For the song by The Offspring, The Meaning of Life (Offspring song).

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
It took God six days to create the Earth … and Monty Python just 90 minutes to screw it up!
Directed by	Terry Jones
Produced by	John Goldstone
Written by	Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin
Starring	Graham Chapman John Cleese Terry Gilliam Eric Idle Terry Jones Michael Palin
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	April 1, 1983
Running time	107 min
Language	English
Budget	$9,000,000
Preceded by	Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Followed by	Monty Python Live At Aspen
IMDb profile

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life is a comedy film/musical made in 1983 by Monty Python. This film was essentially a series of comedy skits about the various stages of life — in some ways a return to the sketch comedy format of the original television series. It was also the last of the Monty Python films. The meaning of life is a fundamental philosophical discussion of human existence, chiefly consisting of interpretations such as: What is the origin of life?, What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?, What is the significance of life?, What is the purpose of life... The Meaning of Life is a song by The Offspring from their 1997 album Ixnay on the Hombre. ... DVD cover to the Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life. ... This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ... Monty Python, or The Pythons, is the collective name of the creators of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. ... Terence Graham Parry Jones (born in Colwyn Bay, Wales, on February 1, 1942) is a British comedian, screenwriter and actor, film director, childrens author, popular historian, political commentator and TV documentary host. ... Graham Chapman (8 January 1941–4 October 1989) was an English comedian, actor, writer and physician. ... John Marwood Cleese (born October 27, 1939) is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy winning English comedian and actor most famous for being one of the founding members of the renowned comedy group Monty Python. ... Terrence Vance Gilliam (born November 22, 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, animator, and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. ... Eric Idle (born March 29, 1943) is an English comedian, actor, author and writer of comedic songs. ... Terence Graham Parry Jones (born in Colwyn Bay, Wales, on February 1, 1942) is a British comedian, screenwriter and actor, film director, childrens author, popular historian, political commentator and TV documentary host. ... Michael Edward Palin, CBE (born May 5, 1943) is an English comedian, actor and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries. ... Universal Pictures is the main motion picture production/distribution arm of Universal Studios, a subsidiary of NBC Universal. ... It has been suggested that April Fools Day be merged into this article or section. ... // February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Lets Spend the Night Together opens in New York North Americas Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Tootsie Trading Places, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy WarGames, starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy Superman III Flashdance Staying Alive Octopussy Mr. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl is a 1982 film in which the Monty Python team perform many of their greatest sketches and skits in the Hollywood Bowl, including a couple of pre-Python ones. ... Monty Python Live at Aspen was a reunion show featuring all the surviving members of Monty Python including Graham Chapman in the form of an urn. ... Airplane! is considered by some critics to be one of the funniest movies of all time. ... The Fantasticks is the longest-running musical in history. ... // February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Lets Spend the Night Together opens in New York North Americas Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Tootsie Trading Places, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy WarGames, starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy Superman III Flashdance Staying Alive Octopussy Mr. ... Monty Python, or The Pythons, is the collective name of the creators of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. ...

The Skits

The film is conveniently divided into chapters, though the chapters themselves often contain several more-or-less unrelated (often unconnected) sketches and bits.

• The Crimson Permanent Assurance, a short introductory film directed by Terry Gilliam. Originally conceived by Gilliam as a 6-minute animated sequence in the middle of the film (at the end of Part V), then later expanded to a 16-minute live-action piece, to the point where it no longer fit into the framework of the film and became a pre-movie short film in its own right. In an early satire of globalization, elderly office clerks rebel against their cold, efficient corporate masters at 'The Permanent Assurance Company', commandeer their building and turn it into a pirate ship, raiding financial districts in numerous big cities before falling off the edge of the world.
• The film proper opens with the six Pythons playing fish in a tank, who engage in a brief philosophical conversation. The opening credits roll, with Eric Idle singing the song "The Meaning of Life" over animation by Gilliam.
• "Part I: The Miracle Of Birth", involves a woman in labour who is ignored by doctors (Cleese and Chapman), nurses, and eventually the hospital's administrator (Palin) as they drag in more and more elaborate equipment, including 'the machine that goes PING!'. This scene is based on the argument about the technologisation of the birth process.
• "The Miracle Of Birth - Part II: The Third World", which shows a Catholic family (Palin and Jones) living in 'the Third World' (Yorkshire), who, because they do not believe in any form of birth control, can no longer afford to feed their children. All 63 children are being sold for medical experiments. The skit culminates in the musical number "Every Sperm is Sacred" [1]. The segment satirises the Catholic Church's attitudes to contraception and masturbation, and is followed by a burlesque of Protestant tolerance, always available but somehow never used. While the Protestants are talking, the children can be seen in the background walking out of the door and down the street. Once the actors walked off the camera, they would go around the back of the set and walk out of the door all over again, so as to make it appear that there are more children.
• "Part II: Growth And Learning", in which a group of religious schoolboys attend a mass (conducted by Palin) entitled "Oh Lord, Please Don't Burn Us". In a subsequent class, they watch in boredom as their teacher (Cleese) demonstrates sexual techniques with his wife (played by Patricia Quinn). Later, we see a rugby match of students vs. teachers. The ending of this scene overtly compares sports to war.
• "Part III: Fighting Each Other", in which a First World War officer (Jones) attempting to rally his men to find cover during an attack is hindered by their insistence on celebrating his birthday, complete with presents, gift vouchers and a cake. This leads into a lecture on the positives of the military, and a drill sergeant (Palin) leading his men marching up and down the square.
• There follows a long sketch (still in "Part III") set during the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War in Natal, in which a decimating attack by Zulus is dismissed in lieu of a far more pressing matter; one of the officers (Idle) having had a leg stolen during the night. Suspicious that a tiger might be the perpetrator, despite being in Africa, a hunting party is formed, which later encounters two suspicious men in tiger suits who attempt (rather pathetically) to assert their innocence in the matter through a succession of increasingly feeble excuses as to why they are dressed as tigers.
• "The Middle Of The Film", introduced by Gilliam dressed as a black man, where the viewer is invited to play (by Palin, in drag) "Find The Fish", in which a drag queen (Chapman), a gangly playboy (Jones), and an elephant-headed butler (according to the DVD, this creature was from Terry Gilliam's earlier film Time Bandits) challenge the audience to 'find the fish' in an abstract scene shot in the operations floor at the former Battersea Power Station, Wandsworth, with a slight attempt to convert it to resemble a living room. Gilliam had said this sketch was to represent the strange dreams that one has. The fish in the tank appear again, praising the sketch and discussing the progress of the film.
• "Part IV: Middle Age", in which a middle aged couple takes a vacation to a bizarre resort (including Terry Gilliam dressed in bizarre drag, and an authentic medieval dungeon with tropical music suggesting Hawaii). Having nothing to talk about, they order a conversation about the "meaning of life". Being apparently quite intellectually uncurious, they send it back, complaining "this conversation isn't very good."
• "Part V: Live Organ Transplants", in which a couple of paramedics arrive at the doorstep of a card-carrying organ donor (Gilliam) to claim his liver immediately, brutally disembowelling and killing him in the process. Later, a man in a pink suit (Idle) emerges from the refrigerator belonging to the 'donor's' wife (Jones) to sing her a song about the wonders of the universe, resulting in her realising the futility of her existence and agreeing to one of the paramedics' request for her own liver. This is followed by an attempt by the "Crimson Permanent Assurance" to take over the film proper, which is dealt with by dropping a large skyscraper on the Assurance building.
• "Part VI: The Autumn Years", is introduced with a Noel Cowardesque fop (Idle) performing the song "Isn't It Awfully Nice to Have a Penis?". Mr. Creosote, an impossibly fat man (Jones), waddles into a decorous restaurant, swears at the host (Cleese), and vomits copiously, into buckets if available. He eats an enormous meal, and finally, after delivering the immortal line "Fuck off, I'm full!", is persuaded to eat one last wafer-thin mint, whereupon he explodes, showering the restaurant with offal.
• "Part VIB: The Meaning of Life", contains two philosophical monologues. The first is delivered by a cleaning lady (played by Jones), entirely in rhyme, culminating with "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". The second is delivered by the French waiter (Idle), who leads the camera on a long walk through the streets to the house where he grew up, and delivers his personal philosophy: "The world is a beautiful place. You must try and make everyone happy, and bring peace and content with you everywhere you go. And so I became a waiter... well, it's not much of a philosophy I know, but well... fuck you, I can live my own life in my own way if I want to- fuck off."
• "Part VII: Death" opens with a funeral setup. After this, we see Arthur Charles Herbert Aruncie MacAdam Jarrett, a criminal convicted of making gratuitous sexist references, killed in a manner of his choosing. He is chased off a cliff by topless women in brightly-colored crash helmets. The irony is that the actor who played Arthur Charles Herbert Aruncie MacAdam Jarrett is actually a self proclaimed homosexual. A brief animation of suicidal leaves falling off a tree leads into "Social Death", in which a group of people at an isolated country house are visited by the Grim Reaper (Cleese), who knocks on the door. When the host answers and sees the Reaper with an enormous scythe, he says, 'Is it about the hedge?' The dinner guests then spend a lot of time arguing with him before finally being persuaded to leave the mortal coil. 'Heaven' turns out to be quite similar to the resort from Part IV. When they enter, the rest of the characters from the film (the Roman-Catholic Children, the topless women, Mr. Creosote, etc.) are already seated, and all are then serenaded by a Tom Jones-like lounge singer (Chapman) with the monumentally cheesy song "Christmas In Heaven", a parody of Las Vegas-style shows, complete with women wearing plastic breasts in Santa Claus outfits (the women were supposed to be topless but, according to the DVD comments, one of them refused, on the grounds that she thought her breasts were too small) and a gleaming-toothed lounge singer telling all those present that in Heaven, it's Christmas every day, forever.
• "The End Of The Film", in which Palin in drag (apparently the same character who hosted "The Middle of the Film") concludes the film by reading out 'the meaning of life' (introducing it by saying "It's nothing very special really"):

'Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.'

• Finally, the film ends with part of the theme music and title sequence from Monty Python's Flying Circus on a TV set drifting off into space, before the "Galaxy Song" begins again, and plays over the end credits.

The Crimson Permanent Assurance is a short film that appears before the 1983 Monty Python movie The Meaning of Life. ... Terrence Vance Gilliam (born November 22, 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, animator, and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. ... Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. ... Short subject is an American film industry term that historically has referred to any film in the format of two reels, or approximately 20 minutes running time, or less. ... A KFC franchise in Kuwait. ... For other uses, see Building (disambiguation). ... Look up pirate and piracy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Financial District is used to refer to: The Financial District (Manhattan) in New York City, New York The Financial District (San Francisco) in California A station on the Detroit People Mover This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the... 15th century adaptation of a T-O map. ... Opening credits, in a television program, motion picture or videogame, are shown at the beginning of a show and list the most important members of the production. ... Eric Idle (born March 29, 1943) is an English comedian, actor, author and writer of comedic songs. ... Birth is the process in animals by which an offspring is expelled from the body of its mother. ... A pregnant woman near the end of her term Pregnancy is the carrying of one or more embryos or fetuses by female mammals, including humans, inside their bodies. ... This article focuses on the education and regulation of nurses. ... A physician visiting the sick in a hospital. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Look up Yorkshire in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... It has been suggested that Autoeroticism be merged into this article or section. ... Quinn with Richard OBrien and Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... 1879 (MDCCCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Combatants United Kingdom Zulu Nation Commanders Sir Bartle Frere, Frederick Augustus Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford Cetshwayo Strength 14,800 (6,400 Europeans 8,400 Africans) 40,000 Casualties 1,727 killed, 256 wounded 8,250+ killed, 3,000+ wounded The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the United... Flag The Natalia Republic was located in the southern half of this region Capital Pietermaritzburg Language(s) Dutch, Zulu Religion Dutch Reformed Church Government Republic Prime Minister  - 1839 – 1843 Andries Pretorius Historical era 19th century  - Republic founded October 12, 1839  - Battle of Blood River December 16, 1838  - Alliance with Zulu... This article is about the African ethnic group. ... Binomial name Panthera tigris (Linnaeus, 1758) Distribution of tigers in 1900 (red) and 1990 (green) Synonyms Felis tigris Linnaeus, 1758 Tigris striatus Severtzov, 1858 Tigris regalis pink, 1867 Tigers (Panthera tigris) are mammals of the Felidae family and one of four big cats in the Panthera genus. ... Drag queens Luc DArcy and Jerry Cyr and friend at Montreals 2003 Divers/Cité pride parade. ... Genera and Species Loxodonta Loxodonta cyclotis Loxodonta africana Elephas Elephas maximus Elephas antiquus † Elephas beyeri † Elephas celebensis † Elephas cypriotes † Elephas ekorensis † Elephas falconeri † Elephas iolensis † Elephas planifrons † Elephas platycephalus † Elephas recki † Stegodon † Mammuthus † Elephantidae (the elephants) is a family of pachyderm, and the only remaining family in the order Proboscidea... Time Bandits (first released on July 13, 1981) is a fantasy film, produced and directed by Terry Gilliam (who created animations for Monty Pythons Flying Circus). ... Battersea Power Station viewed from the north bank of the River Thames at Pimlico. ... Wandsworth is a town on the south bank of the River Thames in south-west London. ... A Paramedic is a specialized health care professional who responds to medical and trauma emergencies in the pre-hospital (out-of-hospital) environment for the purpose of stabilizing and transporting the patient to an appropriate medical facility, usually by ambulance. ... Organ donation is the removal of specific tissues of the human body from a person who has recently died, or from a living donor, for the purpose of transplanting them into other persons. ... “Freezer” redirects here. ... The Galaxy Song is both an upbeat and nihilstic song from the movie Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life and the album Monty Python Sings. ... Universe is a word derived from the Old French univers, which in turn comes from the Latin roots unus (one) and versus (a form of vertere, to turn). Based on observations of the observable universe, physicists attempt to describe the whole of space-time, including all matter and energy and... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Noel Coward Sir Noel Peirce Coward (December 16, 1899 – March 26, 1973) was an English actor, playwright, and composer of popular music. ... FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) is an XSL-FO processor written in Java, which provides the feature to convert XSL-FO files to PDF or direct-printable-files. ... The penis (plural penises, penes) is an external male sexual organ. ... Terry Jones as Mr. ... Obesity is a condition in which the natural energy reserve, stored in the fatty tissue of humans and other mammals, is increased to a point where it is associated with certain health conditions or increased mortality. ... Toms Restaurant, a restaurant in New York made familiar by Suzanne Vega and the television sitcom Seinfeld A restaurant is an establishment that serves prepared food and beverages to order, to be consumed on the premises. ... Vomiting (also throwing up or emesis) is the forceful expulsion of the contents of ones stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose. ... Mints are usually hard or brittle candy, characterized by the presence of mint flavoring, whether it be peppermint oil, spearmint oil, or an artificial substitute. ... Scrapple sandwich at the Delaware state fair Offal is the entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal. ... Death, as a skeleton carrying a scythe, visiting Mort. ... This article discusses the series itself. ... The Galaxy Song is both an upbeat and nihilstic song from the movie Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life and the album Monty Python Sings. ...

Trivia

• 'The Meaning of Life' was unexpectedly awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 1983 Cannes International Film Festival.

• Because the film was not intended for television, some sketches show much more black humour than the original TV series (for example "Mr. Creosote" or "Live Organ Transplants").

• In 2004, a 'Special Edition' DVD was released, with director's commentary, deleted scenes, and behind-the-scenes documentaries (both real and spoofed).

• During the title sequence, the title of the movie is first written on a stone tablet as 'The Meaning Of Liff', and is corrected in a second by a lightning strike. This appears to allude to the humorous dictionary The Meaning of Liff (by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd), released in the same year as the movie; the Pythons say they didn't know a book existed bearing that name, though they were friendly with Adams, who appeared in one episode of, and even assisted Graham Chapman in writing a sketch for, the final series of Flying Circus.

• Ireland banned the film on its original release, as they had treated Monty Python's Life of Brian, but later rated it 15 when it was released on video. At the time, Ireland had banned a total of four films, of which Terry Jones had made three.

• In the United Kingdom it was rated 18 when released in the cinema and on its first release on video, but was re-rated 15 in 2000.

• In order to persuade Universal Studios to make the film, the Pythons wrote a poem about the script, budget and content of the film. The poem being recited by Eric Idle was featured as the introduction to the film on the special edition DVD.

• The sketch "The Man Who Chose His Own Death" is scored to stock music that also appears in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Brazil. The sketch also inspired Studio B's "I See Girls" video.

• One of the plastic-breasts dancers during the song "Christmas In Heaven" is Jane Leeves, in her first screen appearance; she would go on to play Daphne Moon in the American sitcom Frasier.

• The tagline says 'It took God six days to create the Earth, and Monty Python just 90 minutes to screw it up', but the length of the film is 107 minutes. The movie has a length of 90 minutes only if The Crimson Permanent Assurance is counted as a separate 17 minute short. In the 2005 DVD release of the film, this has been corrected to say 'It took God six days to create the Earth, and Monty Python just 1 hour and 48 minutes to screw it up'.

• This is the last film featuring all the Pythons together as a group.

• In episode #38 ("A Fish Out of Water") of Family Guy, Peter and his friends go in search of the "un-catchable" fish, Daggermouth, and run into the Strange Man with incredibly bend-y arms from The Meaning of Life. (Peter Griffin: Now all we have to do is find the fish. Strange man: I wonder where that fish did go. A fish, a fish, a fishy oooooohhhhhhh!)

• In the 1999 TV documentary, From Spam to Sperm: Monty Python's Greatest Hits, choreographer Arlene Phillips recalled working on the film, and in particular the Every Sperm is Sacred sequence, as "the very best time" of her professional career.

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... DVD (commonly known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for data storage, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... Front cover of the US hardcover edition of The Meaning of Liff, 1984. ... Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, comic radio dramatist, and musician. ... John Lloyd (born 1951 in Dover, England; birth name: John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd), British comedy writer and producer. ... Monty Pythons Life Of Brian is a 1979 comedy by Monty Python, which deals with the life of Brian Cohen (played by Graham Chapman), a young man born on the same night as Jesus, and right down the street from him as well. ... 1965 envelope sent to local office of 20th Century Fox with certifying cachet of IFCO The Irish Film Censors Office (IFCO) is the name given to the censor of films in Ireland. ... Video (Latin for I see, first person singular present, indicative of videre, to see) is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion. ... The 18 certificate is issued by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to state that, in its opinion, a film or video recording should not be seen or purchased by a person under 18 years old. ... Video (Latin for I see, first person singular present, indicative of videre, to see) is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion. ... British Board of Film Classification logo The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), originally British Board of Film Censors, is the organisation responsible for film and some video game classification and censorship within the United Kingdom. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Universal Studios (sometimes called Universal Pictures or Universal City Studios), a subsidiary of NBC Universal, is one of the major American film studios that has production studios and offices located at 100 Universal City Plaza Drive in Universal City, California, an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County between Los Angeles... Eric Idle (born March 29, 1943) is an English comedian, actor, author and writer of comedic songs. ... Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a film released in 1975. ... Jane Leeves Jane Leeves (born April 18, 1961) is an actress best known for her work as Daphne Moon on Frasier. ... Jane Leeves as Daphne Moon Daphne Moon is a character on the American television sitcom Frasier. ... Frasier is a popular American situation comedy television series that starred Kelsey Grammer. ... A tagline is a variant of a branding slogan typically used in marketing materials and advertising. ... The Crimson Permanent Assurance is a short film that appears before the 1983 Monty Python movie The Meaning of Life. ... A Fish Out of Water is an episode of Family Guy that first aired September 19, 2001. ... Family Guy is an American animated television series about a nuclear family in the suburb of Quahog (IPA or ), Rhode Island. ... Peter Löwenbräu Griffin is the lead character in the American animated television series Family Guy. ... Arlene Phillips OBE (born 1944 in Manchester, Lancashire, England) is a British choreographer working in many fields of dance. ...

Box office

The film opened in North America on May 1, 1983. On 257 theatres, it grossed US $1,987,853 ($7,734 per screen) in its opening weekend. It played at 554 theatres at its widest point, and its total North American gross was US $14,929,552.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

The Meaning of Life

• The Meaning of Life at the Internet Movie Database