Cheese Shop sketch

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The "Cheese Shop" is a sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus . [1] [2]

Contents

It originally appeared in episode 33, "Salad Days" on 30 November, 1972. The script for the sketch is included in the 1989 book The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words, Volume 2. [3]

It was later reworked for the album The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief and appeared for one last time during Monty Python Live (Mostly) , as a surprising coda to the Dead Parrot sketch.

Origins

The idea for the sketch came after a day of shooting in Folkestone Harbour, where John Cleese became seasick and threw up repeatedly while trying to deliver a line. During the drive back, Graham Chapman recommended that Cleese eat something and asked him what he wanted; Cleese replied that he fancied a piece of cheese. Upon seeing a chemist's shop, Cleese pondered whether the shop would sell cheese, to which Chapman responded that if they did it would be medicinal cheese and that Cleese would need a prescription to buy some. Giggling, they decided to write a sketch based on that idea. However, on starting to write it, they concluded that asking for cheese in a chemist's shop was too unrealistic without being set up. Wondering why someone would attempt to buy cheese somewhere other than a cheese shop, Cleese thought that they should write a sketch about someone attempting to buy cheese in a cheese shop that had no cheese whatsoever to set up a sketch revolving around someone attempting to buy cheese at a chemist's which never wound up happening.

Chapman then wrote the sketch with Cleese, who did not initially find it humorous. When Chapman insisted that it was funny, they presented it at a reading for the other Python members. Though most of the other Pythons were also unimpressed, Michael Palin loved it and laughed hysterically, eventually falling to the floor. This amused the others and they agreed to use the sketch. [4]

Summary

Cleese plays an erudite customer (Mr. Mousebender in the script) attempting to purchase some cheese from "Ye National Cheese Emporium, purveyor of fine cheese to the gentry (and the poverty-stricken too)". The proprietor (Palin), Mr. Arthur Wensleydale (Henry Wensleydale in the TV version), appears to have nothing in stock, not even cheddar, "the single most popular cheese in the world". A slow crescendo of bouzouki music plays in the background performed by Joe Moretti, as Terry Jones and Graham Chapman dance while dressed in bowler hats and business suits. Cleese initially expresses appreciation of the music, being "one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean Muse", but as the sketch progresses it mirrors Cleese's growing frustration until he loudly demands the music cease. As Cleese lists increasingly obscure, unsavoury, and, in one instance fictional, [5] cheeses to no avail, the proprietor offers weak excuses such as "Ohh! The cat's eaten it." Cleese remarks that it is not much of a cheese shop, but Palin insists it is the best in the district due to its cleanliness, to which Cleese replies "Well, it's certainly uncontaminated by cheese." Eventually, Cleese asks if Palin has any cheese at all, to which Palin replies "yes". Cleese then tells him that he will ask the question again, and if Palin says "no", he will shoot him "through" the head. Palin answers "no" the second time, and Cleese immediately shoots him, then muses, "What a senseless waste of human life!" He then puts on a Stetson, and the sketch segues into Hugh Walpole's Rogue Cheddar and a link to the Sam Peckinpah's "Salad Days" sketch.

Cheeses

Forty-three cheeses are mentioned in the original sketch. In the audio version on The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief album and other live and recorded versions, Cleese also mentions Greek feta. In the 2014 reunion show Monty Python Live (Mostly) , Stinking Bishop, Armenian string cheese and Zimbabwean rhinoceros milk cheese were also added to the list. "Venezuelan Beaver Cheese", mentioned in the original as well as future versions, is a fictitious type of cheese.

  Mentioned in original sketch
  Not mentioned in original sketch
  Mentioned together in one sentence, with only one reply
CheeseSource
Red Leicester Original
Tilsit Original
Caerphilly Original
Bel Paese Original
Red Windsor Original
Stilton Original
Gruyère Original
Emmental Original
Norwegian Jarlsberg Original
Liptauer Original
Lancashire Original
White Stilton Original
Danish Blue Original
Double Gloucester Original
Cheshire Original
Dorset Blue Vinney [6] Original
Brie Original
Roquefort Original
Pont l'Evêque Original
Port Salut Original
Savoyard Original
Saint-Paulin Original
Carré de l'Est Original
Boursin Original
Bresse-Bleu Original
Perle de ChampagneOriginal
Camembert Original
Gouda Original
Edam Original
CaithnessOriginal
Smoked AustrianOriginal
Sage Derby Original
Wensleydale Original
Greek feta MT&H
Gorgonzola Original
Parmesan Original
Mozzarella Original
Pipo Crem [7] Original
Danish Fynbo Original
Czechoslovakian sheep's milk cheese Original
Venezuelan beaver cheeseOriginal
Cheddar Original
Ilchester Original
Limburger Original
Stinking Bishop Live (Mostly)
Any cheese at allOriginal

Pastiches and parodies

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Launer, John (1 February 2002). "The professor of cheese". QJM . 95 (2): 133. doi: 10.1093/qjmed/95.2.133 . PMID   11861965. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  2. ↑ Simpson, Paul (2003). On the Discourse of Satire: Towards a Stylistic Model of Satirical Humor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. p. 36. ISBN   90-272-3333-0 – via Google Books (preview). Perhaps the gag par excellence of the Python public service encounter archive is the so-called "cheese shop" sketch.
  3. ↑ Chapman, Graham (1989). The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words, Volume 2. New York: Pantheon. p. 134. ISBN   0-679-72648-9. OCLC   54794550.
  4. ↑ digitalretro (19 October 2009). Monty Python reunion NYC: Q&A about who wrote which sketch (HTML5) – via YouTube.
  5. ↑ Venezuelan Beaver Cheese is fictional (Annotated Flying Circus, Luke Dempsey, 2001)
  6. ↑ "Dorset Blue Vinney". Ask.metafilter.com. Retrieved 26 May 2011.
  7. ↑ ChefsRef Encyclopedia – Cheese French Archived 6 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ "Albuquerque".
  9. ↑ "Space Cheese".
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