It’s just about impossible to discuss sketch comedy without bringing in Monty Python. Everyone from The Simpsons’ Matt Groening to Tina Fey to Jim Carrey has cited the comedy troupe as an influence.

Three decades ago, a corporate miscue changed comedic history. It put episodes of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” into the eccentric hands of the guys who created it. Now all of those episodes are ...

Before the 1975 release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the British comedy troupe Monty Python was barely known overseas. People in Britain knew the group, made up of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, ...