The Reluctant Cannibal - Flanders & Swann

Flanders: A song which we call, "The Reluctant Cannibal":

Seated one day at the tom-tom,

I heard a welcome shout from the kitchen:

"COME AND GEEEEEEEEEEET IT!"

Roast leg of insurance salesman!

A of "yum"s ran round the table:

(Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum...)

Except for Junior, who pushed away his shell,

Got up from his log, and said:

Swann:"I don't want any part of it!"

Flanders: What? Why not?

Swann: I don't eat people.

Flanders: Hey?

Swann: I won't eat people.

Flanders: Huh?

Swann: I don't eat people.

Flanders: I must be going deaf!

Swann: Eating people is wrong.

Flanders: It's wrong?

Swann: Don't eat people.

Flanders: Have you gone clean out of your mind?

Swann: I won't eat people.

Flanders: What's the matter with the lad?

Swann: Don't eat people.

Flanders: He keeps on repeating.

Both: Eating people is bad.

Flanders: But people have always eaten people,

What else is there to eat?

If the Juju had meant us not to eat people,

He wouldn't have made us of meat!

Swann: Don't eat people.

Flanders: Oh no, not again.

Swann: I won't eat people.

Flanders: All the day long.

Both: Don't eat people.

Flanders: He keeps on repeating.

Both: Eating people is wrong.

Flanders: Well... I... I never heard a more ridiculous idea in all my born days. To think that a son of mine should grow up to be a sissy - me, chief assistant to the assistant chief! I suppose you realise, son, if this was to get around, we might never get self-Government.

Swann: I won't eat people!

Flanders: Have you been talking to one of your mothers again? You're not getting to be one of these cranks who think that eating people is cruel, are you? Seeing the man sitting in the pot and you think he's suffering. Oh, it's not like that at all. Why, he's just had an invigourating chase through the forest, sitting there in the nice warm water with all the carrots and dumplings and things, he's thinking, "Oh, the pleasure and happiness I'm going to give to a heap of people". That man in the pot there, he enjoys it!

Swann: Eating people is wrong!

Flanders: Look son, son, I admire your sincerity. Always be sincere... whether you mean it or not. But you're young, you're young, when you're young you think you can change the whole world overnight, even eating people - I know, I've been young myself. Take it from your old Dad, you've just got to learnt to take the world as it is.

Swann: I won't let another man pass my lips!

Flanders: I know why you say "Don't eat people", because you are a coward, Francis, that's your trouble. Yes, a yellow-livered coward. You wouldn't mind eating people if you weren't afraid of ending up in the pot yourself - how despicable! If you go on like this you're liable to get ME into hot water.

Swann: I won't eat people.

Flanders: That's enough!

Swann: I don't eat people.

Flanders: I don't want to...

Swann: Eating people is wrong!

Flanders: Communist!

Going around saying "Don't eat people",

That's the way to make people hate'ya.

We always have eaten people, always will eat people,

You can't change human nature.

Now let's try...

Swann: I won't eat people,

I don't eat people,

I won't eat people,

I don't eat people!

Flanders: Must have been someone he ate!

Swann: Eating people is out!

Flanders: I give up, I give up, you used to be a regular anthrophagi. If this crazy idealistic idea of yours was to catch on, I just dunno where we would all be. Just about ruin our entire internal economy. Fortunately, I suppose it's catching on isn't really very likely - why, you might just as well going around saying "Don't fight people", for example...

Swann: Don't fight people? Ha, ha! Don't fight people?! Ha ha ha!

Flanders: There, imagine? There, you see! All part of the same...

Both:(laughing) ... fantastical impossibility!

Flanders: That's the boy!

Both: RIDICULOUS!