About: The Fish-Slapping Dance   Sponge Permalink

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The sketch stars John Cleese and Michael Palin in safari outfits and pith helmets at the side of a canal lock (Teddington Lock in west London). At first both are facing each other and standing perfectly still. Light-hearted music then begins to play and Palin performs a simple merry dance which consists of dancing towards Cleese, lightly slapping him in the face with two small pilchards, and returning to his starting spot. After Palin does this four times he returns to standing stiff and still. In traditional British dancing, of which this is reminiscent, one would now expect the other dancer to repeat these steps. Instead, the music stops, Cleese reveals his fish - a much, much larger halibut - and clobbers Palin around the head with it, knocking Palin into the water several feet below.

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  • The Fish-Slapping Dance
rdfs:comment
  • The sketch stars John Cleese and Michael Palin in safari outfits and pith helmets at the side of a canal lock (Teddington Lock in west London). At first both are facing each other and standing perfectly still. Light-hearted music then begins to play and Palin performs a simple merry dance which consists of dancing towards Cleese, lightly slapping him in the face with two small pilchards, and returning to his starting spot. After Palin does this four times he returns to standing stiff and still. In traditional British dancing, of which this is reminiscent, one would now expect the other dancer to repeat these steps. Instead, the music stops, Cleese reveals his fish - a much, much larger halibut - and clobbers Palin around the head with it, knocking Palin into the water several feet below.
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dbkwik:montypython...iPageUsesTemplate
abstract
  • The sketch stars John Cleese and Michael Palin in safari outfits and pith helmets at the side of a canal lock (Teddington Lock in west London). At first both are facing each other and standing perfectly still. Light-hearted music then begins to play and Palin performs a simple merry dance which consists of dancing towards Cleese, lightly slapping him in the face with two small pilchards, and returning to his starting spot. After Palin does this four times he returns to standing stiff and still. In traditional British dancing, of which this is reminiscent, one would now expect the other dancer to repeat these steps. Instead, the music stops, Cleese reveals his fish - a much, much larger halibut - and clobbers Palin around the head with it, knocking Palin into the water several feet below. The music, which fits the sketch perfectly, is "Merrymakers Dance" from "Nell Gwynn suite" by British composer Sir Edward German (1862-1936). The sketch appears in the episode entitled "Mr & Mrs Brian Norris' Ford Popular" from 1972. It is about a quarter of a minute long, but its fast-paced non sequitur nature has been enough to endear it to fans. Due to its nature it has not been reproduced for live shows, etc., and therefore does not always receive the same recognition as other popular Python sketches. It remains, however, one of Michael Palin's favorite routines on the show. Palin once said that the sketch summarises concisely what Monty Python is all about.
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