Episode 11 - "The Royal Philharmonic Goes to the Bathroom"

"She [the cat] flies across the studio and lands in a bucket of water."
"By herself?"
"No, I fling her." - Graham Chapman as the cat flinging Don Savage, with Michael Palin as the Host of "Interesting People".

Monty Python's Flying Circus, due to the nature of its many brilliant creators, was persistently locked in a struggle between form (as exemplified by Jones, Palin and Gilliam and their right brain "stream of consciousness" attack) and content (practiced by Cleese, Chapman and Idle and their Apollonian plays on words and logic.) Oxford v. Cambridge. But the show worked best when both sides were ably represented, great sketches warped at the ends by great absurdity. This particular episode seems to be light on content. Few of the sketches seem to be inspired or very original (with one brilliant exception) and it falls to the flow to keep us entertained. This episode is a case study displaying the advantages of the Oxford vision. This is Terry Jones' show.

As always, if you haven't purchased the box set yet, what the hell are you waiting for? Buy it here! I promise, I'm not making a dime off of the sale, but hopefully the Circusians are. With the box set, you can watch along with me and yell at me when I get something wrong. If you've never yelled at me before, I guarantee it's worth the price of a box set. My lip trembles, sometimes I soil myself-- it's awesome!

Speaking of soiling yourself, let's get to this week's scatological offering. Flung at us first is the "It's" Man, crossing the near side of a busy London roundabout in skittery fast motion. Managing (intermittently) to avoid those funny box-like 60's Eurocars, he barely manages to say his piece before he is flattened by a beautiful blonde with a baby stroller. The Titles follow, and the show begins properly-- or improperly.

First caption reads "Episode Two's". The first in a series of potty jokes, "two" being a euphemism for shit? Next, the show's title "The Royal Philharmonic Goes to the Bathroom." Palin delivers the one joke joke, stepping up to a clearly labeled "Bathroom" door and knocking. In response, Rachmaninov's Warsaw Concerto plays from behind the door. Palin rolls his eyes. A whole orchestra? This is gonna be quite the wait. (But still shorter than the ladies room, I'll wager.)

"Engaged" The Potty Mouth.

The complaint letters start to flow immediately, the first written by an unfortunately named prude and voiced by Cleese. Placating Mr. Voyeur, they show a British Olympian in action-- and a second letter of complaint erupts, voiced by Idle, insisting there's nothing disgusting about the human body (intestines excluded.) A third letter, Palin, complains about the other letters being written for a cheap laugh, and signs off "William Knickers". Footage of the Philharmonic, with toilet sounds spliced in, sends an animated yet disgusted audience grumbling out into the streets. A balloon advertising Acme toilets ("As Used by the Royal Philharmonic") rises out of the isolated concert hall, then explodes to reveal another disgusted audience member-- with a flush handle wedged in his right temple. He is himself a toilet. ("Gaze not into the abyss...") You may recognize the top of his head from the titles-- naked ladies burst from it. Once flushed, we pan up to asylum bars, and through them we see a 16th century drawing. The Pythons have played out this particular stream of excrement, and we're ready to wipe, wash and get on with our day. But we get the sense that they could have gone on all day. Kind of like watching the Globetrotters pass the ball around, only instead of a basketball, it's a bolus.

"Those were the days..."

The 16th century drawing turns out to be a graphic for what would seem to be a sketch. It's a TV show about the World of History, hosted by Chapman as Professor R.J. Canning. He recites a litany of horrible and impressive plagues from history-- only to be interrupted by wistful undertakers on film, sitting on a coffin; "Those were the days!"
Back in the studio, the Professor, pride stung, insists to the clapping crew that he won't continue the show unless the interruptions stopped. He is promptly interrupted by another film of two undertakers (Chapman and Jones) racing their hearses. The film is oddly edited, relying on long shots of the road and tight close-ups of the drivers, with exaggerated competitive expressions.

See? I'm being competitive!

(Chapman pulls his lips back to his ears, Jones pulls his down to his Adam's apple.) They crash off screen ("Screech! Crash! Camera Jiggle!") near an "accident black spot" sign-- a British thing, I imagine, that denotes the site of a hazardous part of the road or a fatal collision in the past. Near the sign, other undertakers enjoy a picnic, content in the knowledge that business will soon pick up. We cut back to the studio, and Professor Canning is putting on his coat and walking out. "Don't zoom in on me, either. I'm off!" We can't say he didn't warn us. Fortunately, Jones' undertaker is there to fill the void. "Depressed?" he asks. "Tired of life?... Keep it up." This is the next thread in the show's tapestry, from toilets to undertakers. Jones has made short work of that sketch. It exists only to be interrupted by random silliness.

"Meanwhile, Inside..." a caption informs us, and another sketch tries to get going, an Agatha Christie spoof with Cleese as Inspector Tiger and Carol Cleveland and Chapman as the upper class couple in the drawing room, with a blonde daughter and Gilliam as the chauffeur. This sketch is actually four different bits rolled up into one sketch-- maybe five. The first bit is Cleese trying to say the phrase "I must ask that nobody leave the room," and never getting it right. He parses every possible permutation, and keeps juuuust missing. "Everyone must leave the room, as it is, with them in it." While I freely admit that this sketch is frustrating for me, ("Just say it! SAY IT!") it never fails to reduce my wife to helpless laughter. She is something of a semantics junkie, and probably has an inner struggle similar to Tiger's with every sentence she utters. (For further ways on how to reduce my wife to helpless laughter, please see our honeymoon video.) The second bit is the funny name bit. When Cleese announces that his name is Inspector Tiger, the room responds "Tiger?" "Where!? Where?!" Cleese screams. (Ah, that smart British comedy. It doesn't matter how well educated or paid a comedian is, he will never pass up a joke that would make a five year-old laugh.) The third bit is the re-enactment of the crime. After Cleese's lobotomy (just watch the sketch!) he discovers that there hasn't been a murder. Fortunately for him, the lights go off, and a murder ocurrs--

his, by poison, arrow and gunshot. Idle walks in, and after some silliness, decides to re-enact the crime. Said re-enactment results in his death. A third inspector... a fourth... The fourth bit, of course, is that this whole thing is a spoof of the uniquely British Agatha Christie and her drawing room mysteries. It's a funny sketch, but a bit on the empty side. It's like a dog trying to find a good place to lie down, circling here, then sniffing out a possibility there, back to the first, onto a third. With no end in sight, the sketch is interrupted by Jones' undertaker, who promises to return the minute "something interesting happens." Score another for form, naught for content.

We cut to film clip of four Undertakers carrying a coffin on their shoulders. Exhausted by their burden, they exchange furtive glances-- and dump the body. The funereal jazz picks up a New Orleans tempo, and they prance off with the empty coffin. This is the third of many short film clips involving undertakers in black suits, top hats and shroud. This is Jones at work, getting his Keaton on. Earlier, his silent films such as "Changing on the Beach" had a self-conscious quality, but he seems to have thrown that off, embracing a (slightly) more realistic, less stylized approach. These are funnier, darker, and more in keeping with the emerging Python tone.

We interrupt this blog to bring you the letter that interrupts the show at this moment in the blog's recounting...

Back in studio, we manage to get through the bulk of a sketch. Idle as heady sports commentator Brian, using every four-syllable word in the book, evokes an ostentatious Howard Cosell or Keith Olbermann as he introduces the moronic Jimmy Buzzard, played by Cleese. As Idle poses questions to Cleese with phrases like "limpid tentacles" and "ceded midfield dominance", Cleese can only stare dumbly back, his arms crossed stiffly. When asked about his soccer strategy, he finally manages to claim "I'm opening a boutique." It's a funny bit, revealing the layers of hyper-intellectual nonsense we project onto what is essentially a simple physical act. Both Idle and Cleese are perfect; Cleese staring at the expectant Idle, hazel eyes so large and uncomprehending-- so, so empty in there.

So empty... So very empty...

But death waits for no man. Jones' Undertaker interrupts again to take us back to the Agatha Christie drawing room, where uniformed bodies are piling up, 13 Constables 13 to 9 Superintendents. The crowd goes wild!

Back to the Undertakers. They essentially function as the Pigs and Sheep did in the first two shows, only with more screen time given to them. To the Funeral March, the morbid quartet lug a coffin uphill. One passes out, exhausted. The remaining three set the coffin down, pull out a rested Undertaker, put the collpased one in the coffin and continue on their way.  They turn into Gilliam-animated figures with only a slightly jarring hitch in the music. They labor up a hill-- but it tuns out the hill is the thigh of a naked lady, who splats them into nothingness. Another naked lady pops up, and as the catty insults fly, they physically mutilate each other in ways only Gilliam could imagine-- hidden cannibals in their neck, rifles jutting from their armpit. It must be terrifying in Terry's brain.

We awkwardlky cross fade to the next sketch, a TV show called "Interesting People", hosted by the gum-chewing Palin. This is Python taking yet another stab at the banality of television, breathlessly racing from one silly bit to the next. I actually remember a show called "That's Incredible!" in the 70s, that did the same thing Python spoofs a decade earlier. Talk about being ahead of your time! Palin darts from silly guest to silly guest, including Mr. Stools, a .5-inch match look-alike,; a hypnotist that puts bricks to sleep; and a cat that flies across the room into a bucket of water, but only when flung. (Hey... my cat can do that!) One guest we don't see; a man who can recite the entire bible in one second while being struck on the head with an axe. Turns out he was a fraud. Palin, affable, smarmy and energetic, controls the insane applause with a twist of the knob. It's fun to see him actually respond to the audience, waiting for laughs and repeating lines that got chortled over. Cleese giving a cat influenza, as well as the sound of the cat meowing and sneezing, are my favorites, and the dour, solemn Bicycle Choir singing "All Through The Night" is something that pops up in our silly recitations around the house. This is the longest sketch of the episode, but it doesn't really play as a sketch, any more than a talent show would play as one act. It's a random train of silliness, with a lot of fun moments, but it never really rises to greatness or coherence.   Palin introduces "Four Tired Undertakers", and we're back to the videotape!

In a variation on the previous bit "undertaken," (heh-heh,) the grim reapers labor beneath a coffin. One collapses. The other three put him in the coffin. By the way, in addition to being brilliant writers, these guys could take a fall! All of the various collapses are worthy of Chevy Chase. Another one succumbs, and they out him in the casket. The third falls to the ground, the last undertaker standing barely manages to get him in the coffin, (it takes some kicking,) and finally, too tired to continue-- he himself climbs into the coffin. How did they get all four undertakers (and the ostensible, original corpse) in the coffin? Cinema magic! Enjoy the foleyed gasps and grunts as Jones struggles with the last fellow interer. Then the coffin moves independently to the graveyard. (Cinema magic!)

We cut quickly to Brian and Buzzard, who announces that he's fallen off his chair while eating a banana. Back at the graveyard, there's another Jones-ian silent bit, with a bunch of strange people scrambling out of the freshly dug grave, (How did they get so many people in the grave? Cinema magic!) and the coffin obediently buries itself. A quick animated link follows, with all the various coffins underground tittering and yelling at one another-- a slice of afterlife, if you will-- before a police constable pounds on the ground, pushing it down out of frame. He apologizes, and flashes us with one of the nicest naked bodies in the history of naked constables.

This awesome and surprising visual gag turns out to be a link! To the music of a brassy horn, we fade to a montage of more naked women. What's the name of this new naked lady show? "The World of History" Yes! We're back to the history show that the Professor walked out on earlier, only with a more salacious introduction. Naked women beat the bubonic plague any day.

This bit takes a simple idea-- using sex to sell history-- and totally gets to third base with it! The lesson for today is "Social Legislation in the 18th Century." Our instructor, A.J.P. Taylor, is Carol Cleveland! Cavorting on a bed and wearing silky lingerie! The best-kept secret is out-- Historical Sociology has the best professors. But strangely, and this is a bit of a turn-off for me, Professor Taylor's voice is mannish, deep... one might say Cleese-ian. Yes, Carol Cleveland is lip-synching to Cleese's history lesson. This predates the Michael Jackson Superbowl scandal in the 80s, but sadly it lags far behind the Debbie Reynolds scandal of the 50's, caught live on film in "Singin' in the Rain." As Carol tries to mouth Cleese's slowly spoken monologue whilst vogue-ing provocatively, the overall effect is surreal and stilted. The monologue feels like it was taken right out of a text book, with no jokes slipped in. That's the point, I understand, but the joke is so conceptual, it's not funny. It's just strange, almost vertiginous.
But then again, Carol Cleveland in lingerie often makes me dizzy. Before his/her lesson gets going, she takes a break with a new Monty Python catch phrase, and one destined to become a classic. "But first, a bit of fun."

A quick, frantic, fast-motion strip-tease follows (these guys are so smart!) and we're back to the lesson. Professor Taylor introduces Gert Vander-Whoops! (Palin), who also lies in a bed, wearing a suit and tie and teaching in a chirpy Dutch falsetto. Lying beside him is a gorgeous blonde nuzzling his neck and unbuttoning his tie. "But first, a bit of fun," he inserts, and grabs the girl.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, Jones floats down with angel wings, accompanied by a heavenly choir. It's random, it's silly-- and in this particular case, it doesn't work. It just comes across as obnoxiously absurd. Jones is flaunting his anarchist tendencies for their own sake. Announcing none other than Professor R.J. Canning, or Chapman from the earlier bit at the beginning, he rises, winched up by some underpaid crewman, no doubt.

After some brief Suess-ian nonsense, Chapman raises a controversial question about the Battle of Trafalgar, based on the views of-- Professor R.J. Gumby! Making his second appearance in 3 episodes, it can be assumed that the good professor found favor in the hearts and minds of the Python crew. His costume is codified now-- sweater vest over white long sleeve shirt rolled up to the elbows, suspenders pulling pants up into camel-toe discomfort, rolled up to the knees, with galoshes on his feet, a napkin tied up on his head, moustache, glasses and gorilla posture. He bellows, every word emphasized, wounded confusion on his face as he struggles dimly to comprehend the insane world. Played this time by Palin, with Jones standing by for support, Gumby claims that Drake fought the Battle of Trafalgar on dry land to confuse the German fleet-- then promptly forgets his theory. It's fun seeing Palin's studied and exact performance. When formulating an answer, he looks off left, then up, then down, then right, before the answer comes to him. When asked to repeat his answer, he looks around in the exact same sequence (although this time, the process doesn't help him.) We soon see that Gumby has many supporters-- all of them fellow Gumbies, played by Idle, Chapman and Cleese. Idle and Cleese seem vaguely uncertain, stammering through their bits, but Chapman is particularly bombastic, standing before a church, waving his arms stiffly, bellowing "Well! Well!" Palin's performance will win out in future appearances, all of the Circusians Gumby-ing Palin style. These guys have found a winner in Professor Gumby.

We cut back to Carol Cleveland, summing up the Trafalgar controversy, and offering for sale what looks like a hand mixer but what is probably some sort of pre-70s sex toy. While we may mourn what has happened to sketch comedy since the '70s, I think we can all agree that we're better of with the current crop of sex toys. Professor Canning returns with an intro into another great historical epic battle, Pearl Harbor, and we arrive at what may be the most classic moment in this particular show.

The picture can't do it justice...

Canning promises a re-enactment of Pearl Harbor by the women of the Battersly Townswomens Guild. We cut to film of the entire group, including Gilliam, all dressed as women with purses and hats. Idle, their leader, looking as pretty as ever, very sweetly sums up the history of the Townswomen's productions, including Nazi War Atrocities. With cows in the background, Idle blows the whistle to start the Pearl Harbor reenactment-- And the women come rushing in, swatting, punching, kicking and screaming at each other as they roll around in the mud. This bit is hysterical! It deservedly holds a high berth in the Python canon, from the sweet, misleading set-up (Idle is so sweet, you think you'll just see some well-intentioned but bad theater,)  to the violent, semi-obscene pay-off, all in the context of historical drama-- it's just sublime. Intelligence, mocked intelligently. Towards the end of the melee, a pig walks into frame-- lest you think they were green-screening it. It was apparently miserable to film in the British autumn. Beyond any bruises or contusions that may have occurred, (they really go after one another!) once they got all filthy and wet and cold, there was apparently no place to change, wash off or warm up, according to Kim "Howard" Johnson's book. They walked around North Yorkshire in dirty stockings and bras, waiting for the cold tap in the farm outhouse to become available. But what are you gonna do? Give up show business?

Professor Canning returns, apologizing for getting upset earlier at the filmed interruptions-- and he's interrupted again by film of Cleese as the priest back at the graveyard, throwing mud into the grave, and getting some thrown back at him. Angry, he pulls a gun, shoots the corpse, and continues with his blessing. This is one of those Jones shots, camera low, looking up at Cleese, who, already tall, looms over us like Godzilla. When he pulls out the gun, his angry face smeared with mud, the gun hand huge in the foreground, it looks more scary than funny. Finally, the undertakers make their last appearance, walking gravely from the grave, getting in their car, and as they make a U-turn, we see that there is another side to them, as well as their hearse. Festooned with bright colored flowers, they zip off down the street to a weird electronic version of "There's No Business Like Show Business" whooping and laughing.

Back at the studio, Canning is still explaining his previous snit. But the show is over. He commands the "It's" Man to deliver his message to Lord Hill, and as the credits roll, Palin oh-so-cautiously crosses the street to the roundabout, flinching at the very possibility of cars. He makes it to the sidewalk-- only to be run over by the same stroller that struck him the first time. I'm sorry, he should have seen that coming.

Earlier in the season, the Circusians created sketches (content), and created a free-flowing form (form) for transitions between the sketches. This show scarcely contained any sketches. Of the three, only the Brian/Buzzard interview seems to arc or suggest the promise of conflict. The other, longer sketches functioned more as a train of absurdity, themselves a series of unrelated gags, much like the links surrounding them. In fact, the purpose of the sketches, in this show, seems to be to link the links. That we hardly notice this dynamic indicates the triumph of Terry Jones and his vision. Monty Python's Flying Circus is a sketch show that doesn't even need sketches. This first example of flying without a net (appropriate for a flying circus) bespeaks a confidence, even a brashness. It explains Jones' belligerent angel-- "Watch me fly, bitches!" Sometimes, the humor suffers a bit as we try to gain our footing. But at the same time, the boys are learning to work fast to get their laughs, creating minute long bits like cherry bombs flung at us. Sometimes the cat hits the bucket of water, and sometimes it doesn't, but even the misses are fun.

Next week; Content's Triumphant Return in Episode 12 - The Naked Ant