Terry "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" Jones RIP

One of the iconic comedy lines from my childhood was "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

For those who don't remember it, after various characters in one episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" had said things like

"I didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition about it,"

the "Spanish Inquisition" consisting of Terry Jones as 'Cardinal Biggles' and two other Python cast members dressed as Spanish soldiers would burst in, Jones would exclaim,

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

and they would subject the person who had not been expecting them to various "tortures" such as sitting in a comfy chair.

When the news came out that Jones had died earlier this week at the age of 77, Stephen Fry tweeted

"Farewell Terry Jones. The great foot has come down to stamp on you" 

(a reference to another Monty Python comic motif.)


Terry Gilliam, with whom Jones directed the film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in 1975, described his fellow Python as a

 "brilliant, constantly questioning, iconoclastic, righteously argumentative and angry but outrageously funny and generous and kind human being". 

 He was a titan of comedy and he will be missed.

Rest in Peace.

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