Sixteen Ton Weight
This sketch was the first appearance of Monty Python's 16-ton weight. In the typical style of a comedy or cartoon weight, it was coloured black, in shape of a right square frustum, and had its mass "16 TONS" painted on the side in large white letters. Monty Python's sixteen ton weight was hollow lightweight board and approximately 1.5m high, allowing it to readily conceal the character upon whom it was dropped. The sixteen ton weight was used periodically thereafter to bring an abrupt ending to sketches (in much the same way as the knight with a rubber chicken would do during the first series). A later episode would end with the weight being dropped on a TV announcer (played by Palin) and in the instant before cutting to a black screen, the viewer can see the top of the prop being broken due to Palin not ducking down fast enough.
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Famous quotes containing the words sixteen, ton and/or weight:
“If you think that nobility consists of having sixteen ancestors rather than merit, great Prince, then you may—and you may also praise or condemn me.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Hearing your words, and not a word among them
Tuned to my liking, on a salty day
When inland woods were pushed by winds, that flung them
Hissing to leeward like a ton of spray,”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
“Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)