Episode 4 - Owl StretchingTime

"What about my rustic monologue?" - John Cleese as Rustic Monologist


Well, it's Owl-Stretching time, boys and girls. Just grab that owl by the beak-- don't let him peck ya-- and clutch him just above the talons with your other hand-- yeah, they're sharp-- and streeeeeeeeetch!

Away we go with our 4th installment of my episode-by-episode appreciation of Monty Python's Flying Circus. As always, I invite, nay, urge you to watch along with me. The show is much, much better than this blog, and while watching the show is essential to enjoying this blog, you can enjoy the show without ever reading another word by me. But one of the joys of Monty Python is laughing with fellow fans about Monty Python. So watch the show, or buy the box set, if you haven't already. Burma!

Episode 4 begins with the "It's" Man thrown over a cliff, howling with pain. The dummy that they throw over is so ridiculously fake, even this minor and predictable act of gravity gets you laughing. Then, when the real Michael Palin crawls up from the rocks, you laugh even harder. The magic of cinema-- only you can see the strings. The dummy is probably the same dummy they used to depict the death of Admiral Nelson, but that dummy had clothes to hide the yellow, muppet-ish pallor of the its felt flesh. The "It's" Man's costume fails to hide said jaundiced pallor.

Another long rumination on this short bit-- the Circusians are building the legend of this hapless vagabond. Initially content to portray him as lost or abandoned, a survivor of some previous tragedy, for the past coupe of episodes they've transitioned from suggested danger to overt danger. He's no longer a mere unfortunate-- he's a marked man. But he still takes care of business and introduces the show.

Then the titles, again with more laughter than previous episodes. After the foot squishes the pretty naked lady, the name of the episode stands revealed-- "Episode Arthur"!! If you've looked at prior posts, you'll remember that I noticed a definite trend in the character appelations. Almost all of them are named "Arthur". It could be argued that this was all accidental, that the boys had a subliminal fetish for all things "Arthur" (a fetish that found its full realization in their first made-for-movies movie.) But now they're naming their episodes "Arthur"? Nope. This is not a writing accident! This is a meta bit. I've never heard it mentioned before by fan or scholar, so I found it! Therefore, I am claiming discovery of the "Arthur" bit, in the name of King Ferdinand. The natives who own the bit can piss off. Every time someone uses the name "Arthur" in an ironic way, I expect a check. After all, I'm not making a dime off the box sets. In addition to being "Episode Arthur", we read that it's Part 7-- Teeth.

Eric Idle appears as a groovy lounge singer with guitar, singing "Jerusalem" (with altered lyrics; "And did those teeth... in ancient times... walk upon England's mountain green...")  from the Cardiff Rooms in Libya. What?! I don't know, move on! Idle then dedicates the next song to a bewildering series of names, some of them historical references that I have no interest in. I'm content to let the erudition wash all over me. He throws in a pimple joke ("Old Spotty") before we launch into the first sketch.

Cleese and Chapman enter an art gallery, accompanied by unseen (but not unheard) children. What follows is one of Monty Python's "know-it-all" sketches, a series of art history references juxtaposed against the silly fact that the children are blithely destroying them. For me, the funniest part of this sketch is the slapping. Both Chapman and Cleese reach off screen to slap their misbehaving spawn. Sometimes the slaps come for no apparent reason. Cleese pauses mid-sentence to slap her child, and while Chapman is off-screen wailing on her "naughty, naughty, naughty, naughty boy", Cleese casually slaps hers, just to keep up. The slaps sound genuine-- like a PA was kneeling nearby, hand just out of frame, so Cleese and Chapman could slap at will. This is  the first time Cleese and Chapman have performed together as the Pepperpots in an entire sketch. It won't be the last. The sketch finishes with the two of them eating a Turner painting-- apparently a pasty dry concoction-- with a sweet pun to wash it down.

Michael Palin follows with a series of not-so-sweet puns as he devours a painting of his own. The winsome Katya Wyeth comes in with the stinkiest pun ever, and when criticized for it, she weepily replies "But it's my only line!" Commence running gag #2!

Look at the smile!

We leap back to Running Gag #1, Eric Idle with his guitar. Now he's being led to a bed as he continues singing "Jeruslaem" by the no-longer-winsome-but-incredibly-sexy Katya Wyeth, who makes up for her bad pun with some great seduction. Eric Idle seems to enjoy it capitally. Just look at the smile on his face! No way did he think all that prep school would get him this kind of career. As she lathers up his face and neck, a title appears-- "It's a Man's Life in the Cardiff Rooms, Libya" This shoots us into Running Gag #3. Holy crap, it's like the comedy version of a pinball machine!

Running Gag #3 is Graham Chapman, as the militaristic "officer commanding the Regular Army's advertising division." He strongly objects to the cribbing of the slogan "It's a Man's Life in the Modern Army," referring to it as "sloppy, long-haired civilian plagiarism." He orders the cameras about, ("Cut to me!") and sternly warns from a creased brow, moustache and clenched lips, that he will punish this program for any further encroachments upon the Army's intellectual property. This character, whether in the Army or the Police, is a Chapman standard. The hyper-masculine rectitude mixed with Chapman-esque absurdity never fails to delight. It might seem foreign to kids today, in the post-9/11 reverence that we laud on our military and police, but in the late 60s, in the era of Vietnam and the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention,  authority figures such as these were seen as buffoons. Nowadays, fat policemen can casually dissolve a peaceful student's eyeballs with a bottomless can of mace, and we thank the policeman for his service. We need more mockery. We need more Python!

The show, let off with a warning, continues with Terry Gilliam as the Viking. "This is my only line." Running gag #2! Tilt!

A film starring Terry Jones follows. It's funny enough-- a man tries to take off his pants to change into a swim suit, but can find no privacy to do it-- but it feels more like Benny Hill than Monty Python. There's even some irritating organ music, like we're in a silent movie hall. Chapman has one of the highlights as a doorman who gladly drops his trousers for Jones. (Could Chapman's legs be skinnier?) The piece finally transcends its pedestrian routes when Jones finds a dark place to get naked. Suddenly the lights come up, and he's on the stage of a strip parlor. Rather than get

embarrassed, he decides to quit worrying a love exhibitionism. The strip tease that follows is hilariously awkward yet assured. It's even a bit grotesque, as he lolls his tongue out taking off his socks. A great send up of the sexuality on display that we take for granted when it's women. It does go on a bit, though. Finally, it freeze frames, and a title tells us "It's a Man's Life Taking Your Clothes Off In Public." (The title is read aloud by the weirdest voices I've ever heard! Croaky, feminine, and very intimate, it's the kind of voice you wake up hearing when you're rousing from a nightmare. You can scarecely hear it over the applause at the end of the video, but listen for it, and it will haunt you. It will infect you like a virus, sticking in your brain, and you'll find yourself muttering it to yourself on rainy days. "It's a man's life... taking your clothes off in public.")

Running Gag #3 returns with Chapman giving the show a second warning, before handing off the reins to an equally militaristic Cleese, who instructs a class on self-defense. Only this class specializes in self-defense against fresh fruit. Much like the art gallery sketch, the humor here resides in the bookish recital of types of fresh fruit, juxtaposed against a self-defense class. But unlike the art gallery sketch, this bit builds some "serious" tension, as Cleese challenges the class to attack him with fresh fruit, then kills them for their trouble. Chapman,the first one killed, has a line that has become a staple in my house; "Yeah, and mangoes in syrup." (Yeah, like you never say strange shit for no reason in your house.) The build up to Chapman's death is masterful, prompting applause. What follows-- Cleese eating the banana, thus disarming his foe-- is less masterful. The students, appalled that Chapman has been killed, protest "You shot him! He's dead!" But the sketch can't continue until Cleese can manage his lines with a mouthful of banana. So the others wait silently, as does the audience, until Cleese can speak again. Once he does, the class resumes its protestations. "You shot him! You shot him dead!" This is one of those odd quirks that reminds us that the Flying Circus performed their sketches in front of a live audience, and we're seeing that relatively unedited performance, warts and all. In light of that fact, Cleese's performance is incredible. He shouts through the entire thing like a drill sergeant, and still manages to find levels within the constant screaming. In an equally awkward moment, Cleese blows himself up-- only he's still standing there when the smoke clears.

This sketch is also the first appearance of the seventh member of Monty Python's Flying Circus-- The 16-Ton weight. As Jones approaches with lethal raspberries, Cleese pulls the lever and drops the 16-Ton weight on him. "Suppose you haven't got a 16-Ton weight?", Palin asks. "Well, that's planning, isn't it? Forethought!" This prop would continue to make appearances throughout the Python canon, as recognizable as the squashing foot or the chicken-wielding knight.

Next, a short Gilliam animation-- I guess he was busy working on his Viking line-- links us to another short film, where two footman take a nobleman swimming. We shoot back to Idle, Running Gag #1, with Katya totally tonguing his face. She's no Carol Cleveland, but she puts her heart into it. Idle takes us to a film clip with a Welsh monologist, who announces that "It's a man's life in England's mountain green..." Chapman's Army man steps in and stops him cold, ordering the show to do something about teeth. "I'm not sleeping with that producer again," whines Cleese.

A series of film clips promise us excitement and adventure, but takes us into a book shop. What follows is a Bond spoof, prophetic of Austin Powers, with code names, plot twists and dizzying betrayals, all having to do with dentistry. While most of the performances are standard spoof shtick, Palin comes in with a French spy named LeFarge-- it's Cardinal Richelieu by way of a beatnik. He gives it his all, complete with hyper-ventilation when grilled for the location of the fillings. Chapman follows with a Dr. Eeeeee-vil progenitor named "The Big Cheese." He shoots a bunny at point blank range. He's eeeee-vil. The sketch is funny, but uninspired. Only the ending-- that innocent bystander Idle was actually an undercover dentist, and this whole thing is some sort of procedural glorifying the great works of the British Dental Association-- is worthy of the Python squeeze of approval. Idle sums up the lesson to be learned with a jaunty farewell ("Bye for now. Keep your teeth clean.") while he works on Gilliam's teeth. An unaccountably catchy jingle follows ("Lemming of the BDA.") and Idle promises that "It's a Man's Life in the British Dental Association." Chapman has had enough. He stops the show. The referee calls it, and Palin climbs up that cliff-- only to be thrown back off. He has graduated from surviving shipwrecks, to being attacked by animals, to being killed by people. Palin deserves a medal just for getting up that cliff wall. Cranston can count his Emmys, but has he ever climbed a cliff face like that? Cliffs, bitch!

Another solid show, memorable mostly for the layers of running gags. The silliness is becoming less stodgy and studied, more free-form. The team is finding its rhythm, but still has the confidence to stand its ground for a long form sketch or two. But though they are shaking off the chains of prior television, you can still hear the shackles rattle, as in the "Changing on the Beach" film or the bookstore sketch. Gilliam's animations were almost entirely absent. But at least we got to see him as a Viking.

Next week; Episode 5 - "Man's Crisis of Identity..."