Subj : A Different Salmon Mousse Scene?
To   : All
From : Grumpy Old Nerd (fka Old Fogey)
Date : Mon Jan 08 2007 07:54 pm

From: arpepper@cs.uwaterloo.ca (Grumpy Old Nerd (fka Old Fogey))


Recently we got "Monty Python's The Meaning of Liff^He" on DVD.

I watched it in its entirety last weekend, and watched the "Director's Cut" and 
all the deleted scenes separately (except for the DVD-ROM features).

Now, as I browse the web, people allude to Death saying, mysteriously

"IT WAS THE SALMON MOUSSE".

However, on the DVD, and also on a VHS recording I happened to find from 1994, 
he says no such thing.  He knocks at the door, and is invited in to the party, 
and eventually everyone works out they are dead, and Mrs. Eric Idle asks how 
they all managed to die at once, and then Death rises up and points at the 
half-eaten mousse, and says "The Salmon Mousse".  ("You didn't use canned 
salmon, did you, dear?").

That's the first mention of "Salmon Mousse" in the movie.

But I remember another scene.  People were sitting at a party, babbling on 
about niceties, when the camera, and gradually the other guests notice Death 
sitting quietly in the corner.  All he says for a long time is "IT WAS THE 
SALMON MOUSSE".  When people try to get more explanation, he merely repeats it 
with more resonance.  I think the scene ends simply with all the party guests 
slumping down onto the table, dead.

I recall this as also being in the movie, perhaps early in the "Death" section. 
 I recall it seeming almost incongruous when the scene was later revisited from 
a different point-of-view, but then incongruity is not inappropriate for a 
Monty Python film, and it did allow the previously mysterious scene to be 
better explained.

Web searches suggest people know of the "IT WAS THE SALMON MOUSSE" quote.  Was 
it from cinematic (i.e. not DVD/TV) versions of the movie only?  Or was it in 
some other show (episode or movie)?

My wife recalls the same quotation, and it was disappointing to not hear Death 
growling, "IT WAS THE SALMON MOUSSE".

But web searches don't find an explanation.


Adrian Pepper.

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