Trivia / Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

• Acting for Two: Par of the course for a Python film, the lads played multiple roles, to the point that Actors' Equity gave them grief for it, saying that it was putting actors out of work. The Pythons shot back by pointing out how many extras they employed for scenes like "Christmas in Heaven".
• Acting in the Dark: The kids who sang in the "Every Sperm is Sacred" sketch later said they had no idea what they were singing about.
• Banned in China: The film was originally banned by the Irish film censor in 1983 but subsequently widely available in Ireland on PAL UK TV videocassette since 1983 & later on DVD to this day (legally & uncut).
• Cast the Expert: Graham Chapman plays a doctor in the "birth" segment, and is called "Doctor" in the Zulu War segment. He was a real-life doctor, with a medical degree from Emmanuel College, but he never practiced medicine professionally.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Terry Jones initially wanted Terry Gilliam to play Mr. Creosote. Gilliam persuaded Jones to play the character instead.
• Creator Backlash: Despite the public loving it, the Pythons were unhappy with the final result (at least in comparison to Holy Grail and Life of Brian).
• Enforced Method Acting: The infamous Mr. Creosote scene was filmed in a warehouse with no air conditioning and a dairy-based prop vomit (actually minestrone soup) that went bad after several days of shooting. This, combined with the content of the sketch itself, made the extras very nauseous and several of them (including one in the bottom right-hand corner) can be seen actually vomiting as they exit the restaurant covered in Creosote's remains.
• Looping Lines: Sensitive to the young actors in the "Every Sperm is Sacred" scene, Michael Palin actually says "those little rubber things on the end of my sock." The word "cock" was dubbed in later.
• Prop Recycling: In the Find The Fish sketch, the green, elephant-like waiter is a leftover costume from Time Bandits.
• Science Marches On: Thirty years after it was written, Eric Idle and physicist Prof. Brian Cox re-wrote the lyrics to the Galaxy Song. They decided it needed an update because subsequent scientific discoveries meant much of the information in the original song was no longer accurate. It was performed as part of the Python's farewell shows at the O2 arena in London in 2014, complete with a pre-recorded clip at the end where Stephen Hawking runs over Cox for picking at the original version's inaccuracies, before proceeding to "sing" the song himself.
• Technology Marches On: The "Birth" sketch was, at the time, a cutting satire on what was seen as unnecessary spending on medical equipment. Nowadays, anyone who's seen a modern medical drama, with the surgeons surrounded by massive banks of electronic equipment, may wonder what all the fuss is about — to the point that operating without such equipment nowadays would be seen as unusual and dangerous. Other parts of the sketch though remain relevant.
  • Also, Cleese and Chapman tell the woman after the birth that she can get a video of the birth of her child on VHS and Betamax, and Super 8mm film!
  • The "Christmas in Heaven" song features "Sony Walkman headphone sets" as an example of contemporary consumer culture.
• Throw It In!: The line, "Hey, I didn't eat the mousse!" was an ad lib.
• Uncredited Role:
  • Nigel Hawthorne makes a small cameo in "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" bit as the man walking by the building when the anchors are raised.
  • Michael Caine cameos as one of the mortally wounded soldiers in the Zulu war segment (a scene reminiscent of the movie where he got his big break...)
• What Could Have Been:
  • The second verse of "The Galaxy Song" was meant to be an animated sequence along with the instrumental part, but Terry Gilliam opted out of animating it in favor of shooting more of "The Crimson Permanent Assurance".
  • Before the Pythons decided to make a sketch movie about the meaning of life, two ideas were considered for the movie. The first was Monty Python's World War III, with sponsored armies and soldiers wearing military uniforms full of advertisements. Another idea was the Pythons being tried for fraud, accused of making a tax dodge, not a movie. They spend the entire movie trying to prove that they're shooting an adaptation of Hamlet in the Caribbean. At the end, they're found guilty and sentenced to execution, and each one of them gets to decide how they're going to die. The idea was used in the death sketch, where Arthur Jarrett has chosen to die while pursued by almost naked girls.
  • The Mr. Creosote sketch almost didn't make it into the film. Terry Jones' first write-up of the sketch with Michael Palin fell flat and had to be re-written by Graham Chapman and John Cleese (who saved the sketch from being binned because he wanted to play the head waiter, whom he thought had the funniest part).
  • The Crimson Permanent Assurance was intended as an animated sequence in the feature, for placement at the end of Part V. Gilliam convinced the others to allow him to produce and direct it as a live action piece instead.
  • "The Third World" originally had a third segment about Martin Luther, following on from the Protestant couple's scene. Why the sequence was removed is unknown but it was filmed, as a book of the movie's script, which was published around the movie's premiere, features it complete with screenshots.
• Working Title: Monty Python's Fish Film.
• Write What You Know:
  • The idea for the hospital sketch came from Graham Chapman, himself a physician, who had noticed that hospitals were changing, with "lots and lots of machinery".
  • Before the teacher gives the sex education lesson, he gives a extremely convoluted explanation of how to proceed during the next football match. According to John Cleese, the speech was taken almost verbatim from his old headmaster, who sometimes had a hard time making sense.

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