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Dead Parrot Sketch Is 1,600 Years Old
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."
Old age.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Wow those plagiarists...what next are you going to tell me that the Holy Grail movie was based on ancient stories as well? Or Life of Brian? Are you telling me that Jesus wasn't an original character?
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.
That joke's not dead... It's pining for the fjords...
You can read more of their jokes 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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
joke predates you!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just for that:
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die flipperwaldt gersput!
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.
Ah yes, now that the joke is properly explained it may now be classified as extra humorous.
-=Bang Bang=-
What if I told you the slave were nailed to a crucifix? That's kind of like a perch.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That is disappointing. It means the sketch where Eric brings Kenny back to the friend store to complain that he is dead is not even a original tribute. It is just a more direct rip off of the original work that the Pythons inadvertently ripped off from. Will the inhumanity never end!
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Yes, but was the slave nailed to the perch too?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
He read the World's Funniest Joke of course!
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
You mean posthum[or]ous
Oh wait, wrong sketch.
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.
The part that ties them together:
"And now time for something completely different!"
love is just extroverted narcissism
In related news, the RIAA is suing John Cleese for copyright infringement on behalf of the estates of Hierocles and Philagrius.
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!
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
Like inhaling farts and sleeping with corpses, it is an acquired taste.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
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!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
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.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
Wow.. arguing over a python sketch...
If there was EVER any doubt about slashdots denizens, this pretty much clarified the situation.
Picard or Kirk, anyone?
Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody... - Dick Armey
Jesus, only somebody with complete lack of humour can find that funny.
Some humor needs killin'.
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!!!
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".
I speak England very best
>>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?
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."