The Untold Truth Of Monty Python And The Holy Grail

Before Arthur can begin his quest, he and his squire Patsy wander the countryside in search of knights to join him at Camelot. Along the way, he meets Michael Palin as a literal dirt farmer who turns out not to work for any knight and instead lectures him on the superiority of anarcho-syndicalist government to monarchy.

According to "The Pythons," Palin's performance required him to crouch in "filthy, stinking, pig-*****y mud" for hours on end and, at one point, actually stuff some in his mouth. The propman assured him it would be fine, though: He had dropped some chocolate in the mud pile for Palin to eat. There were a few problems with that plan: First, there's no way to drop a pile of chocolate in the mud without it getting mud all over it. Second, Palin remembers, "I said, 'How will I know which is the chocolate and which is the mud?' They had no answer to that."

He remembers getting a little bit of each down his gullet — and then having to start over again because he had his back to the camera. He didn't take the revelation well, staging a tantrum so elaborate his castmates spontaneously broke into applause. Once he finally finished, Palin ran down to the nearest surgeon in a tiny Scottish village for a tetanus shot, still dressed in rags and covered in crud, to the doctors' confusion.