Monty Python Trivia
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49 free Monty Python trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
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 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A rude man the Pythons met in Torquay inspired which sitcom?
Fawlty Towers
Fawlty Towers: John Cleese based Basil on hotelier Donald Sinclair, who reportedly put Eric Idle's bag outside, fearing it held a bomb.
Q 02Besides the BBC, which country's television commissioned two special episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus?
West Germany
West Germany's WDR produced the two specials, and the Pythons performed the first one in German and the second in English, dubbed for broadcast.
Q 03In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which knight calls his severed arm "but a scratch"?
The Black Knight
The Black Knight grew from a story Cleese's English teacher told, about a Roman wrestler who was found dead just as he was declared the winner.
Q 04In which city did future Pythons Terry Gilliam and John Cleese first meet?
New York
New York: Gilliam, then working for Help! magazine, cast Cleese as a man who falls in love with a Barbie doll in one of its photo comics.
Q 05Which BBC satirical show is credited with first bringing the British Pythons together?
The Frost Report
The Frost Report: its famous class sketch lined up Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett by height, so the upper class literally looked down on the rest.
Q 06Which ITV children's show featured Gilliam, Idle, Jones and Palin before Python?
Do Not Adjust Your Set
Do Not Adjust Your Set took its name from the message that TV stations put on screen whenever a transmission fault struck.
Q 07Which radio programme do the Pythons regard as their biggest influence?
The Goon Show
The Goon Show's Spike Milligan later rattled them: watching him record his TV series Q... left the Pythons fearing their own show would seem less original.
Q 08Which rejected title for Monty Python's Flying Circus was later reused for one of its episodes?
Owl Stretching Time
Owl Stretching Time was turned down, and the BBC's head of comedy insisted the title include 'circus', since the six Pythons roamed the building like one.
Q 09Monty Python's Flying Circus echoes the nickname of which WWI flying ace's fighter squadron?
The Red Baron
The Red Baron's fighter wing was nicknamed the Flying Circus, and the Pythons added 'Flying' so their title sounded less like a real circus.
Q 10The 'Monty' in Monty Python was reportedly a gently mocking nod to whom?
Field Marshal Montgomery
Field Marshal Montgomery: the group said Eric Idle picked 'Monty' to tease the WWII general, but Idle has also credited a rotund regular at his local pub.
Q 11Which composer wrote the march used as the theme of Monty Python's Flying Circus?
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa's march The Liberty Bell had fallen out of copyright, so Terry Gilliam could use it as the theme without paying royalties.
Q 12In a Monty Python sketch, what does a man pay for at a clinic?
An argument
An argument: the arguer mostly just contradicts him, then refuses to go on, insisting he hasn't paid for more.
Q 13What name do the four Australian philosophy academics share in a Monty Python sketch?
Bruce
Bruce: when an Englishman named Michael joins their department, they ask if he minds being called Bruce too, to avoid confusion.
Q 21To which Lancashire town is Mr Praline sent for a refund, only to be told it is Ipswich?
Bolton
Bolton: the "brother" is the same shopkeeper in a false moustache, insisting it's Ipswich, until a station attendant confirms it really is Bolton.
Q 22In which Monty Python sketch does a customer end up shooting a shopkeeper who has nothing he asks for?
The Cheese Shop
The Cheese Shop: after dozens of requests, the owner admits he was deliberately wasting the customer's time, so the customer shoots him.
Q 23What kitchen item does Cardinal Biggles produce when the Inquisition calls for its instrument of torture?
A dish-drying rack
Q 14Which recurring Chapman character burst into sketches to stop them for being 'too silly'?
The Colonel
The Colonel: Chapman was keen to get rid of stock punchlines, so he created this officer to halt sketches mid-flow instead.
Q 15In Life of Brian, what slogan does a centurion make Brian rewrite a hundred times in correct Latin?
Romans go home
Romans go home: the centurion is far less bothered by Brian's graffiti than by his bad Latin grammar.
Q 16In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which castle does Patsy dismiss with "It's only a model"?
Camelot
Camelot: after its knights break into a song-and-dance number, Arthur decides not to go there after all, since it is a silly place.
Q 17Which actress was known as the unofficial 'Seventh Python'?
Carol Cleveland
Carol Cleveland was hired for just a few episodes, but the Pythons, who played the old women themselves, soon insisted on keeping her for younger female roles.
Q 18In Life of Brian, what do Brian's mother and other women wear to sneak into a stoning?
False beards
False beards: women aren't allowed at stonings, so they buy beards from a street trader and pass themselves off as men.
Q 19In the Dead Parrot sketch, what species is the parrot?
Norwegian Blue
Norwegian Blue: even after Mr Praline bangs the dead bird on the counter, the shopkeeper insists it is merely stunned.
Q 20What do the Knights Who Say "Ni!" demand from King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
A shrubbery
A shrubbery: once Arthur brings one, the knights change their name and demand a second, then a tree felled with a herring.
A dish-drying rack: when that fails, the cardinals move on to torturing an old lady with soft cushions and the comfy chair.
Q 24In Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks sketch, what does a visitor ask for?
A grant to develop his walk
A grant to develop his walk: the minister says it isn't silly enough, and last year the government spent less on silly walks than on defence.
Q 25In Monty Python's killer-joke sketch, which body bans joke warfare once peace breaks out?
The Geneva Convention
The Geneva Convention: during the war, translators each worked on just one word of the joke for safety, and one who saw two spent weeks in hospital.
Q 26In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which peasant shouts that he's being repressed after arguing with King Arthur?
Dennis
Dennis: he's one of two anarcho-syndicalist peasants who question how Arthur came to be king at all.
Q 27Which internet term comes from a Monty Python sketch?
Spam
Spam: junk messages took the name from the sketch's Vikings, who drown out every conversation by singing the word over and over.
Q 28Which US television network did the Pythons take to court for cutting chunks out of their shows?
ABC
ABC edited out whole chunks, partly to fit in adverts, and the Pythons won on appeal.
Q 29Which Python film, released in 1971, came before Holy Grail?
And Now for Something Completely Different
And Now for Something Completely Different re-shot TV sketches without an audience, aimed at Americans who hadn't yet seen the series.
Q 30In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which nation's soldiers jeer at King Arthur from a castle?
The French
The French: when Bedevere's Trojan Rabbit is wheeled to their gates, he forgets to tell the knights to hide inside, and it's flung back at them.