Dead Parrot Sketch Is 1,600 Years Old 276
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."
so that's what killed it (Score:5, Funny)
Old age.
Never the same again (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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: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...
in soviet antiquity, (Score:3, Funny)
joke predates you!
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.
You're no fun (Score:5, Funny)
Just for that:
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die flipperwaldt gersput!
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.
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not the same joke (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You're no fun (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Patented humor (Score:5, Funny)
dead friend sketch (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Patented humor (Score:3, Funny)
What Killed the Slave...? (Score:5, Funny)
He read the World's Funniest Joke [youtube.com] of course!
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
No it isn't. (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:Not the same joke (Score:3, Funny)
The part that ties them together:
"And now time for something completely different!"
Related Story (Score:3, Funny)
In related news, the RIAA is suing John Cleese for copyright infringement on behalf of the estates of Hierocles and Philagrius.
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!
Re:Never the same again (Score:1, Funny)
Ahh blasphemy humor. It never gets old. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get my a keyboard that isn't swimming ing Coke.
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:3, Funny)
No. The rest of us Fark on a continual basis.
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:5, Funny)
Like inhaling farts and sleeping with corpses, it is an acquired taste.
Re:Never the same again (Score:1, Funny)
Yes, but Jesus eventually got back up and starting flying around again (up to Heaven, anyway).
I guess that means he was just pining for the fjords all that time...
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!
Re:You're no fun (Score:5, Funny)
Der ver three peanuts, valking down dah strassel, and von vas... assaulted...
peanut.
Take that!
Re:Not the same joke (Score:3, Funny)
That is because humor is transmitted through comedrons, known in quantum physics circles as the "Odd Particle". Any attempts to observe or analyze them will affect their paths, effectively negating them.
I've also got a 'silly string'-based theory, but the bastards at Geneva won't let me touch their equipment to test my theories.
welcome to /. (Score:3, Funny)
If there was EVER any doubt about slashdots denizens, this pretty much clarified the situation.
Picard or Kirk, anyone?
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:5, Funny)
Jesus, only somebody with complete lack of humour can find that funny.
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 . . .
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:3, Funny)
Don't know what John Cleese has to say about it, but Jorge of Burgos sure seems pissed.
Re:welcome to /. (Score:2, Funny)
Wow.. arguing over a python sketch...
Better than arguing over a python script, eh?
Har-de-har-har
Re:Not the same joke (Score:3, Funny)
Some humor needs killin'.
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:3, Funny)
I don't think that word means what you think it means...
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!!!
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:0, Funny)
You think that stowy is funny, you should heaw the one that Biggus Dickus told just befowe last weeks cwucifiction! It was to die fow...
There, fixed that for you.
Re:so that's what killed it (Score:3, Funny)
Er, yeah, whoops. Long week.
Long, shitty week.
I'll just go back and edit my post.
Re:Classics, not just stuffy rhetoric or dull hist (Score:2, Funny)
I had a professor like that in college, he was a Lutheran Minister and an archeology PhD. He made the Bible hysterical.
I assume he was hard of hearing, because the Church ordered professors to "find a way to make the Bible historical".
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?
Re:Never the same again (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but Polly wasn't able to come back as a zombie 3 days later before being miracled into wine and crackers.
Sweet Zombie Jesus!
/farnsworth
Re:Not the same joke at all (Score:3, Funny)
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.
This is the core of all good theatre. Slapstick is easy, but everything else requires actors denying, then accepting, reality.
Groundhog day would have sucked if BM had just immediately accepted his situation.
The Terminator would have sucked if Sarah Connor initially believed Reese. Or the cops believed, etc.
The entire Faulty Towers series.
Heck, 80% of all jokes are about this: the puchline is always someone denying or explaining the reality of the situation. E.g.:
"Bob, thank god you found me - robbers took everything I had, stripped me naked, and tied me to this tree!" Bob sez, while removing his pants: "well Vern, this just ain't your lucky day."