Monty Python and the Holy Grail/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Beam Me Up, Scotty: The old man being put in the dead cart in scene 2 never actually says the oft-misquoted line "I'm not dead yet." He does say "I'm not dead," twice, but neither time does he say "yet."
    • Likewise, the line when Princess Lucky's father is "dying" is "He's not quite dead," used again when Herbert reappears.
  • Dawson Casting: Dingo and Zoot, at the very least, played by the 33 year-old Carol Cleveland.
  • Deleted Scene: Plenty, including some that were put in TV airings.
  • Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: After King Arthur chops off one of the Black Knight's legs, the Black Knight is played by a man with one leg.
  • Magnum Opus Dissonance: The Python crew generally considered this to be one of their lesser movies. John Cleese often says they think Life of Brian is their best work.
  • No Budget: The movie is very clearly filmed on a shoestring budget for its size, with cheap camera tricks and poor special effects being the norm. The famous ending and the squires banging coconuts together are both a direct result of the lack of money; a large battle would have cost far too much, and since they couldn't afford horses but were still using the coconut sound effect as a joke, why not have the people making the sounds be on camera?
  • Talking to Himself: Graham Chapman voices God and plays Arthur in just one example.
  • Throw It In: The coconuts were originally going to be offscreen due to the lack of budget for horses. The troupe had an epiphany regarding it -- since the movie was nonsensical anyway, they should just write the coconuts into the script.
    • According to the book Monty Python Speaks they thought that the coconuts was a funny idea because coconuts are used for horse sound effects -- AND had the added bonus of saving them a pound of money on horses, training, etc.
      • It even made it into the German title of the film: Monthy Python's Knights of the Coconut ('Monty Pythons Ritter der Kokosnuss').
    • Although for the most part, there was very little variation from the script, there are three instances of improvisation, two of which were done by John Cleese: The first being the pause he takes in the Burn the Witch scene, before saying "Because she's made of wood", the second when he says Some Call Me... Tim because he forgot the character's scripted mystical name, and the third being "He hasn't got shit all over him".
  • Trope Namer: This movie has named the following tropes:
  • Troubled Production: Everyone had a terrible time doing it (a possible cause for the Gainax Ending).
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Terry Gilliam was originally supposed to play Sir Gawain, whose role would have consisted of repeatedly Breaking the Fourth Wall and pointing out how special effects and other aspects of the film's production were achieved. His role ultimately ended up being turned into Patsy, with his Medium Awareness jokes being toned down big-time.
    • Immediately after the second encounter with the Knights Who Say Ni, the original script had a lengthy sequence involving a character named King Brian the Wild, who enjoyed getting people to come to his castle, having them sing in close harmony, and then having them killed by his archers. The Knights of the Round Table nearly end up meeting this fate themselves, but Sir Robin unwittingly saves the day when he shows up in the nick of time, and the archers shoot his minstrels instead. King Brian would most likely have been played by Eric Idle, given that Sir Robin is absent for most of the sequence, though there have been some reports that the role was written for no less than BRIAN BLESSED himself.
    • In an earlier script, the bridgekeeper was stated to return as the boatkeeper, guarding the boat that sails to Castle Aaargh. He would greet any traveler with; "Who wants to cross the Sea of Fate must answer me questions twenty eight." Arthur and Bedevere would have defeated him by simply throwing him into the lake.
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