The INSTANT COLLECTION, in its day, was probably the best Monty Python album available. Unlike much previous Python fare, this one rips most of its cuts from movies and other previous recordings. Sound quality is unusually high, and sketches are often at their most polished. Unlike so many Python albums of the seventies, INSTANT COLLECTION largely ignores often inferior "live" recordings of the sketches they took on the road. (An unfortunate exception is "Nudge, Nudge", which, though probably the best live recording available, is still not as crisply-timed as the studio version.)

Still, despite its high quality, INSTANT COLLECTION has been eclipsed by THE FINAL RIP OFF, which has much of what's here plus a good deal more. Most people would be better served by getting that two-CD collection than this one.

(It might be important to note for some that this album is similar in name only to the import INSTANT COLLECTION.)

This short CD offers some of MP's most well-known and beloved sketches -- the Pet Shop, Argument Clinic, The Cheese Shop, etc. Some pieces (How do You Tell a Witch, Bring out your Dead) are taken from MP and the Holy Grail,. Others are taken from a performance before live audience (Hollywood Bowl?) and others are taken from MP's well-produced studio version of the sketches. There are a few lesser known pieces (Elephatoplasty and Phone-In) that will make this album bearable for MP aficionados. Some of my faves (like Spanish Inquisition) wwere left off.

Not sure what the appropriate audience is for this collection of MP's finest. MP newbies? Naw -- they might be put off by the extreme (and atypical) vulgarity in the first cut. Longtime MP fans? Not likely -- they have heard these sketches ad infinitum and probably own larger collections.

The live recordings of The Pet Shop, The Argument Clinic, and Nudge Nudge are the best I have heard. John Cleese's lively renditions in the first two sketches are head & shoulders above other releases. The Argument Clinic, sadly, is truncated and does not include "getting hit on the head" and "the complaint department."

The inclusion of snippets from The Holy Grail seem out of place with everything else.

In effect, the title represents what is here. It seems as if a bunch of recordings were thrown together out of what was on hand at the time to "instantly" make a collection. Although ineven in material, it is still a great representation of Monty Python material.