Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

The film begins with a stand-alone 17-minute supporting feature entitled The Crimson Permanent Assurance (directed by Gilliam). A group of elderly office clerks in a small accounting firm rebel against their emotionlessly efficient, yuppie corporate masters. They commandeer their building, turn it into a pirate ship, and sail into a large financial district, where they raid and overthrow a large multinational corporation.
The film proper consists of a series of distinct sketches, broken into seven chapters.

Part I â The Miracle of Birth


A woman in labour is taken into a hospital delivery room, where she is largely ignored by doctors (Cleese and Chapman) and nurses, who are more concerned with using the hospital's most expensive equipment (including the all important machine that goes "PING!") to impress the hospital's administrator (Palin). When the baby is born, the head physician (Cleese), briefly shows it off to the room but not to the mother, before shuffling it off to the maternity ward. When the mother asks for the sex of her newborn child, Chapman admonishes her for applying gender roles this early, before leaving her alone in the delivery room.


The Miracle of Birth Part II â The Third World


In Yorkshire, a Roman Catholic man (Palin) loses his employment. He goes home to his wife (Jones) and 37 children, where he discusses the church's opposition to the use of contraception, leading into the musical number "Every Sperm Is Sacred". He then sells off his children for medical testing. Watching this unfold, a Protestant man (Chapman) proudly lectures his wife (Idle) on their church's tolerance towards contraception and having intercourse for fun, although his wife is somewhat confused, stating that they've had sex twice in their marriage, and have two children resulting from those encounters. Her husband specifies that they could have non-reproductive sex if they wanted to, not that they would.


Part II â Growth and Learning


A schoolmaster (Cleese) and chaplain (Palin) conduct a nonsensical Anglican church service in an English public school. The master lectures the boys on excessively detailed school etiquette regarding hanging clothes on the correct peg. In a subsequent class, the schoolboys watch in boredom as the master gives a sex education lesson by having sex with his wife (Patricia Quinn). After a boy is caught sniggering in class, he is punished by being forced to captain a student rugby team playing against the teachers later that afternoon. The team of boys is beaten â physically and on the scoreboard â in a violent rugby match against the masters.


Part III â Fighting Each Other


A World War I officer (Jones) attempts to rally his men (Chapman, Gilliam, Palin, Idle and Cleese) to find cover during an attack, but is hindered by their insistence on celebrating his birthday, complete with presents and cake.
A blustery army RSM (Palin) attempts to drill a platoon of men but ends up left alone when he excuses them one by one to pursue leisure activities.
In 1879, during a devastating attack by Zulus during the Anglo-Zulu War, an officer (Idle) wakes to find that he has had his leg bitten off during the night. The military doctor (Chapman) hypothesises that a tiger might be the perpetrator, with everyone in camp, including the Zulu warriors who promptly beat a retreat, being baffled that a tiger would be present in Africa. A hunting party then encounters two suspicious men (Idle and Palin) dressed in two halves of a tiger suit, who attempt to assert their innocence through a succession of increasingly feeble excuses to explain why they are dressed as a tiger.


The Middle of the Film


A woman (Palin), as if on a talk-show called "The Middle of the Film", introduces a segment called "Find the Fish" â a brief surreal piece in which a drag queen (Chapman), a gangly long-armed man (Jones) and an elephant-headed butler eerily challenge the audience to find a fish in the scene.


Part IV â Middle Age


A middle-aged American couple (Idle as the wife and Palin as the husband) heads to a dungeon-themed Hawaiian restaurant at a holiday resort. They are presented with a menu of conversation topics by their waiter (Cleese), and choose philosophy and the meaning of life. Their awkward and generally uninformed conversation quickly grinds to a halt, and they send it back, complaining "this conversation isn't very good".


Part V â Live Organ Transplants


Two paramedics (Chapman and Cleese) arrive at the doorstep of Mr Brown (Gilliam), a card-carrying organ donor, to claim his liver, to the confusion of Mr Brown who (correctly) points out that organ donation is meant after you die. His protests go unheard, as his liver is harvested by the paramedics. One paramedic unsuccessfully attempts to chat up Mrs Brown (Jones), then requests her liver as well. She initially declines, but after a man (Idle) sings a song about man's insignificance in the universe ("Galaxy Song"), she agrees.
In a large corporate boardroom, a businessman straightforwardly tables a report on the meaning of life. This is followed by an attempted takeover of the building by the Crimson Permanent Assurance from the short feature, which is promptly brought to a halt by having a skyscraper tipped over onto the CPA's building-ship.


Part VI â The Autumn Years


A posh restaurant (complete with a pianist played by Idle, singing "The Penis Song" in the style of NoÃ«l Coward) is visited by Mr Creosote (Jones), a morbidly obese man. Creosote swears at the unflappable maÃ®tre d' (Cleese), vomits copiously, and consumes an enormous meal, to the disgust of other patrons. Though he protests that he is full, the maÃ®tre d' persuades him to eat a wafer-thin after-dinner mint. Creosote's belly explodes, showering the restaurant with entrails and vomit and causing a chain reaction of vomiting from the other guests. The maÃ®tre d' unceremoniously presents him with the bill. Afterwards, two of the restaurant staff offer their own thoughts on the meaning of life while cleaning up the remains of Mr Creosote, leading one of them (Idle) to have the audience follow him to his birth house where he spouts some philosophy before angrily telling the audience to get lost.


Part VII â Death


A condemned man (Chapman) is allowed to choose the manner of his execution: being chased off the edge of a cliff by a horde of topless women where he lands right in his grave.
The Grim Reaper (Cleese) visits an isolated country house, and finds himself invited into a dinner party. Not knowing who he is, the dinner guests spend a lot of time arguing with him before finally being told they've all died from eating contaminated salmon mousse. Their souls leave their bodies, and they follow the Grim Reaper to Heaven.
The dinner guests arrive in Heaven, a bright Las Vegas-style hotel where every day is Christmas. In a large auditorium filled with characters from throughout the film, a cheesy lounge singer resembling Tony Bennett (Chapman) performs "Christmas in Heaven" in front of an elaborate dance number.
The End of the Film
The hostess from "The Middle of the Film" is handed an envelope containing the meaning of life. She thanks Brigitte, and casually reads it out: "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" before introducing the ending credits.

Question: In the middle of the film what is the audience encouraged to find?
Answer: A fish