Monty Python's Flying Circus was the totally meaningless name coined for the innovative English comedy troupe comprised of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, and the late Graham Chapman. Embraced by the critics and public alike, the team enriched airwaves with their distinctive brand of irreverent and often surreal sketch comedy and satire on BBC-1 from 1969 through 1973 and on BBC-2, without Cleese, for the last few months of 1974. The show offered savage broadsides against the pomposity and repression of the British establishment, outlandish spoofs of European history, knowing satires of leading intellectual and cultural figures, and lots of men in dresses.

This Circus featured some very well educated clowns. Most of the group met at Cambridge University where all of them, except for the transplanted American animator Terry Gilliam, were members of The Footlights, a celebrated performing society. Cleese and Gilliam--then a cartoonist for the humor magazine HELP!--met during the US tour of "The Footlights Revue". In 1967 Idle, Palin, Jones and Gilliam wrote and starred in the English TV series, "Do Not Adjust Your Set". In 1968 Cleese and Chapman provided additional material for the unruly satire "The Magic Christian". They all came together the following year to form Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Monty Python invaded America with rebroadcasts on PBS, two ABC late-night specials in 1975 and a 1988 video release; they found a relatively small but devoted and appreciative audience stateside. The success of their inspired lunacy has generated five films to date, each featuring the performers in multiple roles before and behind the camera.