In the box

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In the Box! was a famous comedy sketch written and performed over several years variously by Jimmy James, Roy Castle, Hutton Coyers and Eli Woods. The sketch centred around three friends talking about a small box one of them was carrying, supposedly containing animals he had received as presents from his travels around the world.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Synopsis

One character carrying a box has just returned from his post of Colonial Secretary in Egypt, visiting different countries and each time receiving an animal, or animals as a present:

Some giraffes from Kenya
An elephant from South Africa
A lion from Nyasaland

Much discussion ensues about how on earth you can keep so many animals in a box ("I tie it with string"), the size and colour of the animals and the box wielder's sanity.

The punchline is that, of course, you couldn't fit a lion in such a small box already filled with giraffes and an elephant, even if, as is helpfully suggested, the other occupants shifted over. The obvious solution is that he keeps the lion in a cage, and puts the cage in the box.

Occasionally, the lions and elephants would be switched around.

This skit was also done as an episode of BBC children's show Tweenies, with Milo owning the box.