Starting today and continuing for I-don't-know-how-long, we'll be linking to Monty Python rarities. Today, we focus on a sketch the Python guys did in a number of different places, though not on their TV show, perhaps because it really isn't a Python sketch. The first place I saw it was on the program I mentioned here, Marty Feldman's Comedy Machine. I don't recall who, apart from Feldman, appeared in it and I suspect it did not originate there. Perhaps it's something done earlier for some other series like At Last, the 1948 Show with John Cleese and Graham Chapman…though when I asked someone to ask Mr. Cleese about it, he had no memory of where it had first appeared. In any case, various British comedians have performed it in a number of settings, especially for charity performances, and I'm curious as to whether Feldman wrote it, or if one or more of the Pythons did or just what the story is. It's awfully funny and back when we first saw it on Mr. Feldman's Comedy Machine, several of my friends and I added lines from it to our repertoire of catch-phrases.
A version of the sketch that runs a little over three minutes appeared in the Python Hollywood Bowl concert. Here's a link to it and as you'll see, it features Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman and Terry Jones. A slightly better, longer version of it appears below. It runs four minutes and features Palin, Jones, John Cleese and non-Python Rowan Atkinson. Ignore the foreign subtitles.
