At the end of the "Man With Three Buttocks" sketch, Arthur Frampton (the man with three buttocks) refuses the interviewer's request to show them on television.

Cut to announcer: "And now for something completely different - a man with three buttocks."

Cut back to the interviewer and Arthur Frampton in studio. The interview begins exactly as it did at the start of the sketch. Then, suddenly, the interviewer abandons his line of questioning and asks Frampton, "excuse me, didn't we do this just now?" Frampton says yes. Interviewer asks why Frampton didn't say anything. Frampton's response: "I thought it was the continental version."

In all the years I've been a Python fan, I never got that reference to "the continental version." Can someone clue me in and let me in on the joke?

A second taping of the programme for European broadcast. The BBC used to do multiple recordings of some shows for different markets. The continental version usually had a little something in it which had been deemed too risque by the Beeb for airing in the UK itself.

Wish they kept going. I love Monty Python !

Python are awesome. There's so much classic to love about them. I still toss out Python lines a lot. I used to work with a woman who was a Python fan, and I would make her laugh on the PA by walking past just before she started and saying "pointed stick". One of the freakier moments I ever had was the first time I saw the "deja vu" skit - I was falling asleep while watching and didn't fully catch what was going on.

And the fact that they can be so lovingly irreverent about themselves, especially with Graham Chapman's death. I still remember them bringing out the urn at the US Comedy Festival, knocking it over and vacuuming it up.

Not to mention John Cleese's eulogy...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsHk9WC7fnQ[/youtube]

Alan

Apparently there's loads of subtext in their material. When I was stationed in the UK, I took a University of Maryland class on Arthurian Mythology (what better place, right?) and the professor was a serious Arthur buff. Anyways, we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail at the end of the class and he was going on about stuff in there that referenced things going on in the UK at the time (such as as some sort of worker's strike that went on in the early 70's).

They go for the real literary humor at times. Socrates himself was permamently pissed, etc