What was the name of the character played by John Cleese in the “Dead Parrot” sketch? Mr. Praline. He is the increasingly furious customer who returns to a pet shop after discovering that his recently purchased parrot is dead.
Mr. Praline was played by John Cleese, while Michael Palin played the shopkeeper who insists that the bird is merely stunned, pining for the fjords or otherwise not quite dead. The sketch first appeared in the eighth episode of the first series of Monty Python's Flying Circus, broadcast in December 1969.
The character was one of the few recurring Python creations. Mr. Praline appeared in another early sketch as a police inspector investigating Whizzo's Chocolates; the name “Praline” fits the confectionery theme. His most famous appearance, however, is the pet-shop confrontation, in which Cleese lists increasingly elaborate euphemisms for death before declaring the parrot an “ex-parrot.”
Viewers sometimes confuse Mr. Praline with the Gumbys or Mr. Creosote, other memorable Python characters. Those characters were also associated with the troupe, but neither is the customer in the Dead Parrot sketch. The sketch was written by Cleese and Graham Chapman and became one of Python's best-known scenes.