Cheese Shop sketch
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[[Image:cheeseshop.jpg|thumb|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]]''.<ref>{{citation|journal=Queen's Journal of Medicine|title=Professor of cheese|volume=95 no. 2|author=John Launer|url=http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/extract/95/2/133}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=On the Discourse of Satire: Towards a Stylistic Model of Satirical Humor|author=Paul Simpson|isbn=9027233330|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NCW_nvfiUQkC|year=2003}}</ref>
It appears in episode 33, [[List of Monty Python's Flying Circus episodes#7. Salad Days|Salad Days]].
==Summary==
John Cleese plays an erudite customer attempting to purchase some cheese from ''The Old 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 cheese|Cheddar]], "''the single most popular cheese in the world''". A slow crescendo of [[bouzouki]] music in the background mirrors Cleese's growing anger as he lists increasingly obscure, unsavory, and sometimes fictional (e.g. the Venezuelan Beaver Cheese) cheeses to no avail while the proprietor offers trite excuses - "''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 [[Sam Peckinpah's "Salad Days"|Peckinpah parodies]].
==Cheeses==
Forty-two cheeses are mentioned in the skit:
#[[Leicester cheese|Red Leicester]]
#[[Tilsit cheese|Tilsit]]
#[[Caerphilly cheese|Caerphilly]]
#[[Bel Paese cheese|Bel Paese]]
#[[Red Windsor cheese|Red Windsor]]
#[[Stilton (cheese)|Stilton]]
#[[Gruyère (cheese)|Gruyère]]
#[[Emmental cheese|Emmental]]
#[[Jarlsberg cheese|Norwegian Jarlsberger]]
#[[Liptauer]]
#[[Lancashire cheese|Lancashire]]
#[[Stilton (cheese)|White Stilton]]
#[[Danish Blue cheese|Danish Blue]]
#[[Double Gloucester cheese|Double Gloucester]]
#[[Cheshire cheese|Cheshire]]
#[[Dorset Blue Vinney cheese|Dorset Blue Vinney]]
#[[Brie (cheese)|Brie]]
#[[Roquefort (cheese)|Roquefort]]
#[[Pont-l'Évêque (cheese)|Pont l'Evêque]]
#[[Port-Salut cheese|Port Salut]]
#[[Savoyard]]
#[[Saint-Paulin cheese|Saint-Paulin]]
#[[Carré de l'Est]]
#[[Boursin (cheese)|Boursin]]
#[[Bleu de Bresse|Bresse-Bleu]]
#[[Camembert (cheese)|Camembert]]
#[[Gouda (cheese)|Gouda]]
#[[Edam (cheese)|Edam]]
#[[Caithness]]
#[[Smoked Austrian]]
#[[Sage Derby cheese|Sage Derby]]
#[[Wensleydale cheese|Wensleydale]]
#[[Gorgonzola (cheese)|Gorgonzola]]
#[[Parmesan cheese|Parmesan]]
#[[Mozzarella]]
#[[Pipo Crème]]
#[[Fynbo (cheese)|Danish Fynbo]]
#[[Abertam cheese|Czechoslovakian sheep's milk cheese]]
#[[Venezuelan]] [[Beaver]] Cheese
#[[Cheddar cheese|Cheddar]]
#[[Ilchester Cheese Company|Ilchester]]
#[[Limburger cheese|Limburger]]
"Venezuelan Beaver Cheese" is fictitious but, despite this, recipes for it have since been published. It has also been mentioned in ''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life'' (PC game), [[Sierra Entertainment|Sierra]]'s computer adventure game [[Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail!|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 (television series)|The Young Ones]]'', [[Alexei Sayle]] rushes into a shop (while performing a [[The Ministry of Silly Walks|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 (TV & radio)|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2003120501152651#c30361|title=A bit of humor for this case...}}</ref> 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 (Monty Python)|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.''"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0136.html|title=It's Not A Gaming Session Until Someone Quotes Monty Python}}</ref>
* In the [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] song "[[Albuquerque (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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.com-www.com/weirdal/albuquerque.html|title=Albuquerque}}</ref>
* 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.
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0 The sketch on YouTube]
*[http://beavercheese.org/ Tastings and pictures of the cheeses from the sketch]
[[Category:Monty Python sketches]]
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[[nl:Cheese Shop]]