AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT consists of some of Monty
Python's funniest sketches from their earliest years together. Director Ian
MacNaughton leads John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry
Jones, and Terry Gilliam on a hysterical romp through pet shops, marriage
counselor offices, and odd London streets and fields filled with singing
lumberjacks, dead parrots, hungry babies, upper-class twits, people trying not
to be seen, and old ladies on motorcycles, fighting off milkmen, bank robbers,
crazy flashers, dirty forks, and killer jokes. The sketches have been re-created
for the big screen, without the ever-present laugh track but still loaded with
Gilliam's outrageously funny animation. As in the television show, the skits
are linked together through clever animation as well as by characters in uniform
(Graham Chapman, in this case) proclaiming, “I'm warning this film not to get
silly again.” Among Monty Python's favorite targets are the military, the
police, the British government, the courts, Mao, Uncle Sam, and television
reporters. As always, there are lots of men in drag. Even the closing credits
are a riot. But watch out for that 16-ton weight….