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Dead Parrot Sketch Is 1,600 Years Old

Posted by samzenpus on 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."

6 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Manditory Link by Zymergy · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
    THIS.... is an Ex-Parrot!!

  2. Better link... by bennomatic · · Score: 4, Informative

    A 419-baiter got some Nigerian scam artists to record themselves doing the sketch as well. I actually like this one better!

    --
    The CB App. What's your 20?
  3. Re:so that's what killed it by duguk · · Score: 4, Informative

    The book is here: http://beta.yudu.com/library/item_details/19544/Philogelos--The-Laugh-Addict---The-World-s-Oldest-Joke-Book

    And you can read it (well, watch Jim Bowen perform them), here: http://publishing.yudu.com/Library/Au7bv/PhilogelosTheLaughAd/resources/index.htm

  4. Re:Never the same again by forkazoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    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?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras#Mithraism_and_Christianity

  5. Re:so that's what killed it by Petrushka · · Score: 3, 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.

  6. BBC made the same mistake by Xtifr · · Score: 3, Informative

    These two sketches are not related at all, IMO, let alone "the same joke."

    To be fair, the BBC made the same mistake, 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.