Context
The sketch was part of a longer running joke within the episode, which was that they expected Queen Elizabeth II to watch the show at some point. Having had interjections throughout the show ("She's switched to ITV!"), the final scene, after the desultory audience invasion, has the entire studio coming to a halt and standing at attention while the music to God Save the Queen is played, and the end credits roll.
To juxtapose the joke that the Queen would be watching, the episode also deliberately featured many of Monty Python's most tasteless sketches. This sketch, the last in both the episode and the second series, immediately followed the "Lifeboat sketch" (also about cannibalism) and some graphically cannibalistic animation from Terry Gilliam. Nevertheless, it was this sketch which was most notorious for its tastelessness, and Cleese made specific reference to it alone in his eulogy for Chapman, when recalling Chapman's talent for pushing the boundaries of bad taste.
Read more about this topic: Undertakers Sketch
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