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Dead Parrot Sketch Is 1,600 Years Old
Posted by
samzenpus
on Fri Nov 14, 2008 03:32 PM
from the he-prefers-kipping-on-his-back dept.
from the he-prefers-kipping-on-his-back dept.
laejoh writes "Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot sketch' — which featured John Cleese — is some 1,600 years old.
A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece.
A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave.
It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service.
His companion replies: 'When he was with me, he never did any such thing!'
The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD.
Hierocles had gone to meet his maker, and Philagrius had certainly ceased to be, long before John Cleese and Michael Palin reinvented the yarn in 1969."
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so that's what killed it (Score:5, Funny)
Old age.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And what does John Cleese have to say about this?
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Not the same joke at all (Score:5, Insightful)
The punchline of the original joke was that the slave had never done that sort of thing before...likening the death of the slave to simple disobedience or other unpleasant but recurring behavior a slave might have.
In the monty python sketch....there was no punchline (as they had a distaste for punchlines). And further, the premise is that the bird was dead when it was sold, which should have been obvious at the time...though you also have the shopkeeper insisting that the parrot is still alive even though it is obviously dead.
These two sketches are not related at all, IMO, let alone "the same joke." They are just a bit similar in that one person owns something that is dead, and wants his money back.
Parent
Re:Not the same joke at all (Score:5, Funny)
>>They are just a bit similar in that one person owns something that is dead, and wants his money back.
I just have my new laptop, Vista is now dead. I want my money back. Where is the joke?
Parent
BBC made the same mistake (Score:4, Informative)
These two sketches are not related at all, IMO, let alone "the same joke."
To be fair, the BBC made the same mistake [bbc.co.uk], and my reaction when I saw it on the Beeb's site was the same as yours. The big difference is that on slashdot, you can post a correction. It'll get buried in hundreds of weak attempts at humor, and nobody will ever see it, but at least it's there. The Beeb doesn't really have a place for this sort of bad-analogy-correction. Mistaken facts, they'll correct (which is one way they're superior to Slashdot--the fact that they actually have functioning editors is another), but I wouldn't expect to see any corrections for a more abstract error of this type.
Parent
Re:Not the same joke at all (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it would -- because the funny part of the Monty Python sketch is that it's basically about trying too hard.
The shopkeeper is trying to convince the patron that everything is all right, that he doesn't need to make a fuss. He is a bit of a cheat in that he sold a dead parrot as a live one, but likewise the customer is a bit of a fool for buying it. But by the middle of the sketch it is clear that the shopkeeper is merely trying much too hard to recuperate a failing social situation: the patron is not going to be fooled again, and the shopkeeper's desperate, inventive, and doomed attempts to maintain a polite and friendly atmosphere, while continuing to insist that nothing is wrong (that the parrot is alive) are much of the humor.
For the shopkeeper to admit that the parrot is dead, as in the Greek joke, would be to spoil the scene.
(I get the sense that many Python fans think the sketch is about the patron's widely-quoted rant. I disagree.)
A lot of Monty Python is like that: the humor is in how a perfectly ordinary and unfunny event becomes an outrageous farce after something goes very wrong, because someone in the situation simply refuses to admit that anything is out of the ordinary. It's all about how pretending that everything is okay makes you into a total buffoon.
Parent
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:5, Funny)
And what does John Cleese have to say about this?
He'll probably laugh his ass off, and then sit down and write a mini-series about two hard up comedians, who resort to stealing common gags from the Classics, and make a fortune . . . and nobody knows that jokes are millenniums old.
Imagine Manual trying to read his ancient Greek script . . .
Parent
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:5, Informative)
And you can read it (well, watch Jim Bowen perform them), here: http://publishing.yudu.com/Library/Au7bv/PhilogelosTheLaughAd/resources/index.htm [yudu.com]
Parent
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:4, Informative)
Since neither this article nor any other report I can find actually gives the reference for the joke, those wanting to look at critical editions can find it under Philogelos 18. Here's my literal translation:
Someone met an academic and said, "The slave you sold me died." "By the gods!" he said. "When he was at my place he didn't do anything like that."
I can't reproduce here the text for those who can read ancient Greek, as Slashdot won't allow non-Roman alphabets. Here's a transliterated form, though (minus the diacritics):
scholastikôi tis apantêsas eipen: ho doulos, hon epôlêas moi, apethane. ma tous theous, ephê, par' emoi hote ên, toiouton ouden epoiêsen.
I don't understand why the article talks as though the joke has just been discovered. There have been at least three critical editions in the last 50 years, and a few translations.
Parent
Never the same again (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Never the same again (Score:5, Funny)
Are you telling me that Jesus wasn't an original character
No, but he was nailed to the perch...
Parent
Re:Never the same again (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, but Polly wasn't able to come back as a zombie 3 days later before being miracled into wine and crackers.
Parent
Re:Never the same again (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras#Mithraism_and_Christianity
Parent
Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull history (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll have to check them out when I have time.
What I find really interesting is the graffiti from those times. Stuff about elections, dirty jokes (which you'd still find funny today), and so on.
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:5, Funny)
Jesus, only somebody with complete lack of humour can find that funny.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:5, Funny)
Like inhaling farts and sleeping with corpses, it is an acquired taste.
Parent
Suetonius made me change my mind. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Suetonius made me change my mind. (Score:4, Interesting)
Twelve Ceasars made me realize that political muck-raking has existed for as long as humans could say "Oog pals around with Neanderthals!"
Claudius got a mild thumbs down from Suetonius, which lead to Robert Graves to "correct the record".
Also Emperor Tiberius was the original Michael Jackson [uchicago.edu].
Parent
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was much younger I was turned on to the classics after reading Lysistrata. Quick synopsis from Wikipedia:
Led by the title character, Lysistrata, the story's female characters barricade the public funds building and withhold sex from their husbands to end the Peloponnesian War and secure peace.
The euphemisms and innuendo are killer, especially to a young teen :)
Parent
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:5, Funny)
As a Classics major as an undergrad, I'm always happy to see these kind of stories. There was some wicked humour in the ancient world that is still hilarious today, from the political jibes in the plays of Aristophanes to the obscenities of Petronius' Satyricon. It's a pity that most people would never think about reading them, because one tends to assume that old literary works are dry and serious.
Nah. If this story has taught me anything, it's that if there's anything worth reading in those old sheepskins/tablets/papyrii, some modern comedian will steal it and repeat it, saving me the trouble of figuring out all the obscure cultural references from 3000 years ago.
I'm kidding. I think.
Parent
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:5, Funny)
If this story has taught me anything, it's that if there's anything worth reading in those old sheepskins/tablets/papyrii, some modern comedian will steal it and repeat it, saving me the trouble of figuring out all the obscure cultural references from 3000 years ago.
You'll be sorry when you hear Dane Cook's new routine on how the dudes at the BK Lounge always put too much garum in his meal of emmer loaves and saltpetered kale, brah. You'll be sorry!!!
Parent
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:4, Funny)
HUGE masochist.
The whole whipping, forced labour(carrying his cross), crown of thorns, getting stabbed with a spear, nailed to the cross and then being heaped with public ridicule was planned.
y'know the whole religious ecstasy thing? Self flagellants in ye olden times? Yes. You can come closer to Christ when you're whipping yourself. *cough*
Of course, they were supposed to come and take him down again after a while, not leave him there on the cross. Stupid careless tops =\ You don't leave your bottom unattended when they're in bondage. Just asking for trouble.
Parent
What's worse... (Score:5, Funny)
What's worse is that only only did they blatantly copy the Greeks parrot sketch, but they even copied (with some minor alterations) a humorous tale about a wandering preacher in The Life of Brian. Really, the Monty Python crew knew no shame.
Re:What's worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that the definition of comedy?
Parent
dead? (Score:5, Funny)
The Best of Hierocles and Philagrius (Score:4, Funny)
You can read more of their jokes [google.com] at Google Books.
Seriously, I saw these guys in their prime on the "Ranting from Rome to Apulia" tour. Fucking hilarious stuff. They really took a turn for the worse when that pussy Constanine brought in Christianity, though. It was just never the same for comedians in the Empire with those holier-than-thou types in charge.
Re:The Best of Hierocles and Philagrius (Score:4, Insightful)
So... that book is dated 1920. Is there any actual news here, or did some guy just finally connected the gag to the dead parrot sketch and report it to that distinguished journal, The Telegraph?
Parent
Re:Thanks for the link (Score:5, Funny)
Blank Reg: This is a network linker. It's a bit out of your league, idn'it, Paula?
Paula: So, whatch'll you trade for it?
[Blank Reg offers her something]
Paula: What's that?
Blank Reg: It's a book!
Paula: Well, what's that?
Blank Reg: It's a non-volatile storage medium. It's very rare. You should 'ave one.
Paula: Stuff it!
Parent
Manditory Link (Score:5, Informative)
THIS.... is an Ex-Parrot!!
Better link... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
in soviet antiquity, (Score:3, Funny)
joke predates you!
Not the same joke (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, those aren't the same joke at all. Just because they both involve selling and dying doesn't mean that they're the same joke. The premise of the older joke is that the man who sold the slave is saying something in a surprised manner which is obviously true. The contrast is between his surprise and the understanding of the audience for the joke that he shouldn't be surprised (since obviously the slave hadn't died before he sold it).
The joke in the Monty Python sketch is that the parrot was dead when it was sold. The humor comes from the absurdness of the idea that someone could be sold a dead parrot without realizing it. The joke is furthered by the sales clerk's obviously futile attempts to claim that the parrot isn't dead and the colorful language used to attempt to convince the clerk that the parrot is dead. This is not at all the same joke. The premise is completely different, as is the type of humor involved. The Greek one is ironic humor. The Monty Python one is absurdist humor.
You're no fun (Score:5, Funny)
Just for that:
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die flipperwaldt gersput!
Parent
Re:You're no fun (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:You're no fun (Score:5, Funny)
Der ver three peanuts, valking down dah strassel, and von vas... assaulted...
peanut.
Take that!
Parent
Re:Not the same joke (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You mean posthum[or]ous
Re:Not the same joke (Score:4, Interesting)
Monty Python is treated as more absurdist than they really were by American audiences. A lot of the objects of their humor were aspects of British life, politics and culture that would be recognizable to viewers in the UK, particularly at the time. Which is why British comedy moved on decades ago (The League of Gentlemen, Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show, and the brilliant That Mitchell and Webb Look.)
When an American geeks constantly recycle the same handful of Monty Python routines, it's depressing. It's humor-by-algorithm: if it was funny once, the memory of the experience of that humor displaces the actual spontaneity and discovery of new sources of humor in a kind of compulsive repetition, which I think is meant more to reassure geeks than to amuse them.
Parent
So what does this mean? (Score:3)
Are they implying Monty Python stole the joke or that it has just been done before? It seems like a pretty strait forward joke and I can see it being reinvented. Either way it was a damn funny sketch.
dead friend sketch (Score:4, Funny)
What Killed the Slave...? (Score:5, Funny)
He read the World's Funniest Joke [youtube.com] of course!
No it isn't. (Score:4, Funny)
New sketch (Score:5, Funny)
Customer: I want my money back, this joke is old!
Salesman: Well, it wasn't when I have told you it.
Customer: It was, greeks were telling it 1600 years ago!
Salesman: I won't give your money back then, warranty has expired long ago!
It's older than that, folks. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ovid had a humorous poem about a dead parrot long before this play was ever written, complete with the long-winded and repetitive description of exactly how dead the parrot is which characterizes Monty Python's sketch.
This was itself a parody of a poem by Catullus, lamenting the death of his lover's "sparrow." The quotes are there for a reason; it's the term he used, but modern poets would probably have used a more, err, feline term to catch the nuance, if you know what I mean (wink and a nudge, say no more, say no more).
Monty Python was made up of some extremely erudite people; even Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film actually corresponds to someone from Arthurian legend (and bonus points if you can tell me who). No doubt they drew inspiration from the Ovid poem too, among others, and is there really any problem with that? It's friggin funny.
Re:Patented humor (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)