A guy loading up a cart with dead bodies during a plague and yelling “
Bring out your dead!” is one of the scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail that always got me laughing. I think know where they got the inspiration for the scene. Terry Jones, who was also a respected medieval historian, probably got the idea for the sketch after reading Daniel Defoe’s book, A Journal of the Plague Year.
The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when he heard that noise and crying, as above, and nobody answered a great while; but at last one looked out, and said, with an angry quick tone, and yet a kind of crying voice, or a voice of one that was crying, " What d'ye want, that ye make such a knocking?" He answered, "I am the watchman, how do you do? What is the matter?" The person answered, " What is that to you? Stop the dead-cart." This, it seems, was about one o'clock ; soon after, as the fellow said, he stopped the dead-cart, and then knocked again, but nobody answered; he continued knocking, and the bellman called out several times. "Bring out your dead"; but nobody answered, till the man that drove the cart being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove away.
There's no nudity in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but I found one in The Meaning of Life, here's
Patricia Quinn from the movie. You can check out the clip at
Mr. Skin.
