Dead Parrot Sketch, 419-style

Anyone who spends any time on the Internet and has an email account knows about 419 scams. You get an email from someone claiming to be the widow of a world leader, or dying of cancer, or whatever, and they are looking for money. Often they already have a vast fortune and just need your help getting it out of some country, for which you will receive 10% or more. These scams are primarily run out of Nigeria, because they have good internet connections and lots of unemployed young men, and are named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal code. Millions of dollars have been lost and people have died because of these scams. The US State Department and FBI have webpages devoted to internet crimes largely because of the 419 scam.

The flip side of the 419 coin is scam-baiting. There are people who make a hobby out of scamming the scammers. The idea is to waste as much of the scammers time as possible, because while they are going round and round with a scam-baiter, they are not scamming some hapless fool. Scam-baiters are very creative and get scammers to go through humiliating rituals… and everything must be photographed or videotaped, of course. You can imagine the results, or you can see them for yourself on websites like Scamorama or 419 Eater.

Which brings us to this video… the recipient of a 419 email convinced the sender that he was the CEO of a video production company looking for creative people to make videos, act in videos, whatever. All they had to do was send a sample of their talent and he could surely get them a large grant. He suggested they recreate the classic Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch. This is what he got.



If you want to see the original for comparison, you can find it here.