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The French Chef
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
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The premise
Here’s the bit.
On a parody of Julia Child's cooking program, Dan Aykroyd's Child sets out to prepare a half-boned chicken for a holiday feast but first wanders into a long tangent urging viewers never to discard the liver. When she starts cutting along the backbone she slices her finger, and as blood sprays across the counter she calmly turns the lesson into kitchen first aid, pressing her apron, packing on chicken liver as a coagulant and fashioning a cheesecloth tourniquet. Her call for help fails when the wall phone turns out to be a prop, and, growing faint, she drifts into a childhood memory before signing off and collapsing onto the bloody counter.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 1
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
Now I've done it. I've cut the dickens out of my finger.
Save the liver, don't throw it away.
Oh, this phone is a prop. It doesn't work.
Behind the scenes
The people who made it.
Tom Davis
Writer
Al Franken
Writer
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
Writers Tom Davis and Al Franken based the sketch on Julia Child cutting her finger shortly before a 1978 appearance on Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show, and first hoped to stage it with the previous week's host, Walter Matthau, before handing the role to Aykroyd. Child reportedly enjoyed the parody so much that she showed it to friends at parties.
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:09
Julia Child
Welcome. I'm Juliet Child.
- 00:11
Julia Child
Today, we're going to make a holiday feast, or les fêtes de l'idée, and we're going to start with half-bone chicken, or poulard demi-dé-saussée.
- 00:22
Julia Child
Now, you need a fine, fat, roasting chicken like this one and first remove the giblets and you really should save the giblets they make a fine stock for soup or you can save the liver and fry it up with some onions
- 00:36
Julia Child
for a little snack or if you have a number of livers you can make a lovely liver pate
- 00:41
Julia Child
or perhaps a delicious liver worse which you can spread on a cracker a ritz cracker a saltine
- 00:49
Julia Child
if One bread, a rye bread, a pumple,
- 00:53
Julia Child
you're celebrating the jewish holidays you can make a chopped liver and shape it into the bust of a friend someone who's getting married or bar mitzvahed bar
- 01:07
Julia Child
Is that it? Am I pronouncing it right? Bar mitzvah i hope so
- 01:11
Julia Child
the cat or a dog they love liver save the liver hope i've made my point don't throw the liver away
- 01:22
Julia Child
now where was i oh yes poulard demi des
- 01:27
Julia Child
Now, after we've moved the giblets and saved the you-know-what,
- 01:31
Julia Child
they mention liverwurst. You can spread it on crackers.
- 01:36
Julia Child
Oh, well, anyway, it's time to bone the chicken. Now, for this, you need a very sharp knife. Can't do nothing without a sharp knife.
- 01:44
Julia Child
Now, you place the chicken on its stomach and cut along the backbone to the pope's nose like so. Crr-rum!
- 01:51
Julia Child
Oh! Now I've done it. I've cut the dickens out of my finger.
- 01:56
Julia Child
Well, I'm glad in a way this happened. You know, accidents do cost from time to time in the kitchen we've never really discussed what to do
- 02:05
Julia Child
first you must stop the bleeding the best way is with direct pressure on the apron like so
- 02:14
Julia Child
now you want to raise your hand over your head so the blood has to be pumped all the way up
- 02:19
Julia Child
oh the apron doesn't seem to be working so i'd recommend uh natural coagulants such as chicken
- 02:26
I don't know, I don't
- 02:28
Julia Child
then a reason not to throw away the liver
- 02:30
Julia Child
Oh, oh God, it's throbbing
- 02:33
Julia Child
A tourniquet, that's it Yes, a tourniquet can be made A cheesecloth And a chicken bone
- 02:41
Julia Child
Find a pressure point between the heart and the rear In this case, the wrist And cut off the blood Oh, this is a resort. However, because you could lose your hand if you tighten it too much.
- 02:53
Julia Child
You're too woozy to tie the tourniquets.
- 02:55
Julia Child
I'm going to call for emergency help.
- 02:58
Julia Child
Time left.
- 03:00
Julia Child
now every kitchen Should have the emergency number written on it somewhere. Oh, this one doesn't. 911.
- 03:10
Julia Child
Ah. Ah.
- 03:15
Julia Child
Oh, this phone is a prop. It doesn't work.
- 03:17
Julia Child
Oh. That's a shame, because I'm remembering a time when I was a little girl, and I had a dog named Amber. I used to give him liver, and my mother gave me a doll.
- 03:31
Julia Child
Why are wall spinning. I'm going to go to sleep now.
- 03:36
Julia Child
Bon appetit.
- 03:41
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