Why does python use unconventional triple-quotation marks for comments?

A number of the answers got many of the points, but don't give the complete view of how things work. To summarize...

# comment is how Python does actual comments (similar to bash, and some other languages). Python only has "to the end of the line" comments, it has no explicit multi-line comment wrapper (as opposed to javascript's /* .. */). Most Python IDEs let you select-and-comment a block at a time, this is how many people handle that situation.

Then there are normal single-line python strings: They can use ' or " quotation marks (eg 'foo' "bar"). The main limitation with these is that they don't wrap across multiple lines. That's what multiline-strings are for: These are strings surrounded by triple single or double quotes (''' or """) and are terminated only when a matching unescaped terminator is found. They can go on for as many lines as needed, and include all intervening whitespace.

Either of these two string types define a completely normal string object. They can be assigned a variable name, have operators applied to them, etc. Once parsed, there are no differences between any of the formats. However, there are two special cases based on where the string is and how it's used...

First, if a string just written down, with no additional operations applied, and not assigned to a variable, what happens to it? When the code executes, the bare string is basically discarded. So people have found it convenient to comment out large bits of python code using multi-line strings (providing you escape any internal multi-line strings). This isn't that common, or semantically correct, but it is allowed.

The second use is that any such bare strings which follow immediately after a def Foo(), class Foo(), or the start of a module, are treated as string containing documentation for that object, and stored in the __doc__ attribute of the object. This is the most common case where strings can seem like they are a "comment". The difference is that they are performing an active role as part of the parsed code, being stored in __doc__... and unlike a comment, they can be read at runtime.

Python doesn't use triple quotation marks for comments. Comments use the hash (a.k.a. pound) character:

# this is a comment

The triple quote thing is a doc string, and, unlike a comment, is actually available as a real string to the program:

>>> def bla():
...     """Print the answer"""
...     print 42
...
>>> bla.__doc__
'Print the answer'
>>> help(bla)
Help on function bla in module __main__:

bla()
    Print the answer

It's not strictly required to use triple quotes, as long as it's a string. Using """ is just a convention (and has the advantage of being multiline).