No one can appreciate such a film, such a grotesque and even clownish film, if they do not understand British humour. Everything is systematically put upside down. You will not laugh your head off, and yet everything is funny, but mostly funny strange or funny just plain silly rather than funny AhAh. Every scene is an allusion to an element that comes from English culture or from standard films on or around Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and it is made silly in a way or another. The creativity of Monty Python is immense and probably bottomless, that's why you can't spank him really. It is never gross and yet it is not far from it. And the funniest part is of course the deep anti-French humour that nearly opens and closes the film. Only the French can pour s**t on the head of a crowned English king. But they do. Monty Python also likes anachronisms and does not hesitate to bring some real modern cops into his picture and they even arrest the crowned King Arthur and make him climb into the black maria. No problem for that humorist. And the cops even block the camera, though they do not destroy the film. Some might say that they could have done that to save us an hour and a half of s**t, but that would be unfair because after all there is something fascinating in such exaggerated and overblown humour. Nothing is sacred with them and that may revive your self-criticism to see such ridiculing of what is considered as everyday banality.