Referenced By / Monty Python and the Holy Grail

1 Following

A list of references, parodies, homages and shout-outs to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

• Gatorade once released a series of commercials called "The Quest for G" where various athletes went on a quest to find the "Holy G". Notably, Tim the Enchanter was played by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Killer Rabbit represented "Game 7", and God was voiced by Michael Jordan!
• The first Prince Herbert scene ("Someday son, all this will be yours." "What, the curtains?") was once referenced on Australian radio in a commercial for a fabric store. Naturally, Herbert gets fixated on the curtains and derails the conversation: "What's the number? If this place is going to be all mine, I'd like to get some more of those!"

Anime and Manga

• Little Witch Academia (2017) has an episode called "Amanda O'Neill and the Holy Grail".
• Delicious in Dungeon features Dungeon Rabbits that are found deep in the dungeon and classified as high-level monsters. And how dangerous they are? Laios has heard stories where they managed to decapitate an entire party of adventurers, though that turns out to be an exaggeration. And the only way to defeat these monsters is a simple explosion spell.

Comic Books

• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Monty Python gets quoted a lot in Don Rosa's comics.
  • "A Little Something Special": A Beagle member calls Magica a witch (despite the latter preferring the term "sorceress") and points out that she doesn't just weigh the same as a duck; she is a duck.
  • "The Once and Future Duck": Arthur and his henchmen mistake a superpowered Little Helper for a foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent. Since this a time travel story set in 5th century Britain, this moment might have inspired the original Killer Rabbit myth in-universe.
  • In "The Black Knight Glorps Again!", the ducks get cornered by Arpin Lusène, a master thief whose armor destroys anything it touches. Scrooge tells Miss Quackfaster that she is in great peril, but Quackfaster insists she can stand a bit of peril as Lusène stops to politely kiss her hand.
  • In "The Billionaire of Dismal Downs" (the ninth chapter of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck), Scrooge grumblingly calls a passerby a "peasant" when said passerby boos and jeers at him. In turn, the man turns to someone else and partially quotes Dennis the Peasant by saying "Oh, what a giveaway! Did ye hear him repressin' me? Ye heard it, din't ya?"
• Fables: At one point, the Lady of the Lake wears a shirt with the quote "Basis for a System of Government".

Comic Strips

• In the Doctor Who Magazine "Comics Assassins" parody of "The Curse of Fenric" the Viking curse is "Your mother was an elk and your father smells of smorgasbord".

Fan Works

• Boldores and Boomsticks: When Mr. Stone has his scientists start recording combat data on the Grimm he tells them to record "the airspeed velocity of an unladen Nevermore".
• Living Legend: When Diana brought Lara Croft to the hot springs for healing, "Castle Anthrax" pops in Lara's head as she gaze upon the naked Amazons.
• The Fire Emblem comedy anthology Mel Brooks' Monty Python and the Fire Emblem features a number of vignettes based around certain scenes from the film (and other Python-related material), only swapping out the Pythons for various heroes (and a few villains) from the games:
  • In Vignette 2, a large group of Heroes find themselves at the castle guarded by the taunting Frenchmen. When they start pelting the Heroes with farm animals, they earn the wrath of mopey animal lover Marianne von Edmund (from Fire Emblem: Three Houses).
  • Vignette 6 sees Kiran the Summoner and a squad made up of Zephiel (from The Binding Blade), Walhart (from Awakening), and the post-timeskip versions of Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude (from Three Houses) encountering Dennis the peasant, who subjects them to his ranting about the downsides of absolute rulers.
  • Vignette 8 has Alfonse of Askr, Luke (from Mystery of the Emblem and its remake), Leon (from Gaiden and its remake), Altena (from Genealogy of the Holy War), Lalum (from The Binding Blade), and Micaiah (from Radiant Dawn) considering resting for the night at Camelot...but change their minds after opening the doors.
  • Vignette 11 depicts Ike (from Path of Radiance and its sequel) in a duel with the Black Knight from Holy Grail, after initially thinking he'd be up against the Black Knight from his world.
  • Vignette 13 features a party of Heroes encountering the Knights Who Say 'Ni'. As well as discovering their weakness in a shorter amount of time.
  • Vignette 16 sees the Whitewing Sisters (Palla, Catria, and Est) from the Archanea-set games running into the Three-Headed Knight. Who, in this take, is based on the Three Stooges.
  • Vignette 18 has a group of Heroes exploring a cave...where they find themselves fleeing from the Black Beast of AAARRRRGGH!.
  • Vignette 20 depicts a variation of the 'Bridge of Death' scene, only the old man guarding it and asking three questions per traveler is Happosai.
• Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space. Captain Proton tries to call an Underwater City on the Video Phone, only to get a frog-like humanoid with a French accent who proceeds to riff on the taunting scene, ending with him telling Proton to "go away or I shall rip off Monty Python a second time-a!"

Films — Animation

• Finding Nemo: A variation on "Run away!" ("Swim away!") is used twice. Once when Bruce the shark realizes that a torpedo is about to detonate the old land mines, and again by krill escaping from the whale that swallows Marlin and Dory.
• Shrek the Third, which stars Eric Idle and John Cleese, has a scene set at a play where the sound of a horse's trot is replicated by knocking two coconut halves together. Idle wasn't happy about the gag being copied wholesale, and threatened to sue.
• In Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Manny asks Buck why Rudy doesn't have a more scary name, like Sheldon, or Tim.

Films — Live-Action

• Barbie (2023): At one point, the Kens pantomime riding imaginary horses in a very similar manner to how King Arthur and his knights do the same.
• Kenneth Branagh's 1993 adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing has constable Dogberry entering stage riding an imaginary horse after the fashion of the Pythons.
• While the interactive-movie segment from the book was cut, the Holy Hand Grenade makes an appearance in Ready Player One (2018), Parzival purchasing it in a shopping spree after he finds the Copper Key, later using it in the Battle of Castle Anorak against an squad of Sixers.

Literature

• The Dresden Files:
  • In the short "Something Borrowed" Harry calls Jenny Greenteeth a "watery tart", an epithet nicked from Dennis the Constitutional Peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  • White Night: Murphy and Harry quote a few lines from the film at each other early in the book, much to Harry's delight and amusement.
  • Skin Game: While in Hades' vault, where they're stealing the grail, Michael quotes the film inadvertently.
    Michael: Only a flesh wound.
    Harry: Yeah. 'Tis but a scratch. Come on, ya pansy.
    Michael: Pansy?
    Harry: Oh, you weren't quoting the movie. Sorry.
    Michael: Movie?
    Harry: Holy Grail?
    Michael: Nicodemus still has it.
    Harry: Never mind.
• Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: In Episode 2, Uncle sets up a topiary monster for the heroes to fight, declaring "you must deal with ... a shrubbery!".
• In Ready Player One, one of James Halliday's favorite films of all time was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Because of this, the second trail in the third gate involves Wade Watts/Parzival acting out a full-on virtual recreation of the film, beginning as Graham Chapman's King Arthur and alternating characters between scenes.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: A character mentions that Dany's Unsullied don't run if you "fart in their general direction".

Live-Action TV

• In NCIS, Abby gets her hands on a computer that responds to verbal commands and questions. Of course, she asks it "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Music

• From "Weird Al" Yankovic's "White & Nerdy":
  I memorized Holy Grail really well
  I can recite it right now and have you ROTFLOL

Pinball

• Medieval Madness has a random line alluding to the Knights of Ni's demands for a shrubbery.
  Peasant Leader: THEY TOOK OUR SHRUBBERY!

Print Media

• In the Doctor Who Magazine Comic Assassins parody of "The Curse of Fenric", the Doctor claims the "ancient Viking curse" is "Your mother was an elk and your father smells of smorgasbord."

Tabletop Games

• Trench Crusade: One of the weapons that Trench Pilgrims can use are hand grenades made from the church bells of the original (destroyed) Antioch - literal holy hand grenades of Antioch.

Video Games

• Age of Empires II: Kushluk telling his men to "Run away! Run away!" as soon as he sees Genghis Khan's forces is a direct reference to the movie. The developers also considered cheat units based on Tim the Sorcerer and the Rabbit of Caerbannog, but didn't make them in the end.
• BattleTech (2018) has a Subsystem Damage mechanic which means that sometimes a mech will lose a limb but be able to continue fighting. There are achievements for various combinations of lost limbs, named after the corresponding lines of dialogue from the Black Knight scene.
• Solaire's armor from Dark Souls is very reminiscent of King Arthur's armor, both sporting green and white colors, mail coat and a sun symbol on the front.
• The Bridge Of Death appears as a random encounter in Fallout 2. The Chosen One can even trick the bridgekeeper in the same way as Arthur does. The Holy Hand Grenade was supposed to appear as a weapon in the game, as the player can encounter King Arthur and his knights searching for it. It's available in the Restoration mod.
  • The HHG does make its appearance properly in Fallout: New Vegas, found in the town of Searchlight, in the basement of the fire department. The directions for use are spray-painted on a nearby crate, including the phrase 'Five is right out.' There are the only three in the entire game, and they require the Wild Wasteland quirk to find.
• Hands of Necromancy has a weapon resembling the HHG that looks exactly like the one from the film (a round bauble with a cross) capable of wiping out large number of enemies per throw, however the game calls it an Unholy Hand Grenade.
• The Holy Hand Grenade appears as a weapon in the Worms games, starting from the second game.
  • The Holy Hand Grenade appears in the Mobile and 3DS versions of Terraria, based on the Worms games.
• In Battle Chess, jumping a knight with a knight will result in a recreation of Arthur's battle with the Black Knight.
• Although it won't spawn under normal circumstances, Minecraft has a killer rabbit in it. Additionally, one of the splash texts is "Big Pointy Teeth!", although it doubles as a reference to one of Jeb's other games.
• 1985's Lord of the Rings: Game One features a scene where a "watery tart" throws something at Merry if he tries to swim in a lake.
• In Quest for Glory IV, the Vorpal Bunny references the Rabbit of Caerbannog.
• In the Idle Game Transport Defender, the Holy Grenade references the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
• Flight Rising has two references in its item pool. The Black Knight (as in, a chess piece) has the description "Keeps fighting no matter what." while the Newt's description is "It's said evil magic can turn dragons into newts. If that's true of this one, it never got better."
• WarCraft III: Several Stop Poking Me! quotes are from the film.
• The online trailer for the "Dark Ages" level of Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time had a knight zombie being followed by an Imp banging two coconuts together.
• Conway's Game of Life: The spaceship "Sir Robin" and its "minstrels" (extensions which can be added to the back of the ship). Sir Robin travels in the same direction as a knight in Chess, hence the name.
• In Fate/Grand Order, the Ruler version of Altria Pendragon (who's a Historical Gender Flip of King Arthur) is dressed as a Playboy Bunny. Her profile mentions that this may be because of a "fearsome beast" that terrorized King Arthur long ago, which is a likely reference to the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.
• Destiny 2 has two emotes referencing gags in the movie, the Galloping Knight multiplayer emote that was available during Season of Dawn which has two players replicate the Running Gag of the knights pretending to ride on a horse while their squire following behind using coconuts to make the galloping sound and another named "One...Two...Uh..." whose description takes almost word for word from part of the passage regarding the Holy Hand Grenade.
• In Civilization VI, the Civilopedia entry for King Arthur includes a couple nods to his depiction in this movie.
  He could, despite popular depictions, count to three without immediately leaping to five and appeared to have no unusual issues with rabbits.
  • There is also the achievement "I'm Not Dead Yet," awarded for winning the Black Death scenario after 80 turns.
• Genshin Impact: The Frostmoon Scions' would like you to remember that when preparing holy oil to fire the Arrow of Terpikeraunas you need to mix it for seven hours, not six or eight. "Five and nine are right out."
• In Helldivers II, the achievement for dismembering an Automaton Hulk and extracting while it's still alive is named "Let's call it a draw".
• Normy's Beach Babe-O-Rama: In "England 1447", the knight enemies lose their arms and legs if Normy hits them, but still try to attack him without them.
• Borderlands 1: Equipping a class mod grants the achievement "There are some who call me... Tim."
• Cookie Clicker: Upgrading the farms to level 10 grants the achievement "Huge tracts of land."

Web Animation

• hololive: The first chapter of ENigmatic Recollection Minecraft roleplay has Elizabeth taunting Kronii with "Your father is a hamster and your mother smells like elderberries!".

Web Original

• Dark Secrets of Garry's Mod: The Black Knight appears as a supporting character in the isekai Kalandregény (Adventure novel) Story Arc.
• In the 2022 Homestar Runner Halloween cartoon "Homestar Runner: "2022 Costume Pack Now Available"", Homestar is dressed as the Black Night. Being an Armless Biped, his Black Knight costume has both its arms cut off and spewing blood.
• Tristan spends one episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series accusing Duke Devlin of being a witch, saying "He must be a witch! He turned me into a newt! (Beat) I got better."

Webcomics

• Several examples in Arthur, King of Time and Space:
  • One fairly early strip has some familiar "dialog that will never occur in Arthur, King of Time and Space"
  • The Lord of the Rings parody arc has "Beware the drums of uuuh...", with Paul saying in The Rant that he has never seen that joke anywhere else.
  • When Arthur is given Excalibur by the Lady of the Lake, The Rant ends "First person out with the watery tart speech gets oppressed."
  • During the Roman War, when a castle responds to Arthur's request for supplies by throwing crap at him, Lancelot expected them to throw a cow.
  • In the Western arc, Mad Scientist Morgan has a giant mechanical rabbit, as a reference to the Trojan Rabbit.
  • In one space arc strip, Sir Dodinel tells Arthur that Excalibur's hydroponics bay needs a shrubbery. Arthur isn't comfortable with that.
  • An extended play on the "arrow to the knee" meme leaves Arthur wishing the knights would stop saying "knee".
• Darths & Droids:
  • One strip has the title "See the Violence Inherent in the System".
  • Count Dooku (who talks with a terrible French accent because the GM isn't good at voices) taunts Obi-Wan with "Your mother was a womp rat and your father smells of sweesonberries!"
  • Luke, in his fight with the AT-AT shouts "Come back, you coward! I'll chop your legs off!"
• Girl Genius: The stuffed head of the Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhh can be seen mounted on a wall.

Western Animation

• In the Darkwing Duck episode "Heavy Mental", Darkwing and company subject Major Synapse to a barrage of inane and confusing questions to psych Synapse into self-destructing himself. The first question lobbed at him is, "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
• Family Guy:
  • In the episode "Peter's Progress", which portrays the founding of Quahog, Stewie portrays King Stewart, and one woman, clearly a man doing a British falsetto, says, "I didn't vote for 'im!"
  • The infamous "Family Guy death pose" is, in fact, lifted 1:1 directly from of a shot of one of King Arthur's knights having died in an awkward pose right after the Killer Rabbit finishes attacking them.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • In "The Chronicle of Meap", when Phineas asks Mitch his name and he answers, "I'm am known by many names throughout the universe, well two mainly, Mitch and some of the guys call me Big Mitch" is like when King Arthur asks Tim the Enchanter "By what name are you known?" and he responds with "there are some who call me... Tim?".
  • In "Split Personality", Major Monogram's other half who really wanted to sing is actually similar to Prince Herbert.
  • In "Excaliferb", when they attempt to cross Professor Poofenplotz's bridge, she requires them to answer three questions, just as where King Arthur and his knights have to cross the Bridge of Death. The use of a Spam-like can also be considered a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, as it's referenced in the song sung during the Camelot scene. "We eat ham and jam and spam a lot!" In turn, Spamalot is the name of the stage musical adaptation of said movie.
  • In "One Good Turn", the start of the war between Gimmelshtump and Stumblegimp showing animals thrown via catapult comes from the film and its Broadway musical.
  • In "Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel", Fury asks Major Monogram if the agent he heard about is "behind the platypus", much like King Arthur asks if the hideous killer beast is "behind the rabbit".
• In The Powerpuff Girls episode, "Los Dos Mojos", after Bubbles gets beaten so badly she believes she is also Mojo Jojo, the real Mojo gets fed up with Bubbles and beats her and declares, "That's all just well enough, because in reality there is only room enough in this world for one Mojo Jojo. One shall be the number of Mojo Jojos in the world, and the number of Mojo Jojos in the world shall be one. Two Mojo Jojos is too many, and three is right out."
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Pulpit Friction", the townspeople are throwing away their mattresses during a bed bug epidemic, and Moe wheels a cart full of mattresses while shouting "Bring out your beds!".
  • While playing World of Warcraft in "Marge Gamer", Bart plays a character named "The Black Knight". Near the end of the game both his arms and legs have been removed, as with the Black Knight in the film.
  • In "Homer Goes To College", Benjamin, Doug, and Gary quote from the "Knights Who Say 'Ni'" sketch.
• The Littlest Pet Shop (2012) episode "Game of Groans":
  • The guards resembling the Black Knight.
  • Russell shouting "Ha-ha!" like Lancelot upon escaping Ye Olde Pet Zone.
  • Shivers hits two acorn shells together to make the sound of a horse trotting while Russell pretends to ride a horse.
• Nexo Knights reference the film in almost every episode. Here's just a few examples:
  • In the second episode, Jestro comes across a monstrous bunny who roars at him.
  • A few characters, most notably Robin Underwood and Roger the Scrubber, are named after characters from the film, although most of the time the names are all they have in common (Nexo Knights Robin, in fact, seems to be closer to Monty Python's Black Knight).
  • In the third episode, the king's servant FancyPants repeats the "banana-shaped earth" line almost word-for-word.
  • One of the characters pilots a mech called "The Black Knight", which loses all of its limbs at one point.
  • In the third season, Lava Monsters are revealed to have founded an anarcho-syndicalist commune.
• Teen Titans (2003): One shot in "Revolution" sees Mad Mod staring down at the Teen Titans in a stop-motion-esque style just like God from the film.
• Tiny Toon Adventures:
  • In the short, "Bat's All Folks!" (part of "Inside Plucky Duck"), Plucky and Question Mark's dialogue is similar to that of King Arthur and the Keeper of the Bridge of Death.
    Question Mark: How can you tell if an elephant's been in your bed, Duck Knight?
    Plucky: African Elephant or Indian?
    Question Mark: Gee, I don't know.
  • In the short, "Day For Knight" (part of "Brave Tales of Real Rabbits"), Shirley is accused of witchcraft, which leads to this exchange:
    Montana Max: You're accused of being a witch! How do you plead?
    Shirley: Like, totally not guilty.
    Frog: She turned me into a prince!
    (Monty and Arnold stare at the frog.)
    Frog: Well... I got better.
• VeggieTales:
  • In the first episode "Where's God When I'm S-Scared?", the segment "Tales From the Crisper" sees Bob the Tomato and Junior Asparagus reference the "curtains" gag.
  • "Josh and the Big Wall" has the titular wall being defended by French peas who taunt the Israelites and hit them with Abnormal Ammo in the form of slushies.
• In the Wander over Yonder episode "The Big Day", the two Watchdog guards seeing Commander Peepers seemingly come up to them repeatedly while a drumroll plays is a shot-for-shot recreation of Lancelot doing the same.