Some movies come around at just the right time and strike just the right chord with an audience that they become not simply popular films, but a piece of the history of the culture. Certain lines in movies can become so popular and endlessly quotable that it seems like everybody is familiar with them, even if they've never actually seen the movie. So how is it that apparently nobody at Fox News is even vaguely familiar with Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
That's the only explanation that one can easily come up with when seeing a Fox News anchor reading a social media posting that rips off Michael Palin's peasant speech to Graham Chapman's King Arthur from early in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's given completely straight by the reader, who doesn't even do the most obvious thing one would do in this case and try to read the post in a bad English accent. One member of Monty Python, John Cleese, found the whole thing to be quite hilarious. Check it out.
The story was focusing on the protests in Seattle that were going on in an area referred to as the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone." Specifically, the now-deleted post on Reddit, was making a joke at the expense of rapper Raz Simone who has called himself the sheriff of the autonomous zone.
Look, there are a million movies out there and we all have some gaps in our knowledge. I bet there's more than one "classic" movie that it seems like everybody has seen that somehow you never have. Maybe you haven't gotten around to it, maybe something like Monty Python just never connected with you and your personal taste in comedy. That's fine, I'm not judging. But how many people worked on this Fox News show and how was it that nobody stopped and said "You know that's a Monty Python bit, right?"
The original post even includes the bit about "strange women lying in ponds," though the cable news channel didn't quote that bit on air. Though it also didn't cause any of them to question the post.
Maybe if it had included a question as to whether coconuts migrate, it would have set off alarm bells. I mean, even in the original Reddit post there are people who apparently don't get the joke, which is as shocking to other commenters as this Fox News story was to many on Twitter, so maybe Monty Python and the Holy Grail isn't actually as well known as we think? Clearly, those of us that know it feel like everybody else does. Maybe we're all wrong.
If, somehow, you're one of the people that literally doesn't get the joke, allow me to educate you with one of the funniest parts of a hilarious movie. Or you can just watch it because this bit is never not funny.
If you aren't familiar with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it's available on Netflix right now, so go fix that. At the very least, you'll be able to get the joke.
