‘Dead Parrot’ Still Dead…But Real

There's always that shudder of dread whenever one clears the throat and dares bring up a classic sketch by those Oxbridge lads from Monty Python. Do it in the right circles (and you never know when you're IN those circles until it's too late) and you know there will be some OCD individual or other who will insist on reciting the entire bit, no matter how many times his (and it IS usually a he, I'm afraid) partner tugs his arm and says "Oooh, not here Jerry." He can't help it.

For nearly 40 years we British TV fans, and a great number of "casual dabblers" besides, have been brought up on the group's verbal acrobatics and, as a result, can no more resist the compulsion to go on about our inability to foresee the Spanish Inquisition than we can stop a recitation of our social security number once we've begun. And one of our chief Pythonic delights: the ex-parrot.

It's a Norwegian Blue parrot specifically, dead though he might be, that Michael Palin has tried repeatedly to sell John Cleese all of these decades: "beautiful plumage." And now an assistant curator of natural history in England has popped up in the headlines saying he discovered the fossilized remains of the Norwegian Blue -- its wing, actually -- in Denmark. That said, the bird could also have flown in Norway, he says. This piece, which comes to us by way of Yahoo! India (who knew?), includes the following bit of Pythonesque wit from the good Dr. David Waterhouse himself:

"I specialise in bird fossils and am also a Python fan, so I have lived with jokes about dead parrots for years. Obviously we were dealing with a bird bereft of life, but the tricky bit was establishing it was a parrot."

[Do be sure to check out an insightful interview with Python Eric Idle in 30 Years of British Television, now available on Amazon -- your helpful author.]

Encyclopedia Pythonica

For those who have always yearned to “get the joke” in Monty Python’s Flying Circus, including all of the obscure cultural and historical references, there is a new book on the horizon that promises to help: Darl Larsen’s Monty Python’s Flying Circus: An Utterly Complete, Thoroughly Unillustrated, Absolutely Unauthorized Guide to Possibly All the References, due out from Scarecrow Press at the end of June. Be forewarned that, at 624 pages, it carries a price tag of $150. (Trees are expensive, even if you happen to be singing a jaunty lumberjack song as you fell them. Scarecrow Press also is one of your more high-end publishers, which tends to charge a bit more than most.)

What intrigued me was the description of the book on the publisher’s Web site:

In 1969, the BBC aired the first episode of a new comedy series titled Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and the rest, as they say, is history. An instant success, the show ran until 1974, producing a total of 45 episodes. Despite the show’s very English humor and allusions to many things British, the series developed a cult following outside the U.K., particularly in the United States. Known for its outrageous humor, occasionally controversial content, and often silly spirit, Monty Python’s Flying Circus poked fun at nearly all institutions—domestic or foreign, grand or intimate, sacred or not. Indeed, many of the allusions and references in the program were uniquely British and routinely obscure, and therefore, not always understood or even noticed outside the British Isles.

This exhaustive reference identifies and explains the plethora of cultural, historical, and topical allusions of this landmark series. In this resource, virtually every allusion and reference that appeared in an episode—whether stated by a character, depicted in the mise-en-scene, or mentioned in the printed scripts—is identified and explained. Organized chronologically by episode, each entry is listed alphabetically, indicates what sketch it appeared in, and is cross-referenced between episodes. Entries cover literary and metaphoric allusions, symbolisms, names, peoples, and places; as well as the myriad social, cultural, and historical elements (photos, songs, slogans, caricatures) that populate and inform these episodes.

As this sextet contained graduates of both Cambridge and Oxford, their obscure allusions should perhaps come as no surprise. Still, check out Eric Idle’s quote about TV executives’ fear of the “common man and woman” not getting the joke here. And for more of Mr. Idle’s observations, please don’t forget to order a copy of 30 Years of British Television.