Burglar/Encyclopaedia Salesman
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 Burglar/Encyclopedia Salesman |
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| Episode: | Man's Crisis of Identity in the Latter Half of the Twentieth Century (November 16, 1969) |
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| Writer: | |
| Actors: | Eric Idle John Cleese |
Burglar/Encyclopaedia Salesman is a sketch from the Monty Python's Flying Circus episode "Man's Crisis of Identity in the Latter Half of the Twentieth Century".
In the sketch, a door-to-door encyclopaedia salesman (Eric Idle) attempts to get into a woman (John Cleese)'s apartment to sell her an encyclopaedia set by saying he's only a burglar, and isn't going to sell her anything, just steal a few things. He succeeds and is let in. He then reveals himself by asking her if she's ever actually considered owning a good set of encyclopaedias. Another character, played by Michael Palin, declares that Idle's character is a successful encyclopaedia salesman. We are then shown an unsuccessful encyclopaedia salesman, which is footage of a man being thrown out of a window several stories up from the ground. This is followed by footage of two unsuccessful salesmen, which is the same as above except with two people being thrown.
The sketch is a parody of the annoyance many people felt about door-to-door salesmen, who were very common at the time of the sketch and comparable to current telemarketer. The humour comes from the fact that the woman suspects the burglar of being a salesman without any indication, and the fact that the burglar gains entrance to the apartment merely by announcing his intentions of burglary from the start.
