Episode 12 - The Naked Ant

"...it's lampshade time!" - Cleese as Mr. Hilter

 
Monty Python has a well-deserved reputation for random, stream-of-consciousness comedy, eschewing punch lines, even standard comedic structure, for a more free form approach, interrupting sketches the second they get prosaic, predictable, or just because. In last week's episode, we saw a prime example of that approach, with sketches that seemed to be assembled like Lego blocks, easily taken apart, tossed around and thrown back into a new assembly held together by random silent filmed bits with undertakers. This is the triumph of Form over Content. The sketches are just repositories for jokes, the more random the better. None of the sketches are memorable, or even required, for the jokes to work. The ride moves so fast, we never realize that there's nothing much there. (Until some pain in the ass blogger shows up...)

But this is not to say that they couldn't land a great sketch or two. In this episode, Content returns, and it's on fucking fire! (For the most part.)

In this blog, every paragraph will end in a parenthetical! (Except this one.)

As always, buy the box set. Let's face it, as we get older, our bones lose calcium and become brittle. This includes our funny bones. And our back, especially right in the small of the back. When I complain to my wife about the small of my back, she says "That hasn't been small in years, honey." I need a new car. Anyway... where was I? Yes! Buy the box set. (Sorry...)

We begin with... not the "It's" Man. Instead, we see some lefty playing pinball. Remember, this was '70, and pinball was all the rage in England. Some band was even writing a rock opera about it. As the silver ball rolls into play and begins to bounce off the bumpers... We cut to the "It's" Man, bouncing off trees to the soundtrack of the pinball machine. There seems to be no force making him do this, apart from a psychic connection to the ball itself. He is the ball. Finally, "the ball" exhausts himself and rolls towards "the flippers," aka Us, collapses and delivers his line. Low score, high hilarity. (The band with the pinball rock opera was The Who- shout out to Jon Zelazny and his awesome novel!)

The Titles commence, captions promise that this is Episodes 17-26, (it's not,) and give the show's title, and we cut to an action scene. Apropos of nothing, a train engineer, played by Jones, fights with a growling bear. (Kim "Howard" Johnson claims it's a Polar Bear, but not according to my TV.)

"Bear with me!" Anyone?

This is taking place, according to a caption, at "A signal box somewhere near Hove". And now you have as much information as I do. Like the winched angel from the prior episode, this bit has no context and little humor, apart from rampant absurdity. It's sole purpose seems to be to disorient the viewer. We only see it for a few seconds before we cut away. And yet, it has all the production value of the Parrot Sketch-- perhaps more. Train switch handles, a wall and working window, the costumes, cans of food on the shelf-- a lot of resources seem to have been pumped into this random, pointless bit. Why? Did they have this set just sitting around from another sketch show? Or is this how committed the Flying Circus is to aimless and random? And who's in the bear costume? He's awesome, and it couldn't have been comfortable. Bravo, Anonymous Bear! (My money's on Gilliam.)

It's Raining Men!

A few seconds of this fight, (it took you seven times as long to read the paragraph I wrote about it,)  and we're off to a new caption. "But in an Office off the Goswell Road". Doubling down on the absurdity, Cleese and Idle sit across form each other at a table, perched like trained labradoodles, waiting for their cue from off screen. Once they get it, they both double over their prepared paperwork. See how the set decoration has already faltered-- they don't even get their own desks. But they do get an open window, and bodies begin to fly by, in a generally downward trajectory. Idle, alarmed, tries to get the blinkered Cleese to share in the horror of what's happening outside. But Cleese, unflappable, surmises "Must be a board meeting," and this instantly mollifies Idle. Soon they're taking bets on who will jump next. Cllese and Idle are excellent, with Cleese giving us a study in reactive humor. You can hear the sounds of traps and ladders in the background as the crew throws the bodies past the window. We cut rapidly away to a letter complaining about the tasteless sketch, when in mid-letter, the writer falls out of a high building. (Who mailed the letter? Did I just blow your mind?) Back to Idle and Cleese, who disagree on who the fallen letter writer was. (We'll never know... he never had a chance to sign the letter.)

But there are more falling people, one after the other, a veritable genocide of Gilliam-inated vintage photos, all of them screaming as they fall to their deaths. Anguished, Cleese cries out "Can't somebody stop it?!" Gilliam obliges, turning the background one quarter counter-clockwise.
Now the falling photos are zipping horizontally across the screen, and their screams subtly shift to peals of joy, their connection with the ostensible ground sounding like a line of Harpo Marx dialogue. "Honk!" We pull back to reveal that they are all running into the bouncy belly of a beautiful flapper. Another great animators gag from Gilliam. He takes it up a notch when the Flapper pops off her own head and uses it to catch an errant person on the rebound. The person rattles in her skull like a washer in a bowl. Out of nowhere, a Magician appears in mid-air, and a flag pops out of the Flapper's head proclaiming him to be "The Great Fred". Waving his wand and repeating "Abracadabra, Alakazaam!" he makes flowers pop out of her head, then her neck-- then his own head! His disemboidied hand continues producing flowers until the screen is filled with them. The trenchcoat wearing perv from "Full Frontal Nudity" walks by, muttering, when he hears some come hither laughter from behind the flowers. He parts the petals and witnesses a naked nymph playing with a beach ball, laughing. Building in pitch and volume, the laughter takes on a hysterical twinge. This chick is nuts! (But naked, so there's that.) She waits for the beach ball to return to her, cackling insanely-- and she's squashed by a heavy globe. Brother to the 16 Ton Weight, Son to the original squashing Foot, the Globe obliterates naked crazy lady, and God's benediction, a rainbow, curves over the globe-- another God-approved hit on naked female beauties. The title appears on the globe; "Spectrum". (That's the science name for rainbow.)

"Where do we stand, where do we sit...?"

So far, the show has been made up of small random bits, with only one tiny sketch. But Spectrum changes all that. Although at its heart, Spectrum is just another TV show spoof, it's also a blistering send-up of self-important, high-octane news shows that tell us little but tell us that little very urgently. Palin begins as the show's anchor, promising us a tough look at "the whole vexed question of what is going on." "What do people mean when they talk about things?" he asks, rhetorically. He tosses the hot potato over to Chapman, who shows us a meaningless graph referencing the population, but for no apparent reason. "Telling figures, indeed," Palin cuts in, getting the sketch's first laugh, as the audience catches on. Palin's blinding, dizzying and well-elocuted monologue of nonsense questions is a bravura performance, and the energy that all the lads give to their one-line insertions is intoxicating. Finally, unable not to comment on Palin's speedy speech and speechy speed, we cut to high-speed footage of train tracks speeding by, an engine's POV. As the train hits the darkness of a tunnel, we hear a crash. "Sorry!" Jones calls out  from the window of the signal box, a bear paw on his shoulder, in a call back to the opening scene. (Bear v. Man. This time, it's personal!)

Spectrum has given us some notice. Now the Circusians close the deal with "Hilter and the Minehead Bi-Elections".At a boardinghouse in Somerset, Minehead, the unsuspecting Idle (and wife, billed as Mrs. Idle), after aimless conversation about car routes and cat's boils, stumble upon Hitler (Cleese), complete with a Nazi uniform, planning his next campaign to conquer Europe via Minehead. But like Superman and his Clark Kent glasses, Hitler is made unrecognizable by switching the "t" and the "l" in his last name, thereby going by the name "Mr. Hilter." Equally well camouflaged are his co-horts Mr. Bimmler(Palin) and Ron Viventroff (Chapman). Together, they are mapping out Hilter's campaign to run in the upcoming Minehead elections as the "Bocialist" candidate.  (Sketch idea; a hotel with a guest named "Olama sin Baden.")

"Not much fun in Stalingrad, no..."

A simple idea-- Hitler has survived and is regrouping in Minehead-- feverishly and thoroughly examined by the team of Cleese and Palin, writing together for the first time! It didn't happen often, but man, did they hit this one out of the park. Cleese's structural savvy combine with Palin's goof-ballery to create a sketch so rich, they have to stack the jokes like pancakes. Cleese as Hilter is rabid, manic and brilliant, uttering German nonsense from the balcony to a farmer and dazed kids. Palin as Bimmler stammers through an introduction, claiming that he was only head of the Gestapo for five years and professing his love for English chips and fish. Chapman has one of the best lines, playing a farmer; "I don't like the sound of these here 'Boncentration Bamps'". In addition to silliness, Palin drags Cleese out of the studio, creating a sketch that unfolds and deepens as they leap to film. Seeing Hilter try to recapture the magic of the old days with a tinny megaphone and a bike is hysterical. (Check out the bystanders as they ride by.) Cleese and Palin play all the notes in this sketch, the first real synthesis between the two camps of form and content. This sketch is not to be missed. (It also contains the phrase "cake hole", which is nice.)

We fade into a funny series of "on the street" interviews, including Chapman droning, foaming and falling (exquisite!) and this takes us back to "Spectrum" and more Palin high-speed dribble. Palin links us to the next sketch. We've seen this one before, in "Full Frontal Nudity", with Jones/Cleveland trying to buy a bed without using the word "mattress." This time, we're in a police station, and Jones (bless his heart) must report a burglary seven times in different pitches and cadences, depending on which constable he's speaking to. They can only hear when (fill in the blank.) They take it further this time, with every officer requiring a different verbal tic to hear what's being said.

We cut to quick clips of others with speech defects, including a meowing pig and a bleating Nixon, until Cleese, in tweed coat, cap and overbite, comments almost unintelligibly that people talk funny. And we're off to the races! (You gotta move fast to keep up with this episode!)

What follows is a Monty Python classic,  the 127th Upper Class Twit of the Year Show. On a sparsely populated soccer field, the five Brit members gangle out, all wearing suits, caps and overbites like Cleese's. All twits with names like  "Vivian Smith-Smythe-Smith" and "Nigel Incubator Jones", mentally disabled but rich and privileged, gather once a year to display massive acts of stupidity, if they can muster the physical dexterity to accomplish it, with an excited, high-octane commentary by

I've had more trouble with bras...

 Cleese. This is Cleese/Chapman at their hostile best, giving their 60s resentments free reign as they push these obnoxious but somehow loveable morons  through the paces-- getting drunk with a debutante, waking a neighbor, insulting a waiter, all as part of a marathon. According to Kim "Howard" Johnson's book, the origin of this sketch apparently involves Cleese living in an apartment behind Harrod's. A wine bar across the street called "The Loose Box" (I love that detail!) catered to twits such as these, and they would keep Cleese up at night with their shenanigans and car door slamming. Revenge is sweet!

It's not easy to run yourself over.

The final challenge-- who will be the first to shoot themselves? This sketch is an unbridled joy to see, as all five Circusians display their skill with physical humor. Chapman leaping over a small stack of matchboxes is pants-wetting hilarious! The final image of the winning coffins, adorned with medals, perfectly tags this brilliant tour-de-force. (The bras are much easier to remove when the woman's torso falls off. Remember that, adolescent twits!)

Want to take a deep breath? Enjoy the bliss of pitch-perfect comedy. Sorry, there's no time. We're off to a letter admiring how well that upper classes kill themselves, and wondering why the lower classes don't follow the fine example. An animation follows, with a sergeant trying to cough himself to bits, as Jones spurs him on with a bitchy "Not good enough!" A menagerie crawls from a pipe, and takes us past a very Tory mansion, all brick and right angles. Inside, Upper Class Twit wanna-be Chapman smokes a pipe while interviewing his daughter's new fiancee-- Ken Shabby, aka Palin, reprising a role from "The Ant- An Introduction".

Best Actress-- Connie Booth!

(This episode, you'll remember, is entitled "The Naked Ant." Is Ken Shabby the ant? Are you the walrus?) Connie Booth plays Rosalind, the daughter. There's some great gross-out humor here, but no one seems to notice how disgusting Shabby is, and the conflict rapidly diminishes. A Cleesian voice-over comes in, giving us a "The Story So Far" summation, only with nonsense stories and characters written around vintage photos, all to link us to the next sketch-- a Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Wood Party. (The woman watching the broadcast is done up in 60's leather go-go couture-- a lot of trouble to go through for this throwaway bit. "You musn't throw pretty girls away, Monty-- One day they may become scarce.")

The Wood Party sketch is a very odd duck indeed. It's an ambitious sketch, I'll give it that. A party minister (Chapman), in the midst of his speech, falls through the earth's crust, and his attempts to continue with a stiff upper (or lower) lip become disastrous. Lives are lost. Chapman is all probity as he dangles upside down from a BBC rope, his ass to the camera. (How'd they get the camera down there? Did I just blow your mind?)  But perhaps the sketch bit off more than it could chew.
The pacing is off. Even the technical demands seem beyond them, as people who are supposed to fall to the earth's core clearly land on a mat still within the camera frame. Of all the sketches to interrupt with Jones-ian non-linearity, this would have been high on the list of contenders. But it goes on much longer than it should. But we get to see Gilliam as a TV techie, and Chapman's acrobatic abilities are somewhat on display as he dangles. (Even his live bits as Colin Bomber Harris were more dignified.)

Finally, we cut back to Spectrum as they parse the incident from all directions. Cleese has a last, great bit as a Spectrum commentator with an arched eye-brow drawn on, speaking tremendously, tremendously, tremendously fast and actually catching on fire (through the magic of cinema.) Finally,
 Jones asks if anyone has more to add. Most of the characters from earlier chime in with a quick "No," even the dead twit Nigel, on film or in studio. Palin as Spectrum's anchor has the last word, as he examines what people mean by "no." (This was before "no" meant "no", apparently.) At last, making its second appearance in the series, the 16-Ton weight falls, crushing this quicksilver commentator into the 2nd dimension. A quick flash of a pinball machine alerting "Tilt!" and Palin bounces away off the trees. (Presumably going for the high score-- he never comes near the "flippers" again.)

Increasingly, the lads begin to find a middle ground between Form and Content, making the best of both worlds. Odd segueways and precisely constructed sketches begin to acknowledge each other, reaching across the left brain-right brain divide and inserting their neurons into the others synapse gaps. After some false starts and regressions, this is the show when Monty Python became Monty Python. It could have served as the map for all future episodes-- but Palin was probably the only one who could read a map, and he wasn't telling. Twelve episodes in, and Monty Python is born! (And we all know what comes next; Placenta!)

Next week; "Intermission." (Albatross!)