Original artwork, not a still
I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
— Monty Python and the Holy Grail · 1975
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Sir Galahad's polite diplomacy meets the least diplomatic reply in cinema: a stream of nonsense insults that are funny because they are so specific and so pointless. Fans still reach for the hamster and the elderberries when an argument deserves no answer, and the Python taunter has become the pattern for every comic castle-wall heckler since.
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In context
Spoilers for Monty Python and the Holy GrailShow the scene
In the 1975 film, King Arthur and his knights reach a castle held by French soldiers who claim to have the Holy Grail. After the Frenchman on the battlements has called the English pig-dogs and told them to boil their bottoms, Sir Galahad remarks on what a strange person he is, and Arthur tries to reason with him. This is the reply, shouted down from the wall; the soldiers then drive the Britons off with a barrage of barnyard animals. The same French soldiers hold Castle Arrrghhh near the end, where the knights are repelled by showers of manure.
Sources (2)
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail, WikiquoteFrench taunts sectionReference checked
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail, WikipediaPlotReference checked
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