John Cleese’s Eulogy for Graham Chapman: ‘Good Riddance, the Free-Loading Bastard, I Hope He Fries’

The British come­di­an Gra­ham Chap­man delight­ed in offend­ing peo­ple. As a writer and actor with the leg­endary Mon­ty Python troupe, he pushed against the bound­aries of pro­pri­ety and good taste. When his writ­ing part­ner John Cleese pro­posed doing a sketch on a dis­grun­tled man return­ing a defec­tive toast­er to a shop, Chap­man thought: Bro­ken toast­er? Why not a dead par­rot? And in one par­tic­u­lar­ly out­ra­geous sketch writ­ten by Chap­man and Cleese in 1970,  Chap­man plays an under­tak­er and Cleese plays a cus­tomer who has just rung a bell at the front desk:

“What can I do for you, squire?” says Chap­man.

“Um, well, I won­der if you can help me,” says Cleese. “You see, my moth­er has just died.”

“Ah, well, we can ‘elp you. We deal with stiffs,” says Chap­man. “There are three things we can do with your moth­er. We can burn her, bury her, or dump her.”

“Dump her?”

“Dump her in the Thames.”

“What?”

“Oh, did you like her?”

“Yes!”

“Oh well, we won’t dump her, then,” says Chap­man. “Well, what do you think? We can bury her or burn her.”

“Which would you rec­om­mend?”

“Well, they’re both nasty.”

From there, Chap­man goes on to explain in the most graph­ic detail the unpleas­ant aspects of either choice before offer­ing anoth­er option: can­ni­bal­ism. At that point (in keep­ing with the script) out­raged mem­bers of the stu­dio audi­ence rush onto the stage and put a stop to the sketch.

Chap­man and Cleese had been close friends since their stu­dent days at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, and when Chap­man died of can­cer at the age of 48 on Octo­ber 4, 1989, Cleese was at his bed­side. Out of respect for Chap­man’s fam­i­ly, the mem­bers of Mon­ty Python decid­ed to stay away from his pri­vate funer­al and avoid a media cir­cus. Instead, they gath­ered for a memo­r­i­al ser­vice on Octo­ber 6, 1989 in the Great Hall at St. Bartholomew’s Hos­pi­tal in Lon­don. When Cleese deliv­ered his eulo­gy for Chap­man, he recalled his friend’s irrev­er­ence: “Any­thing for him, but mind­less good taste.” So Cleese did his best to make his old friend proud. His off-col­or but heart­felt eulo­gy that evening has become a part of Mon­ty Python lore, and you can watch it above. To see a longer clip, with mov­ing words from Michael Palin and a sing-along of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” led by Eric Idle, watch below:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Mon­ty Python’s Life of Bri­an: Reli­gious Satire, Polit­i­cal Satire, or Blas­phe­my?

John Cleese, Mon­ty Python Icon, on How to Be Cre­ative


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Comments (6)
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  • Matt says:

    Accord­ing to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undertakers_sketch) the audi­ence boo­ing and tak­ing over the stage was *part of the sketch*

  • Mike Springer says:

    Yes, Matt. I knew that. Every­thing in my descrip­tion of the sketch was in the script, includ­ing that part. I’ve added a few words to the sen­tence in ques­tion and hope­ful­ly it’s clear­er now. Thanks for call­ing my atten­tion to the prob­lem.

  • Virginia says:

    That’s right Matt it is misleading.I have that sketch on my hard­drive. I have The Boys- entire collection.They cer­tain­ly have stood the test of time. Hope Ter­ri makes anoth­er film soon!

  • Jodi de la Paz says:

    My name is Jodi dela­paz. Thank you so much from Bowie, MD!

  • Julie says:

    Words can­not describe how much I miss good ol’ Chap­man. He did­n’t deserve such a way to go at such a young age. Rest in Peace fel­low day mak­er, you will be missed.

  • S D Joe says:

    Accounts at the time report­ed that Palin and Cleese were among his final vis­i­tors in hos­pi­tal; and that Cleese fell to pieces and had to be led away by oth­ers. To meet such a fate at so young an age was and is mon­strous­ly cru­el and unfair.

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