And Now for Something Completely Different

The book examines Monty Python’s enduring status as an unconventional, anti-authoritarian comedy touchstone, this book reappraises Python’s comedy output from the perspective of its fifty years of cultural circulation.

Fifty years on, And Now For Something Completely Different provides a timely retrospective on the troupe’s transformation from absurdist cult TV to global comedy lingua franca. Egan and Weinstock’s clutch of new scholarly perspectives effectively historicises Python in popular culture. As Pythonology goes, this is pretty much the full Monty.

A fresh and broad-ranging collection that both builds on existing work on Monty Python, and takes several new approaches. This will be an important contribution to the field.

If you’re after a series of lively, insightful and highly accessible essays about every aspect of Monty Python – from its use of stock music to its representation of animals – then this book is completely and utterly for you.

This outstanding collection finds innovative, compelling things to say about the global cult of Python. Exploring absurdism and gothic horror, music and animation, deceased parrots and ‘political correctness’, Egan and Weinstock have gathered together a brilliant troupe of scholars. Including a focus on cult comedy and fandom, And Now For Something Completely Different makes a real difference to our understandings of Monty Python.

Dr Kate Egan is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at Northumbria University Professor Jeffrey Weinstock is Professor of English at Central Michigan University