Elvis Presley Was A Huge Fan Of This '70s Fantasy Movie That Still Makes Us Laugh

Elvis Presley was, per no less an authority than rock-and-roll legend Little Richard on Living Colour's "Elvis Is Dead," an "electrifying" performer. Early in his career, he ripped through sets with a ferociousness that left audiences vibrating, swooning, or both. Then his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, drained the danger from his act. Elvis was a great movie star, but right when he should've been entering his musical prime, collaborating with young songwriters who yearned to hear their music interpreted by The King, he became a garish parody of himself. He toured relentlessly, treated his body like a Denny's dumpster, and coasted on his considerable, yet diminishing talents.

Presley's 1968 NBC comeback special aside, fans of the Tupelo, Mississippi dynamo bought tickets hoping and praying for a second-rate show. Sometimes, he roused himself for an evening of near-prime Elvis. Most of the time, he wheezed his way through the hits.

When Elvis under-delivered at a live show in the 1970s, he had a secret weapon: the man could banter. He was the furthest thing from a wit, but he could get off a one-liner — which usually came at the expense of his band or stage manager. The cretinous Parker attempted to mine this modest gift via the fiercely maligned "Having Fun with Elvis on Stage," a music-free LP that features out-of-context comments from Presley, but The King's japery was a you-had-to-be-there deal. He was basically a cut-rate Shecky Greene.

So it comes as a surprise that one of The King's favorite comedy acts was the subversive, supremely nerdy Monty Python. Indeed, he was such a fan that he frequently quoted a line from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

In a 2014 GQ interview with the Pythons, Eric Idle revealed that Presley's girlfriend, Linda Thompson, told him that Elvis took the Memphis Mafia to see "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in the theater at least four times. Michael Palin recalls hearing that Presley was a big fan of the Knights Who Say Ni. Best of all, according to former Presley bodyguard Sam Thompson in an interview with Las Vegas Weekly, Elvis used to quote the Black Knight's "It's just a flesh wound" — uttered after Graham Chapman's King Arthur has severed both of the chatty combatant's arms – as he walked off-stage following a sub-par show (of which there were many at the time).

In that GQ interview, Idle said Elvis used to quote "Monty Python's Flying Circus" bits in bed, particularly the classic "Nudge, Nudge" sketch — and, yes, I'm imagining those lines repeated in Presley's Southern drawl (and so are you). I so wish Elvis could've pulled it together and severed Parker from his life. Had he gotten sober, he would've been a great entertainment elder statesman. And, who knows, maybe one of the Pythons would've found a part for him in one of their movies. Elvis as Archibald "Harry" Tuttle? Sid Sheinberg wouldn't have stood a chance.