The "Cheese Shop" is a sketch fromMonty Python's Flying Circus.^[1][2]

It originally appeared in episode 33, "Salad Days" on 30 November, 1972. The script for the sketch is included in the 1989 bookThe Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words, Volume 2.^[3]

It was later reworked for the albumThe Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief and appeared for one last time duringMonty Python Live (Mostly), as a surprising coda to theDead Parrot sketch.

The idea for the sketch came after a day of shooting inFolkestone Harbour, whereJohn Cleese becameseasick and threw up repeatedly while trying to deliver a line. During the drive back,Graham Chapman recommended that Cleese eat something and asked him what he wanted; Cleese replied that he fancied a piece ofcheese. Upon seeing achemist's shop, Cleese pondered whether the shop would sell cheese, to which Chapman responded that if they did it would be medicinal cheese and that Cleese would need a prescription to buy some. Giggling, they decided to write a sketch based on that idea. However, on starting to write it, they concluded that asking for cheese in a chemist's shop was too unrealistic without being set up. Wondering why someone would attempt to buy cheese somewhere other than a cheese shop, Cleese thought that they should write a sketch about someone attempting to buy cheese in a cheese shop that had no cheese whatsoever to set up a sketch revolving around someone attempting to buy cheese at a chemist's which never wound up happening.^[4]

Chapman then wrote the sketch with Cleese, who did not initially find it humorous. When Chapman insisted that it was funny, they presented it at a reading for the other Python members. Though most of the other Pythons were also unimpressed,Michael Palin loved it and laughed hysterically, eventually falling to the floor. This amused the others and they agreed to use the sketch.^[5]

Cleese plays an erudite customer (Mr. Mousebender in the script) attempting to purchase some cheese from "Ye Old Cheese Emporium, purveyor of fine cheese to the gentry (and the poverty-stricken too)". The proprietor (Palin), Mr. Arthur Wensleydale (Henry Wensleydale in the TV version), appears to have nothing in stock, not evencheddar, "the single most popular cheese in the world". A slow crescendo ofbouzouki music plays in the background performed byJoe Moretti, asTerry Jones andGraham Chapman dance while dressed inbowler hats and business suits. Cleese initially expresses appreciation of the music, being "one who delights in all manifestations of theTerpsichorean Muse", but as the sketch progresses it mirrors Cleese's growing frustration until he loudly demands the music cease. As Cleese lists increasingly obscure, unsavoury, and, in one instance fictional,^[6] cheeses to no avail, the proprietor offers weak excuses such as "Ohh! The cat's eaten it." Cleese remarks that it is not much of a cheese shop, but Palin insists it is the best in the district due to its cleanliness, to which Cleese replies "Well, it's certainly uncontaminated by cheese." Eventually, Cleese asks if Palin has any cheese at all, to which Palin replies "no". Cleese then tells him that he will ask the question again, and if Palin says "no", he will shoot him "through" the head. Palin answers "no" the second time, and Cleese immediately shoots him, then muses, "What a senseless waste of human life!" He then puts on aStetson, and the sketch segues intoHugh Walpole'sRogue Cheddar and a link to theSam Peckinpah's "Salad Days" sketch.

Forty-three cheeses are mentioned in the original sketch. In the audio version onThe Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief album and other live and recorded versions, Cleese also mentionsGreek feta. In the 2014 reunion showMonty Python Live (Mostly), Stinking Bishop,Armenian string cheese and Zimbabwean rhinoceros milk cheese were also added to the list. "Venezuelan Beaver Cheese", mentioned in the original as well as future versions, is a fictitious type of cheese.

• The sketch was reworked forThe 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".^{[citation needed]}
• The"Weird Al" Yankovic song "Albuquerque" parodies the sketch by portraying a similar situation in a doughnut shop. The scene ends when the shopkeeper reveals that all he has is a "box of one dozen starving, crazed weasels"; the main character purchases and opens it and is attacked by the creatures inside.^[9]
• A wheel ofLe Brouère cheese was flown aboard the firstSpaceX Dragon 1 reusable space capsule on 8 December 2010 in reference to this sketch. The presence of the space cheese was made known the day after the successful flight.^[10]
• TheThe Young Ones episodeTime, features a parody of the sketch.Alexei Sayle (playing the customer), asks the shop attendant whether they have any cheese. When the attendant replies he doesn't, Sayle says "Well that's ruined that sketch.".

• List of British cheeses
• Smackout
• Olympia Cafe

• Tastings and pictures of the cheeses from the sketch at theWayback Machine (archived 28 August 2012)

• Cheese in culture
• Lists of cheeses
• Monty Python sketches
• Fiction about retailing

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