Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - WORLD CLASS COMEDY (DVD)

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. The Meaning of Life was the last feature film to star all six Python members before the death of Graham Chapman in 1989.

Six fish in a restaurant's tank greet each other, then see their friend being eaten. This leads them to question the meaning of life. In the first sketch, The Miracle of Birth, maternity doctors ignore a woman in labour while trying to impress the hospital's administrator. In Yorkshire, a Roman Catholic man is made redundant from his job, and informs his numerous children that he must sell them for scientific experiments. A Protestant man looks on disapprovingly and proudly remarks that Protestants can use contraception and have sex for pleasure (although his wife observes that they never do).

In Growth and Learning, a class of boys learn school etiquette before partaking in a sex education lesson, which involves watching their teacher have sex with his wife. One boy laughs and is forced into a violent rugby match pitting pupils against the school masters as punishment. Fighting Each Other features three scenes concerning the British military. First, during the Battle of the Somme in World War I, a British officer tries to rally his men during an attack, but they instead present him with going-away gifts. Second, a modern army RSM bullies his soldiers to say what they would rather be doing than marching drills, then dismisses each in turn. Lastly, in 1879 during the Anglo-Zulu War during the Battle of Rorke's Drift, a soldier finds his leg has been bitten off. Suspecting a tiger, the soldiers hunt for it and find two men in a tiger costume.

An announcer introduces The Middle of the Film, during which bizarre characters challenge the audience in a segment called Find the Fish. Middle Age involves an American couple visiting a Hawaiian restaurant with a medieval torture theme, where, to the interest of the fish, the waiter offers a conversation about philosophy and the meaning of life. The customers are unable to make sense of it and move on to a discussion of live organ transplants. In Live Organ Transplants, two paramedics visit an organ donor and remove his liver while he is alive. His wife is reluctant to donate her liver, but she relents after a man steps out of a refrigerator and reminds her of humanity's insignificance in the universe. Executives of an American conglomerate debate the meaning of life before a raid by The Crimson Permanent Assurance briefly interrupts them.