Michael Palin of British comedy troupe Monty Python was held at gunpoint by armed Venezuelan guards until showing them a 1971 sketch from the show.

He said the stop, while filming a new travelogue TV series, was just two policemen at first, until “men with rifles, bulletproof vests, and helmets” showed up, he said in an interview with The Mirror.

Despite “things [getting] quite heavy,” Palin had an ace up his sleeve in the form of a Monty Python fish-slapping sketch from over half a century ago.

After seeing the sketch, in which Palin dances, slapping John Cleese with a pair of fish, the National Guard decided to release him.

“Nearly everyone in the world, from North Korea to Venezuela, cracks up when they see that,” he said. “Once we’d shown them the fish slapping dance, I felt we w

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