Episode 13 - Intermission

"Are you rolling your own jelly babies?" - Graham Chapman as a Surgeon who specializes in "these sorts of things."

Holy crap! Is this really the last episode of the first season? (Series? Whatever?) Amazing! Feels like we've known these guys forever, doesn't it? As always, if you haven't already, buy yourself the box set of these great shows. They deserve ownership, even cruel bondage and enslavement.

Over the last twelve episodes we've seen a slightly uneven synthesis between two warring styles of entertainment, the Cambridge Style, as embodied by Cleese/Chapman/Idle, which emphasizes Content with an unadventurous presentational style; two men at a desk, an office, a TV interview show, standard music hall presentation-- and the Oxford Style, repped by Jones/Palin/Gilliam, which eschewed content in favor of a cutting edge Form of presentation, creating mosaics unconstrained by reason, incorporating film and animation. We've had shows leaning towards one style or the other, and some shows that kept the styles in relatively separate boxes.

The last episode was a triumph of synthesis, and it gave us a glimpse of what lay down the road for Monty Python's Flying Circus. We see brilliantly conceived sketches leaving the studio to continue their exploration beyond the punch line, we see adventurous randomness serving the hardworking structure, and vice versa.

But having achieved this milestone in their personal and professional development, the lads took a week off. The last episode of the season, while funny and brilliant, feels lax and meandering, as if the Circusians were celebrating last week's accomplishment instead of creating the next classic. This feels less like a show and more like the after-show party, as though it were conceived and written in one drunken session. If last week's offering was the Superbowl of comedy, this week's is the ProBowl. (For any Brits reading, this is American football I'm referencing.) Without further ado, let's get to it.

We begin with a call back to Ep. 11. The Undertakers have returned, dolorously carrying a coffin to the Funeral March. By now, we're familiar enough with the show to know what's in the box. Sure enough, the "It's" Man props the lid open and gives his line as he's carried past. This is what all the harrowing escapes have been inexorably leading to. It's what all the "all the harrowing escapes" inexorably lead to. What an elegant bow on Monty Python's first running (as well as falling, screaming, drowning, hanging and tumbling) gag (as well as gagging).
An "Intermission" card appears, and Jones mumblingly announces a "short" intermission. Gilliam creates a car wreck out of the word "Intermission," and the titles run. The "Intermission" card reappears, and Jones promises a "medium-sized" one. (Best he says that to all the girls.)

What is that music that plays in the background? When one is mocking muzac, this is the music they play. They played it in "Animal House". Still, I don't know the name of the piece. Anyone? Anyway, Gilliam saves us again, creating an animated hand that plucks the word off the card and feeds it to a bird with the head of a young Sadat. We've seen this head in an earlier episode, his moustache angling upwards to simulate a smile-- but I'm too lazy to ferret out the exact one. We'll see a lot of callbacks to prior bits. Meanwhile, back at this episode, the bird belches and links us to...

"Don't play with your food!"

The first proper sketch plays like an Army variety show. Cleese and Idle (playing an ugly woman, for a change) enter the lobby of a restaurant, and silliness abounds! It doesn't matter what the sketch is about-- it's all just an excuse for the most random collection of gags, some good, some terrible, some delivered in character and some breaking the fourth wall.  The big laugh of the "sketch" is Jones wheeled in on a platter, naked, with an apple in his mouth. "I'm the special," he announces proudly. "Try me with some rice." (Earlier they establish that this is a vegetarian restaurant, but nevermind. Maybe the naked Jones is a vegetarian.) In a prophetic moment, a busboy announces that there's a dead Bishop inside. "I don't know who keeps bringing them in here," Palin mutters. It gets not even a titter... so of course, they had to make a whole sketch about it later on. Idle finishes the sketch complaining about the sketch, and another "Intermission" card cuts in, this time a "whopping great" one.

The lads re-create the dour experience of British cinema. Even in the swinging 60s (this show just makes it, taped on 1/4/70), the actual experience of movie-going (as opposed to the movies themselves) was trivialized by really shitty commercials and intermissions. (Having just visited Scotland, I can say that only the quality of the commercials has improved, but the experience still feels trivial.) With cheesy vibes music and bad animated title graphics, "Pearls for Swine" brings us a string of terrible ads. The lads capture the spirit of these abuses perfectly-- maybe too perfectly. The effect is less funny than it is irritating. They have the same effect on me; "Get on with the show!"  Our old friend Luigi Vercotti makes an appearance, as his restaurant is advertised and raided simultaneously. This is a callback to Episode 8, as well as Episode 10.

The ads end, and the lights come up on a nearly empty movie theater. Cleese, in a knee high dress, heels and stockings, with a yellow wig and white bonnet. Cleese doesn't try the usual tricks to relay femininity. The clothes are as far as he goes. Beyond that, he's all man as he sells his wares. Only his ware is a giant dead bird. "Albatross!" he shouts. Jones approaches, asking for "choc-ices," (Brits are so cute with their snack food.) But Cleese angrily tells him he's only got the albatross. This is an absurdist sketch dealing with the phenomenon that we don't buy what we want-- we buy what we're sold. In the end, Jones takes the albatross, "on a stick." This sketch made it to their live shows, and the word "Albatross" has become a calling card for Python-ites. (I just wish those "Ancient Mariner" groupies would stop crashing our parties.) Another "Intermission" card is blown of the screen by previews. Finally, the management admits that there'll be no movie-- too expensive-- and the Queen sends us home. Jones, with a dead bird in his lap, links us to the next bit as he tries to sell his new best friend.

On film, Palin propositions Bobbie Cleese (successfully,) and we cut to our second sketch of the evening. Jones, as the man from the theater, is now in a doctor's office. Idle plays the Dr., Carol Cleveland the nurse, Cleese the other Nurse. Idle makes a mess of things with Tarzan speak, and ultimately the knight steps in and clocks him. The last time we saw the knight, he wasn't in the show ("Sir Not Appearing in this Film") and it's good to see that they found a part for him in the last episode. Poultry'd back into reality, Idle yells "Albatross!" We cut to Palin and Jones doing their now definitive Gumbys, which links us to the next bit.

Separated at Birth?

In a call back to the first sketch of the first episode, (Famous deaths. "Take it away, Eddie.") Palin hosts "Historical Impersonations," where great figures in history impersonate other people, for instance, Cardinal Richelieu impersonating Petula Clark (and who the hell is Petula Clark?) It's just high-paced silliness. The biggest laugh is Napleon impersonating the R-101 disaster, (the British version of the Hindenburg, with far greater casualties but no iconic media coverage) but my favorite is Florence Nightingale as Brian London, who had gotten spanked by Muhammad Ali four years earlier.
Finally, Marcel Marceau gets squashed with the 16-ton weight, in mime and in reality. The crowd goes wild! (Lots of vintage applause footage in this episode. They must have gotten tired of waiting for the audience to catch up.)

In a call back to Episode 3, Cleese interviews two children (Idle and Palin) while mugging to the camera. Palin is hysterical as he stammers out that, insofar as toppings are concerned, his preference is Raquel Welch to a 16-Ton weight. The kids get switched out by two insurance brokers (Chapman and Palin), both of them as short as the kids, because Cleese still has to double over to talk down to them. They ask to see "more fairy stories about the police," and a fairy (Idle) grants their wish. Ain't nothing but a link.

In another Jones-ian homage to silent films, a constable (Jones) rides a bike to a secluded local, and blows up a criminal balloon, which becomes Idle. A merry chase ensues, with Jones leading a quartet with his pointed finger in shuddery time-lapse style, while Idle lures them into a Warner Brothers inspired gift-wrapped box with a "Don't Open 'til Christmas" sign attached. He's pretty well prepared for a balloon. But his cleverness is for naught, as a tutu wearing constable waves a magic wand and makes Idle disappear. An interview with Palin as a wand-wielding constable follows. "You can defy time and space, and turn violent criminals into frogs, which you couldn't do with the old truncheons." All of this was preamble to Probearound, a newsmagazine show. This week's topic, announcer Cleese tells us, is crime. In one of the best moments of the show, he is suddenly shot, and Idle steps in with a gun. "I always introduce this show." Idle investigates the use of voodoo and Ouija boards, as well as wands and Druid sacrifice.

All of this links well with the next sketch-- Palin (with those glasses, he must be blind,) plays an Arthur Pewtie-esque milquetoast named Attila the Hun, trying to turn himself in for the crimes his namesake committed. Turns out he's really Alexander the Great. Silliness abounds. Letters follow, the last one unraveled by the trenchcoat wearing perv from the Episode 8. He's pulled into a police car and taken via Gilliam's twisted mind through a policeman's ear, a nude girl's naughty bits, and a crocodile until he winds up at the office of Dr. Larch. Another callback to Ep. #3!

Dig the fake hands on Palin, man.

And so begins the last sketch of the season, and one that seems too absurdist even for Monty Python. After a false start with Napoleon, psychiatrist Dr. Larch, (Cleese) treats patient Notlob (Palin), who hears voices. Turns out Cleese hears them, too, and after surgery it's revealed that hippies have squatted in the man's stomach, rent free. (Because "It's not furnished, you facist.") Idle and Cleveland, the hippies, pop their heads out of Palin's stomach like some acid trip nightmare, spoofing the 60s counter-culture and insipid folk music. Chapman as the surgeon is brilliant, rhapsodizing about his godlike surgical skills. "What a great slit." This sketch is like a cross between a sketch and an underground comic. And Palin's character Notlob is yet another shout out, to Episode #9, the Parrot Sketch. We will not see another twisted drug-trip of a sketch like this again from these guys. It's decidedly uncharacteristic of the Python canon, but a nice surprise amidst the many surprises, as the season draws to a close.

But Gilliam is still in the house. His animations complain about the show, and they throw in a great, classic bit of a mother trying to get her daughter to smile for the camera by ripping her apart. It's reminiscent of the "Sit up straight" photo session from earlier in the season, but with a great ending. A smiling girl wanders into the mise en scene. The mother rips the smiling head off and puts it on her daughter's neck. "Now there's an ending for you," the complaining animation says, before being squished by the giant foot. Finally, the "It's" Man runs off down the street, the Undertakers hot on his heels with the empty coffin still on their shoulders, firing guns, as the credits roll. A final "Intermission" card with a Cleese voice over gag, and they're out.

This show is all over the place, filled with silliness and random asides and bits. Even the performers seem aware as they mug to the camera. But they've earned an opportunity to blow off some steam. They've only revolutionized televised sketch comedy. Cut 'em some slack.

That's the first season. By now, the troupe knew that they had a hit on their hands, a critical success as well as a commercial one. They were already working on their first movie, "And Now For Something Completely Different" funded in part by Hugh Hefner, and probably thought they were on the precipice of becoming movie stars. They were almost right. And By now, Michael Palin got back on the stick with his diaries, so we have more first hand information as we head into the next season.

But first, let's look at that movie, take a closer look at Terry Jones, and find out what was going on in the world. We need a bit of a break to appreciate the enormity of Season 1. Something seriously funny has been accomplished, something which people still talk about. (Or is that just me?)

Next week; "And Now For Something Completely Different" the movie!