Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Monty Python trivia questions with answers. Monty Python's influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' on music, and the quotes still fly around dinner tables fifty years on. This quiz covers the troupe from the Cambridge Footlights and Oxford Revue through the four series of Flying Circus, the animations, the sketches everyone can recite (Dead Parrot, Spanish Inquisition, Silly Walks, Spam, the Lumberjack Song), the three films, the solo careers, Graham Chapman's death, Spamalot and the 2014 O2 farewell. The easy questions ask which march opens the show and which film retells the King Arthur legend with coconuts. The hard ones want the rejected titles for the series, which rock bands paid for Holy Grail, the Tunisian town where Life of Brian was shot, the Python who was born in Minneapolis and how fast the first O2 show sold out. Ideal for pub quizzes, film clubs and anyone who has ever said 'Ni'. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the troupe, the members, the series, the sketches and the films, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many members made up Monty Python?
Six
Chapman, Cleese, Gilliam, Idle, Jones and Palin; a frequent actress is often called the seventh Python.
Q 02Monty Python's Flying Circus aired on the BBC between which years?
1969 and 1974
There were 45 episodes over four series, plus two made for German television.
Q 03Which two Pythons met at Oxford University?
Terry Jones and Michael Palin
Chapman, Cleese and Idle were at Cambridge; Gilliam is American.
Q 04Where did Terry Gilliam first meet John Cleese, during a Footlights tour?
New York
Cleese was touring with the revue Cambridge Circus, and Gilliam later ran one of his photo strips in Help! magazine.
Q 05Which BBC satirical show is credited with first bringing the British Pythons together?
The Frost Report
It ran from 1966 to 1967 with David Frost.
Q 06Which ITV children's show featured Gilliam, Idle, Jones and Palin before Python?
Do Not Adjust Your Set
Cleese and Chapman admired it, and Thames offered the four their own late-night show.
Q 07Which radio programme do the Pythons regard as their biggest influence?
The Goon Show
Cleese called Peter Sellers the greatest voice man of all time.
Q 08Which of these was one of the rejected names for the series?
Owl Stretching Time
Others included The Toad Elevating Moment and Bun, Wackett, Buzzard, Stubble and Boot; several became episode titles.
Q 09Whose 'circus' did BBC staff call the six Pythons wandering the building, giving the title its last word?
Barry Took's
Took was the comedy adviser who brought them to the BBC; head of comedy Michael Mills insisted the word stay in the title.
Q 10'Monty' was reportedly a mocking tribute to whom?
Field Marshal Montgomery
It was one member's idea, according to the group's 1998 Aspen interview.
Q 11The Python theme is a march by which composer?
John Philip Sousa
The Liberty Bell was published in 1893, so Gilliam could use it without paying royalties.
Q 12Which Python created the animations, including the giant foot?
Terry Gilliam
He lifted images from famous artworks and Victorian engravings and worked with camera, scissors and airbrush.
Q 13Which Python usually wrote alone rather than in a pair?
Eric Idle
Cleese and Chapman worked as one pair, Jones and Palin as another.
Which recurring Chapman character marched into sketches to stop them for being 'far too silly'?
Q 21To which Lancashire town is Mr Praline sent for a refund, only to be told it is Ipswich?
Bolton
The shopkeeper claims Ipswich is a palindrome of it; Praline points out that would be Notlob.
Q 22Which Python plays Cardinal Ximénez, leader of the Spanish Inquisition?
Michael Palin
Jones is Cardinal Biggles and Gilliam is Cardinal Fang.
Q 23What kitchen item does Cardinal Biggles produce when the Inquisition calls for its instrument of torture?
A dish-drying rack
He then pretends to turn a lever, to no effect at all.
The Colonel
The 16-ton weight and Gilliam's knight with a rubber chicken did a similar job.
Q 15Which Python played the 'It's' man in Robinson Crusoe rags at the start of episodes?
Michael Palin
Cleese, in a dinner suit, provided the famous linking line.
Q 16Which member left Flying Circus after the third series?
John Cleese
He said only two of his and Chapman's third-series sketches, Dennis Moore and Cheese Shop, were truly original.
Q 17Which actress was known as the unofficial 'Seventh Python'?
Carol Cleveland
Women were generally played by the men in drag unless the part had to be sexually attractive.
Q 18Which Python specialised in playing 'ratbag' working-class housewives?
Terry Jones
Idle played the more feminine women; Cleese did drag most sparingly.
Q 19In the Dead Parrot sketch, what species is the parrot?
Norwegian Blue
Parrots are not native to Norway; the customer is Mr Praline.
Q 20Who plays the pet-shop owner, opposite Mr Praline, in the Dead Parrot sketch?
Michael Palin
The two have performed it countless times since its 1969 debut.
Q 24The Ministry of Silly Walks satirises what?
Bureaucratic inefficiency
Cleese cited the physical comedy of Max Wall as an influence.
Q 25Which Dutch town opened a 'silly walks' road crossing in 2018?
Spijkenisse
The show was hugely popular in the Netherlands.
Q 26The Spam sketch is set in a café in which London suburb?
Bromley
The Green Midget Cafe's menu features Spam in nearly every dish; the sketch gave email spam its name.
Q 27Which internet term derives from a Python sketch?
Spam
The waitress recites a menu in which nearly every dish contains it.
Q 28Which US public television station first aired Flying Circus in 1974, sparking its American popularity?
KERA in Dallas
Programming director Ron Devillier took the plunge in the summer of 1974.
Q 29What was the Pythons' first film, released in 1971?
And Now for Something Completely Different
It re-shot sketches from the first two series for a cinema audience.
Q 30Which two Pythons directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam
Neither had directed a film before; Jones directed the next two Python films alone.