Dead Parrot sketch of "Death in Paradise". A joke dated AD 400, recently translated from Greek, shows similarities to the Parrot sketch. It was written by Hierocles and Philagrius and was included in a compilation of 265 jokes titled "Philogelos: The Laugh Addict". In the Greek version, a man complains to a slave-merchant that his new slave has died. The slave-merchant replies, "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" In Mark Twain's humorous short story "A Nevada Funeral", two characters use a series of euphemisms for death including 'kicked the bucket' and 'departed to that mysterious country from whose
Paradise parrot Paradise parrot The paradise parrot, species Psephotellus pulcherrimus, was a colourful medium-sized parrot native to the grassy woodlands of the Queensland – New South Wales border area of eastern Australia. Once moderately common within its fairly restricted range, the last live bird was seen in 1927. Extensive and sustained searches in the years since then have failed to produce any reliable evidence of it, and it is the only Australian parrot recorded as disappearing and presumed extinct. The plumage was extraordinarily colourful, even by parrot standards, a mixture of turquoise, aqua, scarlet, black and brown. The tail was almost the