Entertainment desk
< May 12	<< Apr \| May \| Jun >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 13

Don Martin and Monty Python

There is a discussion going on in Facebook about a cartoon that Don Martin drew for Mad Magazine, titled "One Menza-Menza Day in October". In the cartoon, a factory owner tells his son "One day, all this will be yours" and shows him a view of the factory from his office window. Later, his son tells him "Thanks, Dad!" and takes the window and curtains with him.

Did this inspire the famous "What, the curtains?" scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or the other way around? Or is this a coincidence? JIP | Talk 23:25, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Henny Youngman used to say there are no new jokes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The version I like is of an impoverished man showing his son his sole earthly possession, an awl, and saying "Some day, son, this awl will be yours". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:12, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The movie came out in 1975. When was Don Martin's cartoon published? It would seem to me whichever was released first could not be inspired by the other... RudolfRed (talk) 05:10, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reminiscent of The Muppet Show gag, where a doorbell rings and Kermit says, "Animal, get the door!". Animal returns carrying a door. Boom, boom! Alansplodge (talk) 14:49, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Baldrick in Blackadder II did that too. Come to think of it, Blackadder more than once claimed that Baldrick had animal relatives. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It didn't appear in Mad; it appeared in Cracked #240 (see here about half way down the page). The issue was from 1985, so Monty Python couldn't have been inspired by it. By 1985, Holy Grail was already a cult favourite, so inspiration the other way is at least possible. Matt Deres (talk) 20:01, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The general idea of that joke must be very old. Like in the movie Airplane! when someone tells the photographers, "Let's take some pictures!" and they start pulling framed pics off the walls. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:32, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]