Nerds love Monty Python, right? I mean, there’s even a programming language named after the group… Well, in another case of “there’s nothing new under the sun” it seems that Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot Sketch” is perhaps a little bit older than previously thought. A scholar of Ancient Greece by the name of William Berg has translated a joke book written in the 4th Century CE containing 265 jokes by the comedians Hierocles and Philagrius. This comedy pair compiled a list of jokes called “Philogelos: The Laugh Addict”.
In Monty Pythons sketch, a man attempts to return a dead Norwegian Blue Parrot to a particularly difficult shopkeep. In the ancient Greek version, it’s a dead slave. Obviously, times have changed, but the joke is surprisingly similar. Other jokes, it seems, have also withstood the test of time, appearing in modernised versions around the world also.
From the Telegraph’s article:
Jokes about wives, it seems, have always been fair game.
One joke goes: “A man tells a well-known wit: ‘I had your wife, without paying a penny’. The husband replies: “It’s my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?”
Brilliant… who would have thought that the roots of British humour were so old?
You can see Monty Python’s sketch on Youtube here:
The original joke can be found here in electronic book format.
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