Monty Python's The Meaning of Life Monty Python's The Meaning of Life Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, also known simply as The Meaning of Life, is a 1983 British musical sketch comedy film written and performed by the Monty Python troupe, directed by Terry Jones. It was the last film to feature all six Python members before Graham Chapman's death in 1989. Unlike "Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian", the film's two predecessors, which each told a single, more-or-less coherent story, "The Meaning of Life" returned to the sketch format of the troupe's original television series and their first film from twelve years earlier, "And
Monty Python settled on "Python". On other occasions, Idle has claimed that the name "Monty" was that of a popular and rotund fellow who drank in his local pub; people would often walk in and ask the barman, "Has Monty been in yet?", forcing the name to become stuck in his mind. The name Monty Python was later described by the BBC as being "envisaged by the team as the perfect name for a sleazy entertainment agent". "Flying Circus" popularised innovative formal techniques, such as the cold open, in which an episode began without the traditional opening titles or announcements. An example