Short answers, pulled from the story.
Monty Python was a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Terry Gilliam was the only member of non-British origin, an American by birth.
Monty Python's Flying Circus was a sketch comedy television series that aired on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Its stream-of-consciousness approach and Gilliam's animations linked disparate sketches into a single flow, and it abandoned the traditional punchline.
Monty Python made And Now for Something Completely Different, followed by Monty Python and the Holy Grail in 1975, Life of Brian in 1979, and The Meaning of Life in 1983. Holy Grail and Life of Brian are frequently ranked among the greatest comedy films.
The members agreed the name's only significance was that it sounded funny. The group implied "Monty" was a gently mocking tribute to Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, with "Python" chosen as a slippery-sounding surname, though Idle also said Monty came from a regular at his local pub.
Monty Python performed a reunion run at the O2 Arena in London in July 2014, with tickets selling out in 43 seconds. The final show on the 20th of July 2014 was the last time the troupe performed together and was screened to 2,000 cinemas worldwide.
Monty Python's influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music, and it coloured the early editions of Saturday Night Live and absurdist trends in television comedy. In a 2005 poll of more than 300 industry figures, half of the group's members made the top 50 greatest comedians.