John Cleese (right) and Michael Palin (left) of Monty Python performing the Cheese Shop sketch.
The Cheese Shop is a famous sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus.[1][2]
It appears in episode 33, Salad Days. The script for the sketch is included in the book The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus : All the Words, Volume 2[3]
John Cleese plays an erudite customer attempting to purchase some cheese from The National Cheese Emporium, purveyor of fine cheese to the gentry (and the poverty-stricken too). The proprietor, Mr. Henry Wensleydale (Michael Palin), appears to have no stock, not even cheddar, "the single most popular cheese in the world". A slow crescendo of bouzouki music in the background - for which Cleese initially expresses appreciation, but as the sketch progresses it mirrors Cleese's growing anger until he shouts exasperatedly "SHUT THAT BLOODY BOUZOUKI UP!?!" - as he lists increasingly obscure, unsavory, and, in one instance fictional, cheeses to no avail, while the proprietor offers trite excuses such as "Ohh! The cat's eaten it." When Palin finally admits that there is no cheese, Cleese peremptorily shoots him, then muses, "What a senseless waste of human life!". He then puts on a Stetson, and the sketch segues into Sam Peckinpah's Rogue Cheddar and a link to further Peckinpah parodies.
Original Cheese is mentioned in the Original sketch
Other Cheese is not mentioned in the Original sketch
One sentence Cheeses are mentioned in one sentence, with only one reply
Table of Cheeses
The table that follows lists the cheeses mentioned, in order of appearance, the reason given as to why they are unavailable to be purchased, as well as the source (Original sketch, other version(s)) in which that cheese was mentioned.
?Ah! We do have some Camembert, sir......It's a bit runny, sir....'Well as a matter of fact it's very runny, sir....I think it's runnier than you like it, sir...Yes, sir." (bends below counter and reappears) "Oh...The cat's eaten it."
"Venezuelan Beaver Cheese" is fictitious but, despite this, recipes for it have since been published, and one online cheese store lists it as an item that is out of stock[7]. It has also been mentioned in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (PC game), Sierra's computer adventure game Leisure Suit Larry 7, and in the webcomic Triangle and Robert.
Pastiches and parodies
The sketch was reworked for The Brand New Monty Python Bok, becoming a two-player word game in which one player must keep naming different cheeses while the other player must keep coming up with different excuses otherwise "the Customer wins and may punch the Shopkeeper in the teeth".
In an episode of The Young Ones, Alexei Sayle rushes into a shop (while performing a silly walk), and asks if it is a cheese shop. Rik Mayall, the Palinesque proprietor, replies "No, sir." The punchline is "Well, that's that sketch knackered then, innit?"
David Welbourn wrote a text adventure game called "Cheeseshop" which is available at the Interactive Fiction Archive.
The "Asian Bride Shop" sketch in an episode of Goodness Gracious Me substitutes descriptions of types of brides. At the end, another customer enters, complaining that his bride is dead - a reference to the Dead Parrot sketch.
A pastiche circulated in 2004 to parody the SCO v. IBM lawsuit.[8] The judge, taking Cleese's role, inquires of the Palinesque attorney for The SCO Group as to the evidence he will be presenting for his suit, only to discover after a similar line of questioning that SCO has no evidence at all. The script was a sharp attack on the quality of the SCO lawsuit, implying that it was exceedingly frivolous.
In the webcomic The Order of the Stick, it's a polearm shop which has no stock. The characters also work in the Spam sketch, by including the Glaive in the names of polearms until the shop owner says, "I think you're drifting into another sketch, sir."[9] Also noted is that in the bottom of the panel a cat drags out a dead parrot and a python.
In the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Albuquerque", it's a doughnut shop. The scene ends when the shopkeeper reveals that all he has is a "box of one dozen starving, crazed weasels" which the main character purchases, opens and is attacked by.[10]
The cartoon Histeria! depicts the Boston Tea Party, in which a fake tea shop is set up to distract a British guard. Each time the guard asks for a type of tea, there is a splash heard off screen, and the American says they're out, implying that each particular tea had just been thrown into the harbour.
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