Then again, more of Gilliam's animations were elaborate site gags with unexpected players coming in from above or beneath, such as this egghead. Gilliam specifically would probably be the most direct precursor stylistically to South Park. There's a purposely crude, and partly for that reason personal, homemade stamp to South Park animation that seems clearly inspired by Gilliam. Also, the general South Park tendencies to the absurd and macabre are substantially coming from Parker and Stone's worship of Python.

One other interesting characteristic is Python's studied avoidance of audience sympathy. They completely avoided things that would ask the audience to empathize with any of their characters. SNL has had many lovable geeks, such as Bill Murray and Gilda Radner's nerds, or the Spartan Cheerleaders. South Park is highly sentimental, with strong emotional bonds amongst the boys — even Cartman.

Whereas, the consistent and clearly conscious lack of anything where the Python audience is asked to emotionally identify with any characters jumped out at me in the second episode of the series, when they inserted mid-sketch a title card saying "So much for pathos." That's actually a critical aspect of their whole sensibility. I can see how that conscious avoidance of audience
sympathy comes forward through Andy Kaufman and Seinfeld. Robin Williams could use a fat dose of this thinking. Not that pathos isn't great, but the lack of feeling any need to be lovable is very liberating in the Python comic context.

Python was also liberating in a structural way with the abandonment of much sketch writing form, particularly the need for logical endings of sketches frequently. Reach in and do a funny bit, then cut it off and go on to the next thing. This was done consciously and formally as a basic element of their conventions, with numerous different contexts over time for someone to simply declare "And now for something completely different."

Also, they got some good use of more overtly intellectual aspects. As an aspiring Skynyrd-ian simple man, I tend to get a little suspicious of pop culture characters invoking higher culture. I'm likely to suspect some Comic Book Shop Guy pathology. But Python wasn't just name-dropping to show that they're smart, but actually following out the ideas. Thus, they had a sketch in which Picasso was doing a performance art thing of painting while driving a bicycle. They didn't just invoke the name of Pablo Picasso, but actually reflected on his work. Their sports commentators were discussing which of his styles he might try under what conditions, and what things he'd be foolish to try painting in the distracting traffic conditions of riding the bike. That's a fairly intricate critical examination for a damned silly comedy sketch.