Kierkegaard and Camus, yuck. Don't quite see them in the Python picture. The related Theater of the Absurd, however, sounds closer to the mark. "Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the 'well-made play'."

That description of playwrights of this European theatrical trend from the '40s and '50s sound like they'd be painfully unfunny excuses for comedy. That may be why I've never heard of any of them previously. Perhaps the difference is that Monty Python was actually funny — and the exceptional humor sugar coated some fairly dark philosophical premises.

Speaking of dark philosophical premises, I particularly love the central piece of the very first episode from 1969, an extended sketch about "Joke Warfare." Thinking backwards, I can see how this might go with the post-war existential angst thing. But actually watching it repeatedly, I'm really taken with the beauty and skill in the riffing from the original premise about a joke so funny that anyone who reads or hears it will literally die laughing — starting with the author. Over maybe 15 minutes of sketch, they had quite a few funny jokes and site gags.

But what's really noteworthy is the fairly high intellectual riffing in working out the premise. There's an absurd logic to how the deadly joke premise requires the chanting of laments by the men of Q Division. How exactly would the military go about weaponising the joke? How would Hitler and the Germans react? Hint: The Germans are just screwed in this contest, owing the famously poor German sense of humor. Funny, Hitler was not. The intricate elaboration and plot logic are exceptional.

I can see the part of the definition of absurdism that talks of comedy "mixed with horrific or tragic images." A fair part of that in Python can be found in the obviously crude but totally personal and effective stylings of Terry Gilliam. Note this image from a maybe ten-second bit with a little girl planting and then wielding a bloody knife to harvest hands growing out of a grave. It might just slip by you quickly, but the more you think on it, the more macabre it is. There's a fair amount of the macabre or grotesque in Python, and certainly in the animation.