I was actually in the hospital as a kid, maybe third or fourth grade. I had bad bronchitis, step throat, and pneumonia and I was in an oxygen tent. The only thing that was playing on the tiny TV was PBS. And I have an oddly distinct memory of the Cheese Shop sketch playing. Which I would recognize years later when I started watching the show and the movies as a fan. I was too young to really catch what was going on the first time, but it must have made an impression on me for me to remember it through all of that.

I first encountered Monty Python in 1976. Did not find the show funny at all. But I stayed with it, watching it whenever I could. Hoping I could find the humor in the show. Then one day, they had a bunch of policemen using a ojigi board. They were spelling u-p-y-o-u-r-s. They look at each other and one says quizically, "Up Yours?" Then it hit me and I started getting the jokes. But my first encounter (there's that word again), with Terry Gilliams animation was in the closing credits for the Marty Feldman Comedy Machine back in 1972. As I recall, these weird cartoons would being doing weird things while they said goodbye during the closing credits.

My first run-in with Monty Python was during the show "Comedy World", (I think that's the name), which was a summer replacement series for some variety show, probably for 'Dean Martin Show'. The series was like a news program with Jackie Cooper as the anchor and reports from Barbara Feldon and I think Nipsey Russell.

They showed a lot of taped segments from local comedies as well as from overseas, including a few by Marty Feldman.

The two Python sketches they showed was of Terry Jones as the Flasher going up to the others (dressed as women) and flashing them. He finally turns to the camera and we see he's fully clothed, but he has a sign "Boo" around his neck. The other sketch was of the milkman being lured upstairs and locked in a small room with a lot of other milkmen.

It was such a breath of fresh air from the comedy I normally saw on American TV. When I went off to college that next year and they announced they'd be showing a Python movie called "And Now For Something Completely Different", I dragged as many of the guys from the dorm who never heard of Monty Python to go see it......

My first memory of Monty Python was Terry Gilliam's animations when the show was running on my local PBS station in the early 70's. (pre-Holy Grail)

The first episode I particularly remember watching was You're No Fun Anymore, mostly the Science Fiction Sketch portion of it.