Subversion: The boys behind Monty Python's Flying Circus apparently felt no need to tack a punchline at the end of every sketch, no matter what the BBC told them. They usually offered a segue into the next sketch instead, though a few sketches made fun of such punchlines. The restaurant sketch with the dirty fork is an example of the latter, where the cheesiness of the punchline (which is marked by a title card saying 'And now for the punchline' and was "Luckily I didn't tell him about the dirty knife.") is shown to ruin the humour of the sketch. When a later sketch is ended by a policeman who tries to arrest everyone for making a strange sketch, another policeman then enters and tries to arrest everyone else for trying to get out of the sketch without a punchline.
Strictly speaking, Monty Python sketches typically had lots of punchlines, they just didn't end their sketches with one as was typical before and since. We might want to expound on punchlines a bit in the main article since they're such a fundamental element of humor. Maybe I'm splitting hairs.
Strictly speaking, Monty Python sketches typically had lots of punchlines, they just didn't end their sketches with one as was typical before and since. We might want to expound on punchlines a bit in the main article since they're such a fundamental element of humor. Maybe I'm splitting hairs.