OC HIGH / STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS : <i> The more things change, the more they are completely different. Monty Python draws another generation into its comic quest. : </i> : Holy Grail

During medieval times, King Arthur and his court searched relentlessly for the Holy Grail in order to save their kingdom.

In the ‘70s, a troupe of British actors set out on its own comical pursuit of the Grail, delighting television and movie audiences in England and elsewhere.

And, 20 years later, teen-agers continue the pursuit, converging upon video stores for copies of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

Monty Python is the troupe of British actors--including John Cleese and Eric Idle--that created the “Flying Circus” TV series of offbeat comedy sketches. The actors went on to create several full-length movies, including “Holy Grail” and “Life of Brian.”

So why are teen-agers, two decades later, drawn to the antics of Monty Python?

A love for foreign films?

Nah.

“Teen-agers like them and will continue to because it is just so ‘out there,’ and the comedy is different. Most teen-agers aren’t used to this type of off-the-wall sketch comedy, and they like it,” said David Isom, a junior at Troy High School in Fullerton and a devoted Python fan. He was introduced to the movies and “Flying Circus” series in his freshman history class. He hadn’t before seen anything like Monty Python.

“Besides, when I was a freshman, my friends and I didn’t have driver’s licenses, so we would rent the Python movies as our way of having fun on the weekends.”

Not even the information superhighway has been spared the effects of the Python gang.

Chat rooms on America On-Line titled “Monty Python” frequently show up, filled with teens reciting their favorite lines and revisiting thousands of sketches.

A number of teens were drawn into the zany world of Python films before they entered high school. Emily Sorenson, a junior from El Dorado High School in Placentia, was roped in when she was just 7 years old.

“I was at my neighbor’s house when someone put in the ‘Holy Grail,’ and I fell in love with it from the beginning,” she said. “Now I’ve watched that movie so many times that I could recite just about any line from it.”

And she has spread the word.

“Just the way they say things . . . the words they choose makes them so funny. The situations (the actors) are in make the movies hilarious.

“Like my favorite scene, where a wealthy landowner is looking out a window and then turns to his son and says, ‘One day, lad, all this will be yours’ as he points toward the window. And his son replies, ‘What, the curtains?’ ”

Fans say they find themselves thinking Pythonesque thoughts.

Isom said sometimes a quote from a Python film will just pop into his head.

“Then you say it out loud, and then everyone around you starts going off on it, which usually turns into a half-hour conversation on Monty Python,” he said.

During a routine warm-up for a cross-country meet, Jeremy Acres, a Troy freshman, said a Pythonism popped into his head.

“Our two team captains came up to where we were stretching, and someone said, ‘Here come our self-appointed dictators now.’ That reminded me of the scene from the ‘Holy Grail’ where a peasant is giving King Arthur a hard time because he was made king by divine right. So I started reciting the scene, and two other guys started reciting it with me,” Acres said. “We laughed about it for the rest of the day.”

The Python films helped develop his philosophy, Isom said.

“If something bad happens, try to think of something funny,” he said. “Monty Python is that something funny that I usually think about.

“If a character in a ‘Python’ movie lost a limb or was thrown into a bottomless pit, they didn’t care. They just laughed it off and life went on.”

And, while that attitude might not work with every kind of problem, it might help you laugh off that last history test score.