British comedy team Monty Python have been referenced a few times in Buffy: In Life Serial, Andrew and Warren mimic Monty Python’s parrot sketch when watching Buffy’s adventures with the Mummy hand (Warren: “This mummy hand has ceased to be!” Andrew: “It is an ex-mummy hand!”).
In the episode Primeval, when Spike and Adam realize that Spike failed to do what Adam wanted, Spike says “Let’s not quarrel about who failed who.” This could be a nod to Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which Sir Lancelot slaughters many people at a party and the King says “Let’s not bicker and argue over who killed who.”
In Him, Dawn says, “Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition” and in Touched, Spike says, “The dreaded torture device, the comfy chair.” These are references to The Spanish Inquisition sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The inquisitors try to torture people by making them sit in the comfy chair.
In End of Days, Spike says, “the holy hand grenade or whatever the hell that is”. The “holy hand grenade” is what the knights throw at the killer rabbit in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.
In Shells, Spike says he was, “flash fried in a pillar of fire, saving the world… I got better.” This is a reference to a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which one of the witch-accusing peasants shouts, “She turned me into a newt!… I got better.”
Additionally, Alan Tudyk (who played Wash in Firefly and Serenity) took over the role of Lancelot from Hank Azaria in the Monty Python musical, Spamalot, between June to November 2005.