Someone did a lot of legwork and pulled together a heap of Monty Python videos on YouTube. The list includes one famous segment called “Dead Parrot,” which is notable partly because it’s funny, and partly because it forms the basis of a secondary joke.
To make a long story short, there are some folks out there called “scambaiters” who take revenge against 419 scammers — you know, the people who generate those emails that begin something like this: “I have picked-up the trust and courage to write you this letter with divine confidence that you are a reliable and honest person who will be capable for this important business transaction believing also that you will let me down either now or in the future.” When one scambaiter named Mike Berry received one such email, he somehow managed to turn the tables on the scammers and duped them into recreating the Python Dead Parrot skit. The prank all gets explained at the start of the video below, and you can read more about it here.
