Episode 6 - It's The Arts

"Warning! Lark's Vomit!" - Cleese as Inspector Praline.

Hey, fellow Python heads, and welcome to another Monty Python episode. As always, if you haven't already, buy the box set and watch with me. Otherwise, this whole blogging exercise is faintly masturbatarian. Not that I mind, but I'm  sure you have better things to do then watch me wank. (Besides, if I do that here, what will I do in the shower?) But if you view the episodes alongside me, it's more illicit and less pathetic. Call it a "Circus Jerk."

The show so far... Monty Python began five episodes earlier, with a late night Sunday slot on the BBC. The show's sensibility was a cross between standard sketches, film clips, and links, and structured with a loose "stream of consciousness" format. Although bewildering at first blush, the show managed to hang together with absurdist running gags like pigs and flying sheep, or words and phrases like "And now for something completely different..." The creative tension in the group seems to be derived from the tug of war between the Cambridge contingent (Cleese, Chapman, Idle) and the Oxford contingent (Jones, Palin, Gilliam) although so far, they all seem to be playing very nice together. The random silliness never wanders too far from the more Apollonian sketch humor. Typical Python sketch treatments include "the Brain Drain", a wacky idea surrounded by intellectual references, and "the Naval Exam", a wacky idea wherein every possible variation and detail are thoroughly explored. Plus, they all seem to like the name "Arthur". The episode we'll be doing today is not "The Ant...". That was the next episode according to Kim "Howard" Johnson's book, but the box set has a different order, and I'm going with that.

Episode 6 begins with the "It's" Man, rushing up to a phone perched on a tree stump. He just misses the call. It seems like the tacit shipwreck he survived was just the start of his frustrations. Is this a frustration that plays anymore, in the era of portable phones? Does anybody truly "miss" a call, without doing so intentionally? Monty Python always prided itself on not doing topical humor, but it appears their phone gag has indeed become topical.

What's he hiding under that fig leaf?

Then we get a series of wacky captions-- we're even told how much each caption is, in freaky-deaky British currency-- while ARTHUR Figgis waits patiently. An acolyte rushes the stage asking for an autograph. Mr. Figgis tries to oblige-- but in a sudden shift to animation, his autograph gets away from him, curling up into a squiggly ball (a great Darwinian defense mechanism) and running off the page, over a graph, until it is squashed, thrown into a cannon, and shot. (Screw rehabilitation!) The squiggly autograph is now Michelangelo's "David" with a fig leaf. What's he hiding under there? We'll see! The title reads "It's The Arts". And we're back with Arthur Figgis, still waiting to do his show. The opening bits were just a short reacharound. (I'm not getting far from the whole masturbation theme, am I?)

And what follows is, for my money, one of the most exquisite Monty Python sketches ever performed. Chapman, as Figgis, recounts a litany of great German composers, but seems puzzled that one name never makes the list. He mentions the name of the forgotten composer-- and the name is two minutes of non-stop Germanic nonsense. The sketch then goes all "Naval Examination" on us as it forces Figgis to say the name, over and over. The show then cuts to film, where the composers ancestor is being interviewed, and both parties must say the name repeatedly. It's impossible to have a formal conversation about this composer without taking two minutes and seven breaths to say the name. Chapman, Cleese and Jones all get a shot at saying it at least once, and they all perform it with breathtaking verbal dexterity. John Cleese, in particular, races through the name, trying to get through it before his subject dies. It's one of those sketches that leave you dumbfounded with its simplicity, brilliance and insane difficulty. One can't imagine that you'd see this on any American comedy show, especially one like Saturday Night Live, where they can't get through the simplest of sketches without reading the cue cards. It's a tour de force, apparently written by Palin. I can't help but notice that this sketch didn't make it into their live shows. I guess after taping it, they swore never to try anything so difficult again. Is it even possible for old guys to do it?

Inspired by the Circusians, I have decided to take the Gambleputty Challenge! Click here to see how I did! And while you're at it, take the Gambleputty Challenge yourself!

Quick! Gimme a fig leaf!

The sketch ends with a variety of people and animations saying parts of the name in sequence at incoherent, break neck speed. We return to the David, who has a tug of war with the long arm of... something. Spoiler alert! David loses! We see what's under that fig leaf, and the stock of Italian men everywhere sinks drastically. If this were what was waiting for me in my shorts, I doubt my showers would be so long.

Short, funny animations follow, and we zoom in with action music to a silly sketch about bank robbers who plan a non-heist very carefully. I guess it's better than not planning a heist. Michael Palin as the scruffy criminal is great, and Terry Jones is unusually funny as the slow-talking thug who doesn't understand why they're paying for the watches they're stealing.

A series of on-the-street interviews come next-- my favorite being Michael Palin as a pepperpot, saying with coy sensuality "I think sexual ecstacy is overrated." In the midst of these, John Cleese appears as uniformed officer Inspector Praline, promising to appear in a sketch. He makes good, entering Terry Jones' office with a nauseous Graham Chapman in tow. What follows is the Whizzo sketch. If you haven't seen it or heard it on one of their concert albums, you have missed a real treat. This is one of their great ones. Cleese questions Jones (ARTHUR Hilton) on a box of assorted chocolates with ingredients like dead frog and ram's bladder while Graham tries hard not to vomit. (In the stage show, Chapman's character Constable Parrot is called Constable Clitoris, is played by Gilliam, and actually does vomit. As Michael Palin narrates in the album voice over, "For those of you listening at home, the young constable has just thrown up into his helmet. This is the longest most continuous vomit ever seen on Broadway since John Barrymore puked over Laertes in the second act of Hamlet in 1949.") Chapman finishes up the sketch with a PSA, punctuated with dry heaves. It is sick humor at its best, delivered with aplomb--Hilarious!

Poor sick Constable Parrot links us to the next sketch, a bit of film about a day in the life of a stock broker. Ironically, this was written by Cleese and Chapman, who were spoofing what Jones and Palin tended to write. And the cross-pollination begins... This is another one that I saw on the Dean Martin Comedy Hour-- only the tobacconist lady was cut, for reasons that should be obvious to those who've seen it. Another short but awesome animated bit follows, with Gilliam riffing on my (other) guilty pleasure, comic books. An animated announcement for "The Theater Sketch" follows. It's not the best sketch. Idle plays a Native American, complete with buckskin and bow, going to see a West End play. What a wacky juxtaposition! But what's really interesting is that they seem to have performed the sketch in the studio audience. You can see them watching, amused, but trying not to laugh. Chapman ably plays the straight man, and the sketch ends with an Indian Massacre. The biggest laugh in the sketch is a call back to Crunchy Frog.

Terry Jones and semi-regular Ian Davidson provide the link, playing a bored couple reading about the Indian Massacre in the paper. Of all the moustaches to pop up in Monty Python, Ian's was always my favorite. Sincere, heartfelt, boyish and mannish at the same time, hiding his upper lip so completely, giving him that effortless woodchuck look. Upon reading that police are looking to talk to witnesses, beautiful women and "anyone that likes police officers," Cleese comes out as a bobby with a great/awful pun ("Take advantage of our free officer.") and Jones chooses the next sketch-- A Scotsman on a Horse.

This is a film bit-- very simply written, but exquisitely executed, except for Cleese's horseriding. The intercutting somehow manages to build up a nice head of tension-- we almost forget about Cleese's wig. And his horseriding. Palin manages to switch from innocent yet shifty young bridegroom to the "bottom" in a gay relationship, without us noticing. Smoothly played, Mr. Palin.

Another short animated bit by Gilliam, and his best of the show-- the carnivorous baby carriage. Once the carriage is cornered by the cops, isolated by a spotlight, the 16 ton weight makes another appearance, this time in animated form. The spotlights turn into a 20th Century Vole title. This leads us to the final sketch of the show, the Film Producer sketch.

This sketch feels like a throwback to the Sid Ceaser era. A power mad (accent on the "mad") film producer bullies around a bunch of terrified, sycophant-ish writers. There are moments of brilliance-- Jones' exclamation "Splunge!", for one-- and Gilliam makes a great screen appearance, which is nice. He can be really smarmy. But overall, it lacks the inspiration of the other sketches, and mocking of film producers is like making Hum-Vee jokes. It's just too easy. Still, some good jokes and nice moments. Cleese's meercat hop, Chapman's line "There'll be plenty of time for that later on," and of course, "Splunge!" During his descent into psychosis, Chapman as Irving C. Salzburg picks up the phone and fires the "It's" Man. The credits roll as Palin slinks off, and it turns out this episode was done entirely by Irving C. Salzberg, and variations thereof. The sketch was written for Marty Feldman back in the "1948 Show", and was fueled by lingering hostility over Cleese and Chapman's experience writing "The Magic Christian." I think it was just (sniffle) too close. (choke) 

That's not what I put in there!

And that's number six. Some classic sketches erupting, and some mediocrities oozing out as well. Still, the show's fast gallop keeps us forever looking to the next, the new. The boys seem to have their (lack of) format down, and everyone is at ease with it.

Everyone but Michelangelo. He's a little pissed off. He doesn't like people messing with his seminal masterpieces


Next week; Episode 7 - "You're No Fun Anymore."