Python's Dead Parrot sketch ancestor found

[MuppetDanny]

From BBC News :

Dead Parrot sketch ancestor found

09:12 GMT, Thursday, 13 November 2008

An ancestor of Monty Python's famous Dead Parrot comedy sketch has been found in a joke book dating back to Greece in the 4th Century.

Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which has been translated from Greek manuscripts, contains a joke where a man complains that a slave he was sold had died.

"When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" is the reply.

In the Python sketch, written 1,600 years later, the shopkeeper claims the dead parrot is "pining for the fjords".

The 265 jokes in Philogelos are attributed to a pair of jokers called Hierocles and Philagrius, about whom very little is known.

Similar themes

Their manuscripts have been published into a multimedia online e-book, which features video of veteran comic Jim Bowen bringing the old jokes back to life in front of a 21st Century audience.

Some of the jokes are strikingly similar to modern ones, with subjects including farts, sex, ugly wives and a dimwit referred to as "a student dunce".

"One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated," said Bowen.

"They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque," he added.

Some jokes are likely to baffle modern audiences, however - especially the ones about lettuce, which only make sense if you share the ancient superstition that the vegetable is an aphrodisiac.

The book has been translated by William Berg, an American professor of Classics.

"The text of Philogelos comes to us from several manuscripts ranging from the 11th to the 15th Centuries," Berg said.

"All of them trace back to an earlier original, probably - judging from the content and language - from the 4th Century."

Other jokes in the book include:

- Someone needled a well-known wit: "I had your wife, without paying a penny". He replied: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?"


- An Abderite sees a eunuch talking with a woman and asks him if she's his wife. The guy responds that a eunuch is unable to have a wife. "Ah, so she's your daughter? "


- A misogynist is attending to the burial of his wife, who has just died, when someone asks: "Who is it who rests in peace here?". He answers: "Me, now that I'm rid of her!"

sorce: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7725079.stm

How weird is this? lol!

 

[Drtooth]

Common themes, I guess. Of course, if you want the real truth on where the sketch originated in the group, it was originally about a broken toaster. It was found unfunny by everyone involved, but then either Graham or John (most likely Graham... but that's another story) replaced the toaster with a parrot...

 

[anytimepally]

according to the book The First 28 Years of Monty Python, it was actually based on Michael Palin's experience with a car salesman, which he and Graham had earlier done as a sketch for John Cleese's How to Irritate People

 

[matleo]

yeah, it's the car sketch in How to irritate people. They mention it in a few other books too. Actually there are a few sketches form "how to irritate..." that were reworked later for Python. The dirty fork sketch for example.

--Matt

 

[Winslow Leach]

yeah, it's the car sketch in How to irritate people. They mention it in a few other books too. Actually there are a few sketches form "how to irritate..." that were reworked later for Python. The dirty fork sketch for example.

--Matt

I love the Dirty Fork sketch...

...obscene and disgusting, and I hate it! I hate it! Nasty, dirty, grubby, mingy, scrubby little fork!

...together we were beginning to get over this dark patch...there was light at the end of the tunnel...when THIS! WHEN THIS HAPPENED!

Lucky I didn't say anything about the dirty knife!

Booooooooo...hisssss, etc.

Um...sorry...but yeah, I read that Graham and John were fond of putting animals into their humor...they somehow thought animals were funny...

 

[The Shoe Fairy]

OMG. lol! Reminds me of of the latin guys in Life of Brian.