has something to say through all the death and vomit.
It all ends with this: “The Producers would like to thank all the fish who have taken part in this film. We hope that other fish will follow the example of those who have participated, so that, in future, fish all over the world will live together in harmony and understanding, and put aside their petty differences, cease pursuing and eating each other and live for a brighter, better future for all fish, and those who love them.”
B&S About Movies 
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