Dead Parrot
Monty Python is one of the greatest monuments of British humour. The six members of this comedy troupe gained their fame at the beginning of the seventies with their sketch comedy program Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Here we present you the Dead Parrot sketch which is one of their most famous sketches broadcasted in this program.
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This sketch occurs in a pet shop and deals with a disagreement between a costumer and the shopkeeper about whether the parrot the costumer just bought is alive or not. The costumer, Mr Eric Praline –his name is not mentioned but it is a character who already appeared in previous sketches– is performed by John Cleese, and the shopkeeper is performed by Michael Palin. Mr Praline rightly asserts that his parrot is dead and wants to be payed back. But the shopkeeper denies the obvious and tries to convince his client that the parrot is still alive whereas it is clearly not. Mr Praline then has, so to speak, to demonstrate the death of the bird. The shopkeeper finally admits the parrot must be dead and therefore agrees to replace it. But he has no more parrots, so he sends the customer to Bolton where his brother might replace it. Then follow absurd little scenes where Mr Praline, theoretically in Bolton, is confronted to a confusing porter and the same shopkeeper who keeps brazenly lying. The sketch ends just like the other sketches of the episode, with a colonel who interrupts it, saying it is silly.
This way of not giving a real end to sketches is characteristic of Monty Python –although versions of this sketch exist with a punch line. We also find in this sketch an important characteristic of British humour, namely nonsense. Absurdity is indeed omnipresent throughout the sketch, and that right from the start, as Mr Praline says he has a cold as an excuse for having mistaken the shopkeeper for a woman. The biggest absurdity is of course the debate between the two men about an obvious fact. The shopkeeper’s arguments don’t hold water and even the breed of the parrot, Norwegian blue, is absurd since parrots usually come from tropical countries, not Scandinavia. Which is completely illogical too is when Mr Praline is supposed to be in another town and therefore another pet shop but appears to be still in the same shop as he finds there the cage he had left in the first shop. We could also emphasize the nonsense of the porter’s talk, which is completely irrelevant, and of the final discussion between the customer and the shopkeeper which gets so absurd that it cannot even be finished. Then, self-depreciation, which is another feature of Britsh humour, can be noticed in this sketch. Indeed, the Pythons make fun of their own culture as they ridicule the numerous euphemisms used in English culture to designate death.
Monty Python pokes fun at British culture but in return British people integrated it in their culture, especially in the English language as they fixed some references from Monty Python sketches into it. The Dead Parrot sketch is a good example since the expression “dead parrot” is sometimes used to describe something which is no longer viable, especially in politics. Monty Python had also an impact on language with another sketch, but this time its influence spread all around the world: it is indeed the Spam sketch which is at the origin of the name the net surfers of the entire world give to unsolicited electronic messages.