The Meaning of Life (1983)

Michael Palin: Window Washer, Harry, Fish #5, Mr. Pycroft, Dad, Narrator #1, Chaplain, Carter, Spadger, Regimental Sergeant Major, Pakenham-Walsh, Rear End, Female TV Presenter, Mr. Marvin Hendy, Governor, Leaf Son, Debbie Katzenberg

Photos 

Quotes 

• [the End Of The Film] 

  Lady Presenter : Well, that's the end of the film. Now, here's the meaning of life.

  [Receives an envelope] 

  Lady Presenter : Thank you, Brigitte.

  [Opens envelope, reads what's inside] 

  Lady Presenter : M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations. And, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which, it seems, is the only way, these days, to get the jaded, video-sated public off their fucking arses and back in the sodding cinema. Family entertainment? Bollocks. What they want is filth: people doing things to each other with chainsaws during tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens, armed bands of theatre critics exterminating mutant goats. Where's the fun in pictures? Oh, well, there we are. Here's the theme music. Goodnight.

• [Large corporate boardroom filled with suited executives] 

  Exec #1 : Item six on the agenda: "The Meaning of Life" Now uh, Harry, you've had some thoughts on this.

  Exec #2 : Yeah, I've had a team working on this over the past few weeks, and what we've come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts. One: People aren't wearing enough hats. Two: Matter is energy. In the universe there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this "soul" does not exist ab initio as orthodox Christianity teaches; it has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.

  Exec #3 : What was that about hats again?

  Exec #2 : Oh, Uh... people aren't wearing enough.

  Exec #1 : Is this true?

  Exec #4 : Certainly. Hat sales have increased but not pari passu, as our research...

  Exec #3 : [Interrupting]  "Not wearing enough"? enough for what purpose?

  Exec #5 : Can I just ask, with reference to your second point, when you say souls don't develop because people become distracted...

  [looking out window] 

  Exec #5 : Has anyone noticed that building there before?

• Dad : [singing]  You're a Catholic the moment Dad came, Because: Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is great, If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate...

• Chaplain : Let us praise God. O Lord...

  Congregation : O Lord...

  Chaplain : ...Ooh, You are so big...

  Congregation : ...ooh, You are so big...

  Chaplain : ...So absolutely huge.

  Congregation : ...So absolutely huge.

  Chaplain : Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.

  Congregation : Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell You.

  Chaplain : Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying, and...

  Congregation : And barefaced flattery.

  Chaplain : But You are so strong and, well, just so super.

  Congregation : Fantastic.

  Humphrey : Amen.

  Congregation : Amen.

• Hospital Administrator : And what are you doing this morning?

  Obstetrician : It's a birth.

  Hospital Administrator : Ah. And what sort of thing is that?

  Dr. Spenser : Well, that's where we take a new baby out of a lady's tummy.

  Hospital Administrator : Wonderful what we can do nowdays.

• Debbie Katzenberg : [after she and the other dinner guests have supposedly died after eating the salmon mousse]  Hey, I didn't eat the mousse!

• Hospital Administrator : Ah, I see you have the machine that goes ping. This is my favorite. You see we lease it back from the company we sold it to and that way it comes under the monthly current budget and not the capital account.

  [Everyone in the room applauds] 

  Hospital Administrator : Thank you, thank you.

• Chaplain : [singing]  Oh Lord, please don't burn us/Don't grill or toast your flock/Don't put us on the barbecue/Or simmer us in stock/Don't braise or bake or boil us/Or stir-fry us in a wok/Oh please don't lightly poach us/Or baste us with hot fat/Don't fricassee or roast us/Or boil us in a vat/And please don't stick thy servants Lord/In a Rotiss-o-mat.

• Mrs. Hendy : Do all philosophers have an 's' in them?

  Mr. Marvin Hendy : Yeah I think most of them do.

  Mrs. Hendy : Oh. Does that mean Selina Jones is a philosopher?

  Mr. Marvin Hendy : Yeah. Right, she could be. She sings about the Meaning of Life.

  Mrs. Hendy : Yeah, that's right, but I don't think she writes her own material.

  Mr. Marvin Hendy : No. Oh, maybe Schopenhauer writes her material.

  Mrs. Hendy : No. Burt Bacharach writes it.

  Mr. Marvin Hendy : There's no 's' in Burt Bacharach...

  Mrs. Hendy : Or in Hal David.

  Mr. Marvin Hendy : Who's Hal David?

  Mrs. Hendy : He writes the lyrics, Burt just writes the tunes... only now he's married to Carole Bayer Sager...

  Mr. Marvin Hendy : Oh, Waiter. This conversation isn't very good.

  Waiter : Oh, I'm sorry, sir. We *do* have one today that's not on the menu. It's a sort of, uh, speciality of the house: Live Organ Transplants.

• Father : The mill's closed! There's no more work. We're destitute.

  Children : Ohhhhh.

  Father : Come in, my little loves. I've got no option but to sell you all for scientific experiments.

  [children whining] 

  Father : No, no. That's the way it is, my loves. Blame the Catholic church for not letting me wear one of those little rubber things. Oh, they've done some wonderful things in their time. They preserved the might and majesty, the mystery of the Church of Rome, and the sanctity of the sacraments, the indivisible oneness of the Trinity, but if they'd let me wear one of those little rubber things on the end of my cock, we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.

• General : But of course warfare isn't all fun. Right, stop that! It's all very well to laugh at the military, but when one considers the meaning of life, it is a struggle between alternative viewpoints of life itself. And without the ability to defend one's own viewpoint against other, perhaps more aggresive ideologies, then reasonableness and moderation could quite simply disappear. That is why we'll always need an Army, and may God strike me down were it to be otherwise.

  Sergeant-Major : Don't stand there gawping! Like you've never seen the hand o' God before!

• Ainsworth : I'm afraid we've got a bit of a problem... you see one of our officers has

  [sotto voice] 

  Ainsworth : Lost a leg. We think it's a tiger...

  Soldier : In Africa?

  Pakenham : Sh, sh sh...

• Humphrey : Now, sex. Sex, sex, sex. Where were we?

  [pupils can't remember] 

  Humphrey : Well, had I got as far as the penis entering the vagina?

  Pupils : Uh, no, sir. No, sir.

  Humphrey : Well, had I done foreplay?

  Pupils : Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

  Humphrey : Ah. Well, as we all know all about foreplay, no doubt you can tell me what the purpose of foreplay is. Biggs.

  Biggs : Um, don't know. Sorry, sir.

  Humphrey : Carter?

  Carter : Oh. Uh, was it taking your clothes off, sir?

  Humphrey : Well, a-and after that?

  Wymer : [Misunderstanding]  Oh! Putting them on a lower peg, sir.

  [Humphrey chucks an object at Wymer for his stupidity] 

  Humphrey : The purpose of foreplay is to cause the vagina to lubricate so that the penis can penetrate more easily.

• Fish # 5 : [swimming away]  Oh, shit, it's Mr. Creosote!

• Fish # 5 : They haven't said much about the Meaning of Life, yet.

  Fish #2 : Well, it's building up to it.

• [the Middle Of The Film] 

  Lady Presenter : Hello, and welcome to 'The Middle of the Film', the moment where we take a break to invite you, the audience, to join us, the film-makers, in 'Find the Fish'. We're going to show you a scene from another film and ask you to guess where the fish is, but, if you think you know, don't keep it to yourselves. Yell out so that all the cinema can hear you. So, here we are with... 'Find the Fish'.

• Headmaster : [while having sex with his wife, notices Carter is playing with something]  Carter?

  Carter : Yes sir?

  Headmaster : What is it Carter?

  Carter : An ocarina, sir...

• Dr. Livingstone : What we're looking for here for is, I think - and this is no more than an educated guess, I'd like to make that clear - is some multicellular life form with stripes, huge razor-sharp teeth, about eleven feet long, and of the genus felis horribilis - what we doctors, in fact, call a 'tiger'.

  Ainsworth , Perkins , Pakenham : A TIGER?

• Dad : I can't keep you all here any longer! God has blessed us so much, I can't afford to feed you anymore.

  Nigel : Couldn't you have your balls cut off?

  Dad : Not if you want to remain part of the fastest growing religion in the world, lad!

• Debbie Katzenberg : How can we all have died at the same time?

  Grim Reaper : The salmon mousse.

  Geoffrey : Darling, you didn't use canned salmon, did you?

  Angela : I'm most dreadfully embarrassed.

• Governor : Arthur Charles Herbert Runcie MacAdam Jarrett, you have been convicted by twelve good persons and true - of the crime of first degree making of gratuitous, sexist jokes in a moving picture.