Darl Larsen - A Book about the Film Monty Pythons the Meaning of Life: All the References from Americans to Zulu Nation

Professor Darl Larsen was born and raised in central California and has been part of the film faculty at Brigham Young University since 1998. He was educated at UC Santa Barbara, BYU, and Northern Illinois University. He is professor in the Media Arts department and the Center for Animation at BYU, teaching film and animation studies, and screenwriting. He has written extensively in the area of Monty Python studies, looking at Monty Python and its relation to English Renaissance drama (2003), as well as deep dives into Monty Pythons Flying Circus (2013; 2008), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (2015), and Monty Pythons Life of Brian (2018). He lives in Provo, Utah, with his family.

As ever, a finished project like this hides the work of many hands. While the conception, research, and writing have to be done by me, there are others who help as the project moves slowly toward becoming an actual book.

I am very grateful to have access to research assistants who are also very bright students. For this book, Emily Bade and Elena Bender worked and exhausted themselves (indexes are always tiresome). My chair Wade Hollingshaus provided time off (from the classroom) and assistance, financial and friendly. Both Brandon Arnold and Emily Hess-Flinders thoughtfully covered classes during spring and summer terms so I could work on the project.

Thanks also to my colleagues Dean Duncan, Kelly Loosli, Tom Russell, Amy Jensen, Megan Sanborn-Jones, Brad Barber, Jeff Parkin, Kimball Jensen, Scott Christopherson, and Benjamin Thevenin. Thanks to Sharon Swenson and Tom Lefler, even though theyre retired; they helped wave off other responsibilities so research and writing could be done. And thanks to our dean, Ed Adams, whos getting us a new building; thanks also to Elizabeth Funk, Kyle Stapley, and Grant Gomm, and to the TMA office staff. Thanks to Kelly Bready and her staff.

Our library, the Harold B. Lee Library, has once again rendered invaluable service. The smart people in Inter-Library Loan continue to find nearly every odd scrap I ask for, and HBLLs databases and collections make this kind of research chore much less chore-like. NB: Having a top-tier library across the quad is a must.

A special thanks to Stephen Ryan who has been with me on this Monty Python journey for about fourteen years. He and Rowman & Littlefield have seen these projects through from the beginning, and hopefully he wasnt forced into retirement simply to recover.

My mom, Patricia Tenney Larsen, has also been a constant support.

Thanks to my familymy wife Nycole, to whom this book is dedicated, and Keir, Misti, Hayden, and Lincoln, Emrys and Cat, Brynmor, Chad, and Ichi, and Eamonn, Dathyl, Ransom, and Culainn. They make it easy to work hard, because theyre worth working for.

Thank you all, again.

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