Monty Python Horseshoes
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Some of you would have known the solution to the strange wording on the label immediately even without this key.
Selected readings
- "'Here comes the prince'" (4/8/25)
- "Looking on the bright side" (3/28/20)
- "Preaching the gospel of wrong is right?" (8/20/09) — 4th, 6th, 13th, 35th, and 51st comments
Philip Taylor said,
May 9, 2026 @ 12:21 pm
Indeed, some of us did (tho' I've not checked the key to make sure that my idea is correct — I am assuming that the coconuts were hollowed out and halved, and then used on a hard surface to imitate the sound of horses' hooves. A fairly standard broadcasting technique, I believe, at least in the early days of broadcasting.
Michael Watts said,
May 9, 2026 @ 1:40 pm
I don't know how the recorded sounds were produced, but within the film the sound is depicted as being generated by the two hollowed halves of a coconut being clapped against each other.
F said,
May 10, 2026 @ 4:44 am
Seems inordinately expensive, considering the work the purchaser has to do to convert them for use.
Philip Taylor said,
May 10, 2026 @ 7:58 am
Almost certainly cheaper than hiring a horse, tho' (unless one already owns one, that is).
Chris Button said,
May 10, 2026 @ 10:31 am
So funny.
My personal favorite scene from the movie is this one though:
https://youtu.be/R7qT-C-0ajI?si=KR_OHhmp7lE_AszJ
tudza said,
May 10, 2026 @ 4:04 pm
Went to a show of Tuvan throat singers. They used the hooves of a horse to make that sound.
Philip Taylor said,
May 11, 2026 @ 3:22 am
The horse must have either been extremely co-operative (and therefore a gelding) or else heavily tranquilised in order to allow its hooves to be used in that way …
Mark Young said,
May 11, 2026 @ 6:29 am
…some disassembly required.
KeithB said,
May 11, 2026 @ 7:16 am
I watched a documentary on a Disney sound effects technician. He was very proud of the fact that his horse-clopping was four legged, he said that most of the ones out there get the rhythm wrong and end up being a three-legged horse.
Ralph Hickok said,
May 11, 2026 @ 8:13 am
For a couple of years, I was walking about a mile and a half on the local YMCA track every day. There were never many other people on the track and I was often alone. I thought I was alone on this particular day, until I came around the curve into the home stretch of my first lap and was confronted by a guy walking backwards. He was moving at a fairly good clip but, because I could see where I was going, I was traveling even faster. As I approached him, he gave me a manic grin and said, "I got the bag with the coconuts."
"Good for you," I said. What else could I say in response to such a crazy statement?
I was in the inside lane and he was in the middle lane but, as I was about to pass him, he lurched into my path. I quickly swung around to the outside and sped up, eager to put him behind me. Once I was safely past, I couldn't help looking back over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't about to attack me. I increased my pace to put more distance between us and, as I passed the telephone for making an emergency call to the front desk, I noted its location.
Of course, as I was getting farther away from him in one direction, I was getting closer to him in the other direction, and eventually I was again approaching him.
The same manic grin. This time he said, "I saw it in Boston and they gave the bag with the coconuts to the first hundred people who bought tickets."
Something clicked. If I had been a cartoon character, a thought bubble containing a light bulb would have appeared over my head.
I was wearing a Spamalot T-shirt that my daughter Holly had given me! In the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and in the musical "Spamalot," King Arthur and his knights "gallop" around the country clapping coconut halves together to mimic the sound of hoofbeats. Obviously, my backward-walking companion had seen "Spamalot" in Boston and had been rewarded with a bag containing two coconut halves.
I was relieved but still a bit wary.
After all, that still didn't explain why he was walking backwards.
Trogluddite said,
May 11, 2026 @ 11:38 am
@Ralph Hickok: Maybe he was also a fan of Spike Milligan and/or the Goon Show (often cited as precursors to Monty Python). In which case he'll have been in training to woo his lover by walking backwards across the Irish Sea at Christmas.
Philip Taylor said,
May 11, 2026 @ 2:23 pm
"[A Disney sound effects technician] […] said that most of the ones out there get the rhythm wrong and end up being a three-legged horse". Then said Disney sounds effect technician has never been exposed to real-life equitation. The canter (most definitely a 3-time gait, and clearly audible as such in the Monty Python video) might sound to the naïve listener as being produced by a 3-legged horse, but in fact it is a very common gait for any well-trained (and, of course, 4-legged) horse. The trot is 2-time, canter 3-time, and gallop 4-time.
ajay said,
May 12, 2026 @ 5:39 am
Old-school radio sound effects are a fascinating area – a relative of mine used to work in radio and described little desktop trays of gravel (to create the effect of someone walking across gravel) and frameworks containing various small doors with creaking hinges, locks, bolts and so on.
There's also the great Spike Milligan story about the "hit by a sockful of custard" effect – Spike was the bane of the BBC sound effects department during the 50s and at one point wanted to have a character being hit with a sockful of custard. The sound effects department provided various clips, none of which sounded quite the way he wanted, so he eventually went to the BBC canteen and asked for some custard – the cook, assuming he was ill, lovingly prepared a custard, Spike took off one sock, poured the custard into it, went downstairs and swung it against a wall in the basement.
That didn't sound right either.
KevinM said,
May 12, 2026 @ 4:51 pm
@Philip Taylor. Explaining, I guess, why the William Tell overture so vividly suggests hoofbeats.