Dead Parrot sketch very funny there, if we could find the right context for it". In early drafts of what would become the Dead Parrot Sketch, the frustrated customer was trying to return a faulty toaster to a shop. Chapman realised that it needed to be "madder", and came up with the parrot idea. Over the years, Cleese and Palin have done many versions of the "Dead Parrot" sketch for various television shows, record albums, and live performances. "Dead Parrot" was voted the top alternative comedy sketch in a Radio Times poll. Mr. Praline (Cleese) enters the pet shop to register a complaint
Mascarene parrot of the scientific names, such as "Mascarinus obscurus" and "Coracopsis obscura". The unidentified parrot may have been a grey parrot ("Psittacus erithacus") instead. Another unidentified parrot specimen, this one brown and housed in Cabinet du Roi, was described by the French naturalist Comte de Buffon in 1779 under his entry for the Mascarene parrot, in which he pointed out similarities and differences between the two. The English palaeontologist Julian Hume has suggested the possibility that this might have been a lesser vasa parrot, if not a discoloured old Mascarene grey parakeet ("Psittacula bensoni"). The specimen is now lost. English zoologist