I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

This insult-laden line is spoken by the “French Taunter” character in the Monty Python film *Monty Python and the Holy Grail* (1975). The taunter appears at the castle walls to mock King Arthur and his knights, refusing to parley and pelting them with absurd, pseudo-medieval abuse. Graham Chapman, a core member of Monty Python, is often associated with the film’s most quoted dialogue (he plays King Arthur), but this particular speech is delivered by the French Taunter (played by John Cleese). The scene exemplifies Python’s comic strategy of deflating heroic legend through childish provocation and linguistic nonsense.

The humor comes from escalating contempt expressed through deliberately ridiculous imagery: “animal food trough wiper,” the flatulence boast, and the surreal parentage slur. Rather than conveying real information, the taunt functions as a weaponized refusal of seriousness—undercutting chivalric dignity and the expected gravitas of Arthurian encounter. The line also showcases Monty Python’s love of mock-formality (“I don’t want to talk to you no more…”) paired with vulgarity, producing a comic clash of registers. Its enduring popularity reflects how the film turns epic conflict into petty heckling, making language itself the battleground.

Commonly quoted with minor wording shifts, e.g.: “I don’t want to talk to you anymore, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper!”; “I fart in your general direction!”; “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt/smelled of elderberries.”