What is the name of the Monty Python sketch featuring a Spanish Inquisition?

The Monty Python sketch featuring a Spanish Inquisition is “The Spanish Inquisition,” commonly shortened to “Spanish Inquisition.”

The recurring sequence first appeared in series 2, episode 2 of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, broadcast on 22 September 1970. Its central joke is that characters repeatedly say they did not expect a Spanish Inquisition, immediately causing Cardinal Ximénez and his assistants to burst into the scene shouting, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

Michael Palin played Cardinal Ximénez, while Terry Jones played Cardinal Biggles and Terry Gilliam played Cardinal Fang. The sketch parodied dramatic historical torture scenes by giving the Inquisition ineffectual “weapons” such as fear, surprise, and a completely unconvincing dish-drying rack.

The title can be confused with the real Spanish Inquisition, the historical institution established in 1478. Monty Python’s version is a comic recurring segment rather than a documentary portrayal. Its catchphrase became one of the troupe’s best-known lines and entered wider popular culture as a stock expression for an unexpected interruption.