Python dead parrot joke 1,600 years old

The famous Monty Python parrot joke is apparently 1,600 years old, and that’s not the combined age of their now geriatric cast members either.

The sketch in which a customer returns with a deceased parrot to the pet store where he purchased the animal from and demands a refund.

A recently translated book of jokes called the Philogelos which means the Laugh Addict was written in the fourth century AD.

The Greek version details a comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius details a similar exchange although it concerns a deceased slave instead of a parrot.

A man complains to a friend who sold him a slave that died and demands a refund.

Under the laws of the time he was entitled to damages.

The friend retorts “Did he? By the Gods, when he was with me, he never did any such thing!”

Here is the python sketch:

Customer enters a pet shop.

Customer: ‘Ello, I wish to register a complaint.

(The owner does not respond.)

C: ‘Ello, Miss?

Owner: What do you mean “miss”?

C: I’m sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!

O: We’re closin’ for lunch.

C: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

O: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue…What’s,uh…What’s wrong with it?

C: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. ‘E’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!

O: No, no, ‘e’s uh,…he’s resting.

C: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.

O: No no he’s not dead, he’s, he’s restin’! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn’it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

C: The plumage don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead.

O: Nononono, no, no! ‘E’s resting!

C: All right then, if he’s restin’, I’ll wake him up!

(shouting at the cage)

‘Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I’ve got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you show…(owner hits the cage)

O: There, he moved!

C: No, he didn’t, that was you hitting the cage!

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