Margaret Thatcher does the Dead Parrot Sketch

[DorianYT]

They all applause Monty Pythons, not her.

[Commodore4life]

I wouldn't want to play poker with her.

[arejayseeottawa]

Are you sure this was not Meryl Streep?

[Majken6999]

Something tells me she has never seen monty python

[NickSBailey]

scripted shoight everything she did

[stevepearson68]

cunt!



[heliumtrophy]

20 years later and they're perfect bedfellows.

[AskChansey]

Telling a joke without understanding it one bit. Apparently just before she went on-stage she asked the man who wrote it for her "Monty Python....is he one of us?" and just in case it scared her he replied: "Yes, he is a very loyal supporter."

[topperheartramada]

@AskChansey what a bizarre comment.

[mellowNdark]

0:44 Look at all those ghastly people.

[MrPenfold84]

We love you Thatcher.

[bp56789]

@MrPenfold84 Wow, I actually had a shiver of disgust after reading your comment. The last time that happened to me was when I read Encyclopedia Dramatica's Offended page.

[pezz12345]

Hawwww hawww hawww Lord Horace. Pass the caviar and quail's eggs.

[ravendiana]

Apparently this was the idea of her speech writers, she had never seen Python and they had to spend hours teaching her how to say it right.

[aaronfromhastings]

Rhetoric more important than policies then...?

[lmizuki5]

bad actress

[RobDeManc]

She was just a nasty viscious woman who just slashed her enemies like she was some kind of warrier witch from hell

[UngKristen]

vile politician, but what a glorious deadpan delivery.

[singleplaya0]

oh teleprompter...

[PhilSupernova88]

I wish she would cease to be...stupid fucking bitch

[lankness1]

@PhilSupernova88 How eloquent! I bet you are a proud owner a liberal education. 

[PhilSupernova88]

@lankness1 Do you have any fucking idea what this woman did to the United Kingdom?

No...then fuck off!

[chrisgui94]

@PhilSupernova88 How about rescue it from economic oblivion? Nobody liked Thatcher, but every single subsequent Prime Ministers thanked God every night that she had been there, and that they didn't have to make the choices that she did.

[kurtiklaas]

I don't like Maggie Thatcher - but this is great!

[hawkmoth11]

And to think John Cleese is a liberal supporter

[alternativebassist]

all this said with a straight face...

[newargot]

@alternativebassist Straight face because she didn't get the joke, it was written for her.

[alternativebassist]

@newargot give her some credit

[joztdarb]

hahaha is this for real lol

[allaboutdmagic]

If you look closely enough you can actually see her morph into her Spitting Image puppet during this speech. Tell it to those miners, Maggie.

[Nowhereman90]

I would laugh just if i didnt hate her so much

[lapislazuli7]

I do not want to know how the Pythons reacted when they saw or heard this... Anyway, she cannot touch them.

[BRUTUALTRUTH]

An old hen talking about a parrot!

[lukeog92]

smelly rotten bitch

[JudahBenHur007]

Oh my god! That was fucking hilarious!!!

[stilicho2]

Huzzah! Huzzah! Will there ever be such a PM again? I weep for our only great leader of the 20th century, because, lets face it, Churchill was an outmoded bigot, and the rest were all bank clerks.

[curlylox100]

She was so hilarious wasn't she? (sarcasm)

[jafooky123]

KHITBASH

[LuneyTune72]

God, this makes me sick to watch. She is so bad doing this sketch hahaha

[7beers]

@LuneyTune72 You moron, you missed the point completely.

[LuneyTune72]

@7beers Really? Well thanks for explaining it.

[7beers]

@LuneyTune72 My point is simply that she was not attempting to do the sketch with the same delivery as the original. Her plain delivery was intentional. Her point was simply that applying the dead parrot skit to the Liberal party was enough to make her point, and that the full comedic delivery was unnecessary.

[LuneyTune72]

@7beers The point is that she was fed the lines and repeated them like a parrot (as John Cleese even stated himself.) I don't like Thatcher and I think that if anyone is going to pay tribute or quote a piece of art then you might as well do a good job at it. The woman has absolutely no sense of humor and deserved everything she got from Spitting Image.

[7beers]

@LuneyTune72 I just don't see it that way, as I explained. But it looks like your opinion of her performance here is influenced by your general opinion of her. Personally, the more I read about her, the more I like her. So I think we're going to have to have to agree to disagree. And Cleese's opinion here is also irrelevant to me: he is a well-known rabid anti-Conservative, so it's only natural that that is going to influence his opinion of her performance.

[LuneyTune72]

@7beers You're partially right, but in a unbiased perspective I would still have to say that there was no need for her to even perform (or quote) any form of comedy when she has such a dry sense of humor. I also don't think my argument with you is even going to go anywhere just because you have sorted yourself in conservative group aka the most close minded political party there is.

[7beers]

@LuneyTune72 "The most close minded political party there is". Now, how closed-minded is that? I could just as easily say the same about you, but I don't. I accept your political position as valid even though it disagrees with mine. So who's being closed-minded now? (BTW, I'm not in any way affiliated with any political party -- I'm not even British -- I'm a 'generic' conservative. Even though Milton Friedman says the term is completely inaccurate.)

[LuneyTune72]

@7beers If you want associate yourself with a group then you are expected to follow it's standards. If you think that you disagree with some points of the conservative party then go by something else or an independent. A lot of people call themselves a Christian but what does that even mean anymore? You can be anything from almost atheist-an extremist and still go by "Christian." Also, the fact that you like Thatcher based off of what you read what "she says" is sad because she was fed lines.

[LuneyTune72]

@7beers To summarize my point: definitions of words are changing based on what society defines them to be. If you call yourself a conservative then expect that people will assume you believe in what the conservative party says. Also, to claim that one is close minded for accusing someone else of being close minded is a ridiculous paradox that makes no sense. What is a "generic conservative"?

[7beers]

@LuneyTune72 Sorry, my friend, I don't see where this is going other than another Internet pissing contest. You seem like a decent, intelligent person, but I think there's an insurmountable gulf between us. My apologies for the insult in my first post. Peace.

[LuneyTune72]

@7beers You're right, I'm glad there are people on YouTube who are like you. I'm glad we avoided a big argument when in reality it would do nothing.

[1nikg]

pussy boy clegg should watch this

[madferit1993]

If you think that she actually has a sense of humour, you should watch the interview from 2009 with John Cleese, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam. They explain it all. It's on youtube somewhere.

[TheKneekap]

long live the dictatorship!

[MsScarletFeather]

Wow. A politician who has a sense of humor. Very rare. Even though I don't know much about her, I have a large amount of respect for her for making that joke. It took guts.

[comanchio1976]

@MsScarletFeather 'Guts'? She's satan's spawn. This was a walk in the park compared with plunging millions of the country below the poverty line.

For an encore to this, I heard that she wanted to eat a couple of working class babies...but her PR team were dead against it

[edj66]

Lots of left wing liberal idiots on here, displaying their usual level of tolerance and general decency. Perhaps the mines should be reopened, just so they can go and live in them and stop bothering the rest of the world which has moved on since 1979!

[realsugarbabi4realz]

hahaha

[hatstalker]

I hate the woman's politics. But she had a bloody brilliant sense of humor!

[alinemerrow]

@hatstalker no she didn't. She never liked or even seen Pythons before. IT was advised to her to recite this. So don't fall for the devil in a dress.

[hatstalker]

@alinemerrow That is still a sense of humor..... If a comedian recites a joke, it still shows a sense of humor. But yeah she is a bitch (politically)

[alinemerrow]

@hatstalker Ian Dale's Diary: "When we came to read through the draft of the speech, Mrs Thatcher paused when she reached the dead parrot section and looked at John O’Sullivan as if he were completely mad. On each subsequent occasion, whenever we reached the parrot section, she stopped and said: ‘Are you sure that this is funny?’ . I and the three others found the sketch it so hilarious that we had tears rolling down our cheeks. Thatcher found it difficult to see why we were laughing so much."

[hatstalker]

@alinemerrow Touche! 

[VanceJoudrey]

@hatstalker No, she didn't. This is from an old Monty Python sketch - she didn't pick it, and they had to coach her for a long long time to get the right rhythm and pauses because she has no sense of humor. One of her advisers who coached her told John Cleese , who in turn told Keith Obermann on MSNBC in 2009. He stressed her total lack of humor.

[Ilikemustard]

@hatstalker

Correction: You're too economically illiterate to understand the woman's politics.

[Pvjinflight]

@Ilikemustard Thatcher was just evil bitch that felt sympathy towards evil leadership of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.

[AlexisCapri]

@Ilikemustard Oh yes, the Falklands war was a stroke of economic genius.

[Ilikemustard]

@AlexisCapri

The Falklands War was initiated by Argentina. What the fuck is your point?

[TheRealAlanPartridge]

Cant wait til this devil slag dies

[Snille]

Don't know whether I should laugh or cry.

[everittdaniel]

I miss you, Maggie. Come back and sort out these yobs on the street!

[27Bluebottle]

How she can say that without even cracking a smile(!)

[tugatomsk]

@27Bluebottle Well, she was the Iron Lady, after all, LOL.

[GreatZarquon42]

Please, almighty God, make that harpy of death, fucking right wing, fear mongering, sucker of Satan's cock, die. Liek nao plez?

[edj66]

@GreatZarquon42 Oh dear. You disagree with someone so you want them dead? How wonderfully 'liberal' of you... She's got twice the gumption of any politician today of whatever colour!

[GreatZarquon42]

@edj66 Three things wrong with that, firstly, no, I don't wish her dead. I won't be upset when she does die, but I don't wish her dead. Secondly, I'm no liberal, nor a democrat, nor some other retarded label. And thirdly, she may have more gumption, but she was still a terrible politician and a harpy of death.

P.S. It's called hyperbole. I use it.

[comanchio1976]

@edj66 Hitler had 'gumption'...what's your point? She IS a harpy, a scumbag and a cunt. I wish her a slow, painful, terrifying death.

[edj66]

@comanchio1976 And wishing that on someone makes you...what, precisely? Certainly not a particularly nice person.

[comanchio1976]

@edj66 Wishing bad things to happen to a very bad person is perfectly reasonable, some even call it Karma

[edj66]

@comanchio1976 I think you may have misunderstood Karma.

[comanchio1976]

@edj66 I meant the 'bad things happening to bad people' part, not the wishing of it.

[temporaldisplacement]

@GreatZarquon42 Satan is busy but would like to assure you that your call is important to him. da-da-da-da-da-de-de-de-de-da

[tinytina789]

Hurry up and die you cunt.

[94jrhm]

@tinytina789 You contemptous swine! Margaret Thatcher was the reincarnation of Elizabeth I, and did more good for the entire world than any person in history. You are simply an evil commoner who seeks to turn Great Britain into a socialist prison, akin to the USSR or Hell. In the words of Thatcher: "NO, NO, NO!"

[videogamenostalgia]

She should have done Mr Gumby...

[xxmetalmusicxx]

I don't think I've laughed that hard in along time!! I don't think I'm ever going to see the lib dems in the same way xD

[rascalferret]

and now for something completely different

[midnightcallerable]

Im glad she realised Politics was serious noone knows how serious the effects of Maggies silly ideas like the people of the North & the West Midlands by the time she had finished our jobs were as dead as the monty python parrot so on to something entirely different.

The reason we have difficulty recovering from the incompetance of the banking industry to run this country's economy is the fact that we do not have any industry thanks to the eco policys of the 1980's thanks Maggie

[buckleygeneration]

Her voice annoys me so much.

[threenorns3]

i'm a green party supporter (canada) but i do like margaret thatcher. those saying she has no sense of humour clearly are seeing what they want to so. you can't miss that cheeky twinkle in her eye. do you seriously think she'd've agreed to do something she didn't want?

[screammac]

this woman has no feelings i hope soner then ever she will die and be sent to burn in hell the jobs she lost she dsives no simphy

[SevernaKoreja]

Garbage!!!

Viva the LibDem!!!

[mrmebs]

after being convinced to do this speech she came of stage and asked "is the this Python fellow a conservitive? i would not like it if he wasn't" . . . she didn't even know who monty python were, she has no sense of humour, or soul . . .

[WMuckaMW]

Putin shutit interesnee  )

[MeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeAndU]

The "dead parrot" party is now proping up the tories to keep them in government. Oh the irony.

[themaster8902]

One thing i will say about thatcher, when it came to our countrys defence she wasnt afraid to use "her boys" the SAS. She also wasnt afraid to threaten other countries with nuclear warfare.

[fullfist]

she's being a parrot, her delivery of the lines is as dry as you can get.

[FilmGeek44]

so can anyone tell me what is the real deal with Margret Thatcher? Like what was her deal?

was she a bad prime minister? or just an idiot?

There had to be a reason why Monty Python made fun of her so much in the first place.

[asmodeus585]

@FilmGeek44: She was neither a bad prime minister nor an idiot. She made Britain fairly prosperous for a few decades, unfortunately the Labour had to spoil it all during the last 15 years.

[jacovc1986]

does anyone have the text?

i can't understand half of it

[DeaconArael]

@jacovc1986 Now, that brings me to the Liberal Party. I gather that during the last few days there have been some ill-natured jokes about their new symbol, a bird of some kind, adopted by the Liberal Democrats at Blackpool. Politics is a serious business, and one should not lower the tone unduly. So I will say only this of the Liberal Democrat symbol and of the party it symbolises: this is an ex-parrot. It is not merely stunned, it has ceased to be, expired and gone to meet its maker.

[jacovc1986]

@DeaconArael thanks

[DeaconArael]

@jacovc1986 It is a parrot no more. It has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is a late parrot. And now for something completely different.

[thealmightypidgeon]

Everyone in that crowd is overweight, balding, old, wealthy, caucasian, and near sighted. That's not a joke, just an observation. I don't need to make jokes to make Tories look bad.

[asmodeus585]

@thealmightypidgeon: If this is your 'observation', then you must be blind.

[UnacceptableCableGuy]

Best. Stump speech. Ever.

[Coemgen1950]

This is the first time in twenty years that I have fallen over laughing at the sight of Maggie T

[PiperAfloat]

@ misishaxi -- yes, the strings of toffee hanging off them, I think.

[DrRocketLauncher]

Reagan must have been giving her pointers, surely. He joked all the time and is renowned for it. Maggie...eh, not so much.

[Misishaxi]

Fuuucking hell, look at them. Funny how you can spot a Tory a mile off, isn't it? it's something about the nose.

[CountOrlok1]

Fuck Thatcher

[karmapoliceman43]

Win.

[netsurferx1]

...A man with three buttocks! Oh wait, this isn't Monty Python's Flying Circus I'm watching...Curses!

[alexchafey]

Irony: John Cleese is a keen Liberal Democrat.

[rustywheels]

Zombie Parrot haunts Thatcher's children

[LANBritain1]

I love some of the members not even registaring the joke....not finding it funny at all - or what I think...what she is referencing or Monty Python itself!

[Kevinasp]

Thatcher didn't have a sense of humour. End of. This is someone who said "Every Prime Minister needs a willy" and didn't smile once. She probably thought Monty Python was a kind of snake.

[muffinpopdemon]

Well she's ruined that for me :/ Where did the guy that wrote that for her get the idea that a woman with NO sense of humour could pull that off well? I feel teh deepest sympathy for the Pythons now

[Galacticmaster]

i have never seen so many old folks in one building,

i suppose we needed a big change after thatcher

[theredraven]

I can't be the only Tory who watches this video and laughs at how ironic it is now?

[kyrastube]

I find this deeply disturbing in so many ways. I dont like that woman, and having her tainting down something I love as much as python.... it makes me wanna cry! and if the thing someone said before me here, that she had no idea who the pythons were... just makes me more sad. and I dont think they would have been to happy if they knew of this before it happened... and yes in deed, SHE is the dead parrot!

[caggles1]

The only dead parrot in this clip is Maggie herself. Only the Zombie blue rinse brigade could find such schlock amusing. At least Lamont and Major etc had the decency not to fake a laugh. Awful. How this woman got where she did is beyond me.

[orson12]

She didn't get the joke. She'd never see Python in her life, and a speechwriter wrote this for her. She wanted to get rid of this bit of the speech, and didn't understand what was so amusing about it.

Before she got up on the podium, she asked the speechwriter "This Monty Python fellow - is he one of us?" Sensing she'd jettison the joke, the speechwriter lied "Yes"

After the speech, she asked to watch the original parrot sketch, and sat silently throughout - she didn't find it remotely funny

[orson12]

She didn't get the joke. She'd never see Python in her life, and a speechwriter wrote this for her. She wanted to get rid of this bit of the speech, and didn't understand what was so amusing about it.

Before she got up on the podium, she asked the speechwriter "This Monty Python fellow - is he one of us?" Sensing she'd jettison the joke, the speechwriter lied "Yes."

After the speech, she asked to watch the original parrot sketch, and sat silently throughout - she didn't find it remotely funny.

[urquhart2001]

Here I thought her favourite programmes were "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" (rather a conservative series, being resolutely anti-union and anti-bureaucrat). Didn't realise she was in to Python. Good on the baroness.

[jumpyg1258]

I wish they wrote political speeches like this nowadays!

[Blue387]

Should have done silly walks instead.

[hypno45]

Remember folks, politics is serious business... like the internets.

Maggie had a sense of humour. Who knew lol.

[davimurph]

@hypno45 She didn't. She couldn't see the joke, even when her speech writers explained it. She also asked if this Monty Python person was a Tory.

[rm946]

@hypno45 actually her speech writers had some difficulty persuading her that this was funny. Even once she finally agreed she then said: 'this Monty Python chap... is he one of us?'

[KlingongBane]

@hypno45 It was her writers who had a sense of humour, she was just reading it out :L

[LuneyTune72]

@hypno45 She had no idea what the fuck she was saying. You should watch the video of Monty Python on MSNBC's Countdown (featured on YouTube.) They were right, she was trained to tell this joke.

[nurb101]

@hypno45

Ah but Reagan had a sense of humor too and he sold weapons to Iran while everyone was distracted and laughing

[megamarsvin]

@nurb101 Never trust a smiling politician. Or one that isn't smiling for that matter.

[Verdoux007]

I wonder if the Pythons appreciated their sketch being used by Maggie.

[drRouman]

This speech is gettig too silly.

[headfirst1987]

@drRouman

quite agree, quite agree, silly silly silly, get on with it......GET ON WITH IT

[cockneyskinhead]

....Like to have seen her cram the Spam sketch in........!

[BritSwedeGuy]

"The ironies are, of course, glorious. First, because the Tories and the LibDems have just formed the government of the UK. But second, because the Tories voted heavily in favour of the Digital Economy Act, which takes as its premise that this sort of cultural use of creative material is theft and should be vigorously punished (except, presumably, when the villainous Ms Thatcher does it)."

Cory Doctorow

[pyromaniacchica]

Politics aside, that was hilarious and she wins cool points for that. Favorite.

[hugoegbert79]

Of course, it was her that was the ex-parrot, although she didn't quite know it at the time. They stabbed her in the back about two weeks after this. And now her party is allied with the Liberal Democrats. How times change, eh?

[donodare]

EPIC

[Wilipeidia]

lol, why don't polotians do things like this today!

[joshaf26]

It just goes to show you that Monty Python is more influential in that country than Margaret Thatcher...

[jestermoon]

@joshaf26She changed the counrty from a 19th centrury socialist back water, into something completly differant, , which was tough, but needed at the time. Without her, we would have been the poor man of Europe, second to the French for heavans sake........

[veritysw]

@joshaf26 Not really - she changed the path of political and social history. Yes, the Pythons were and still are huge and I love their work, but in terms of influence... Britain would be a very, very different place today if we hadn't had Thatcher - and I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just a matter of fact.

[ExodusPessoa]

@joshaf26 Well Put

[schrodingerscheshire]

WIN!

[ChannelATA]

I'm glad she chose a career in politics instead of one in comedy :)

[leahkkaps]

what year is this from?

[NovaWasp]

it was recorded on the 10th of December 1990. it says so on the bottom right-hand side of the recording

[Kryptonater1994]

This isnt funny...

[mistaben2k]

Take that back,she cannot be funny.

[TLrtd]

Wow, with this single act, Thatcher has become funny.