"The man's sign must be wrong. I have in the past noticed a marked discrepancy between these post office signs and the activities carried out beneath. But soft, let us see how Dame Fortune smiles upon my next postal adventure." Sheer brilliance.
@@NinjaOnANinjaThere's plenty of so called "educated" persons without the slightest hint of linguistic affluence. The delivery of each line is not only concise but is indeed brilliant! Just ask my pet shoe Erik: 👞
@@diah7130 yes, because most people don't grow up the way he did. Most don't really care about crap like that. Still doesn't make you brilliant. Just make you educated.
@@ohgosh5892 licence/license. In American English both the noun and the verb, not just the verb, are spelled with an 's'. Sorry, you thing it's wrong, and don't check before incorrecting someone.
This should be on the curriculum of any sketch-writing class. Praline, played pitch-perfectly by Cleese, believes 1000% in his mission, even if he thinks it is mundane. He is fighting for his reality. If there had been any doubt, the whole thing would have collapsed.
TV detector vans? What is that? Does it have to do with BBC? I heard they have to pay a lot of money in the UK for tv and if you get it for free you have to pay a fine. Is that true?
@@stefs3460 Yes, a few countries have this weird thing where anyone who owns a TV - regardless of why they own it or how they acquired it - has to pay a silly tax on it every so often.
I'm a relative of Sir Gerald Nabarro, and just for the record, he didn't have a shrimp called Simon, but he was chairman of the Dorset Asparagus Growers Club.
@@StamfordBridge That would have to be a descendant of Erik, but I expect that this was an unrelated cat, so he/she should be called Erik, not Erik II.
pocketlint60 This isn't just the internet, it's also working in any public service role where you have to deal with the general public. And to a lesser extent all retail jobs.
No it isn't. When he pulled out the book to reference his claim, the person he was talking to conceded and offered him an apology. That would never happen on the Internet!
The ending had the Lord Mayor coming into the post office. But on Monty Python's Previous Record (I used to have that) it ended with Cleese asking for a bee license. "Eric the bee?" "No. Eric the half-bee. He had an accident" ....and then goes into the song Eric the Half A Bee (it's in the side bar).
"The man didn't have the proper form." LOL. Marcel Proust had a haddock! Only the Monty Python troupe could be at once utterly esoteric and utterly hilarious.
Think of his "Dame Fortune" in the beginning, his street fighter clothes and the way he walked in - this was all so very much his intention right from the start 😂🎉❤
And the attempts not to scream before, building up the tension because every time you expect him to explode but he gets hold of himself and talks more silently and more insistently - delicious😂
Has anyone else noticed that everyone's name in this sketch is Eric? The customer is Eric Praline, the cashier's name is Eric Last, the fish's name is Eric, the dog's name is Eric and the cat's name is Eric. The fruit bat's name is also Eric.
Then you might not have gotten the "Cat Detector Van" reference. There is a license fee for owning a television set in the UK and the government used to claim they had detector vans that could tell if you had a TV and no license. It was a bluff but it worked.
cd: They made a decision not to focus on the issues of the day, such as a particular politician, but instead on broader situations, such as politicians in general. Because of that, it is timeless, while other comedy shows that focus on the current situation may be good at the time but tend to age quickly.
Michael Price thank you! As a foreigner, I realize that I get only a part of their jokes, and sometimes I wonder how big is that part, but anyway even a fraction of _that_ was once enough for me to put way more effort into learning English; it was a decade ago, and I'm very grateful to the Pythons for that.
"He's an 'alibut. I chose him out of thousands. I didn't like the others, they were all too flat." One of the great classic comedy lines of all time, but the audience didn't catch it - sigh.
@@mohamadmahmoud6926 Just where does he say the audience didn't understand the joke? He said they didn't catch it, which is not the same thing. But that isn't why you posted. You just felt a need to call someone a circle jerking fucking loser. Must have been looking in the mirror.
I love the bit with the book about Kemal Ataturk, the "author" E.W Swanton was a famous cricket commentator and the forward written by Paul Anka (famous singer)
Elon Musk having trouble getting a launch license for his experimental rocket because the American Fish and Wildlife Service Agency is apparently concerned that when he drops his test booster in the gulf and his test rocket into the pacific (if successful) they may randomly hit a whale or shark.
@@EugeneOneguine How observant of you. You know, people already know that and can still respect that someone did it at least once without fucking up and laughing or missing a line? Crazy I know..... some people are just happy and can enjoy things, maybe you could learn a thing or two from them. Just food for thought.
It's a parody on a Clint Eastwood stare down. It's John Cleese acting out his inner looney. Scary, funny and fascinating. The unability to choose your battles.
It's a Pac-A-Mac...a thin plastic raincoat you carry for unexpected downpours...not really intended as a regular garment and used here to identify the 'type' of character (eccentric nutter!)
I've dealt with customers like Cleese lol. "Can you send me a letter signed by your board of directors stating that I am no longer in debit to your company?" "erm.....no I can give you a payment reference number and a receipt" "put me onto your manager NOW!"
i am 23 and i really love monty python movies and when i was looking for some scenes from Monty python and the holy grail i found these sketches ...... and i really enjoy them , i do not think it is a fact of age , but rather a fact of intelligence .... today's comedy is just people acting stupid , and that is just sad , but these older comedy sketches have a message .......
Michael looks so beautiful every time there's a close-up of him. This is my favourite Python sketch ever. :) On another note - @ReitersOfTheStorm - Isn't.
This needs subtitles. I can't understand half of what he says because of his accent. Or is that the point? "I've never seen so many Ariels in my life!"
+K1naku5ana3R1ka Citizens in England have always been required to pay for a yearly? license for their televisions as I understand. They've long had vans roaming about looking to detect radio waves from residences that aren't on record as paying for a license. The idea of a "cat-detector van" roaming about looking for unlicensed cats is a play on that.
Cheese is the man who finally snaps & guns-down multiple innocents - his firearms are under the raincoat. The newspapers call him 'The Fish Licence Killer'...
Hello Sir Marxist, assuming you're still around after 14 years. Yes, this is 'parrot sketch' manic Cleese. Never seen this sketch and it's rather good, isn't it. If only our P Offs were as civil as these nowadays. Our local one is staffed by surly Asians conversing with each other while reluctantly serving the public.
I wonder how much comedy the MP members thought up that was based on classical literature, like Shakespeare, that was never used because they thought no one would understand it?
I bet the number of people who have read any Proust at all is pretty small, but MP did a 'Summarizing Proust' contest, in which contestants had to summarize the entire work in a few seconds. None of the contestants were any good so the prize went to the girl with the biggest tits.
I suspect that they never held back. There are erudite references all throughout the TV series, and I'm quite sure they were aware that it added a whole extra layer to their comedy.
Good catch. The character's name is Mr. Mousebender; he appeared in a few other sketches as well, including "Current Affairs" in episode 18. ("Hello. 'Ow are you? I'm fine. Welcome to a new half-hour chat show in which me, viz the man what's talking to you now, and Brooky - to wit, my flat mate - and nothing else, I'd like to emphasize that - discuss current affairs issues of burning import.")
I grew up on Monty Python. My parents didn't get it. They grew up on Morecambe and Wise and World War Two. As a teenager, it was as important to me as was John Peel and Alan 'fluff' Freeman. Without Monty Python we would not have had Fawltey Towers and Michael Palin would not have travelled the World and show us how lucky we are and how we should value what we are. And that power and wealth isn't spread among we humans equitably.
It's not a usual case that growing up on python would create such a loony as you. You're lucky your parents grew up though, I'm pretty sure mine never did.
You have your time-frame skewed. The Monty Python shows (1969-1974) were roughly contemporaneous with the Morecambe & Wise shows (1961-1983). If you watched Python as a teenager, you would have been watching M&W during the same years. Your parents would have grown up on the Goon Show, Flanagan & Allen, Hancock's Half-Hour, etc.
Born in 1951 saw it originally. Can you image what a culture shock it was in comparison to the American and English sitcom like Sgt Bilco or Terry and June?
Just do it when the occasion arouses, it is very rewarding. I got a customer once who said: ' The devil is among us ! " , I replied with: ' How do you do ? " and I gave him a hand. His eyes became a shilling and his his mouth fell open, after this he retracted his hand and fled through the open door. He hasn't been seen since ...
Im American too, but I grew up with British Humor as a staple in my life (american humor just doesn't really cut it for me anymore). Therefore the references, jokes etc. make perfect sense to me. Its something you have to grow onto or have grown up with I suppose. Watch more Monty Python!!! You'll get it!
This isn't from the Flying Circus tv-series but from the film "And now for something completely different" a one and a half hour feature film where they remade a lot of the sketches from the tv-series. So it actually is technically superior, being filmed on 35mm with better sets and rehearsed acting. Though it lost some of the spontaneity of the tv-series.
There's no such thing as a bloody Cat Licence.Yes, there is. No there isn't. Is. Isn't. Is. Isn't. Is. Isn't. Is. Isn't. ...Is. Isn't. IIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! The question is, why the hell is that so damn funny XD I also appear to have changed my typeface somehow mid-post. Help o.o
I'm not a Briton, but I hope you don't mind me answering your question. :D Cleese here is acting as 'Eric Praline'. He appears several times in the python shows. He was in the 'Dead Parrot" sketch wearing the same style outfit. Its kind of his style - Eric Praline - its a a PACAMAN - a fold up raincoat. I guess he just likes wearing it. :D Eric Praline also sings, if your wondering - look for the song, Eric the Half a Bee
NOW it all makes sense! i have seen this since 1976 hundreds of times! NOW i realize that the guy in the Luney Coat is me after all. A luney! Okay, now everything makes sense to me! Now let's get on with what i have been doing for awhile now...its a great life every day
This show amazes me. Most interviews I see involving it always has the cast saying things like they never knew if the episode they were filming would be the last on the air and that a good chunk of their dialog was purely improved. Yet it still always seems funny even if they recycle the gags.
I have been watching Monty Python since I was in the early teens and as I have the upmost respect for every member I have to say that John Cleese can act rings around the rest of the troupe
