Crunchy Frog
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Crunchy Frog is a fictional confection originating from a Monty Python sketch titled "Trade Description Act", inspired by the British law Trade Descriptions Act 1968.
The sketch
Mr. Milton, the owner of the Whizzo Chocolate Company (Terry Jones) is approached by two members of the Hygiene Squad, Inspector Praline (John Cleese) and Superintendent Parrot (Graham Chapman). The officers confront him about the odd flavours that are used in the Whizzo Quality Assortment, and cite inadequate descriptions of his products as a violation of the Trade Descriptions Act. They ask him to explain the confection labelled "Crunchy Frog". Milton describes it as an entire frog that has been coated with chocolate, using only "the finest baby frogs, dew picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose."[1] The bones are left in deliberately: "If we took the bones out it wouldn't be crunchy would it?"[1]
Other questionable items include Ram's Bladder Cup (made from "fresh Cornish Ram's bladder, emptied, steamed, flavoured with sesame seeds whipped into a fondue and garnished with lark's vomit"), Cockroach Cluster, Anthrax Ripple, and Spring Surprise (chocolate wrapped around two stainless steel bolts that "spring out and plunge straight through both [of the victim's] cheeks").[1] At the end of the scene Milton is arrested, and the Superintendent, who has been vomiting during the entire conversation (having sampled the Crunchy Frog and some of the others), faces the camera and warns the public to "take more care when buying its sweeties".[1]
A later sketch in the same episode features a North American Indian, played in stereotypical fashion by Eric Idle, eating a Crunchy Frog and indicating approval.[2]
Stage and film
The film Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl also contains a performance of this sketch, with Chapman as the Inspector and Terry Gilliam as his assistant. The assistant is now called Constable Parrot, and while he too periodically leaves the room to fight off his nausea, he remains onstage during his last attack of sickness and vomits into his helmet—which he is then forced by his superior to put back on his head. (Gilliam filled his mouth with cold beef stew when he ran off stage during the scene.)
The Monty Python Live (Mostly) stage show features a similar performance, with some small changes to the dialogue - e.g., the Ram's Bladder Cup sweet is now described as having been garnished with mouse faeces rather than lark's vomit - and with Cleese as the Inspector. Jones appears to be reading some of his dialogue from the insert cards in the chocolate box. The televised 20 July 2014 performance includes some fluffs and corpsing, and a moment in which Cleese takes a card from Jones and reads his line for him before announcing "This is me now" and continuing with his own line.
Other appearances
- In Monty Python's Big Red Book there is a page designed as a chocolate box insert, with descriptions of all the sweets in the Whizzo Quality Assortment.
- In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, two kinds of sweets seen eaten by the characters are Chocolate Frogs and Cockroach Clusters.[3]
- In the video game Fable, the description of food item "Crunchy Chick" says, "It's the bones that make them crunchy" in a possible reference to Crunchy Frogs.
- In Blizzard Entertainment's popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, Crunchy Frog can be bought as food at the Darkmoon Faire, a traveling carnival.
