Ep. 22 - How to Recognize Different Parts of the Body

"...We don't like stuck up sticky beaks here." - Graham Chapman as Bruce

We got a fun one for you this week, Python-ettes! After a couple of weeks worth of relatively conceptual stuff, this week the Python's bring the silly, in a throwback to the manic spirit of season 1.  Let's get right to it. As always, BUY THE BOX SET! ("Number 27-- the box.")

Over lush 60's strings and horns, we see a line of bikini-clad British women. They pose on green grass, a river flowing behind them, and beyond the river, an ultra-exotic British suburb! I'm going to go on record here and state-- ain't none of these women worth a tenth of Carol Cleveland. The legs are spindly and pale, the breasts small-- hey, they're already objectified, ladies, that's sort of the joke of this bit, I'm just following through--  and the waists generally curveless. I guess this was the best the BBC could afford-- the mundane locale, the slightly above average sex objects, (okay, #3 and #5 are pretty hot) shot on-- holy crap, is that a tombstone?! Yes! In the foreground, in between sex object 4 and 5, a stone cross juts up like an inappropriate erection. They're shooting this in a cemetery. That's sort of funny, in a meta way. But girl #6--
is John Cleese! in a bikini identical to #5's, looking not that much worse than the ladies, laying coquettishly across his desk, perched on an elbow, the mic and phone nearby. The bowtie lays across his otherwise nekkid neck, as he delivers his line with a fetching chin tuck. He's back! We missed him last week, but here he is, splayed and ready for us. The "It's" Man follows, standing awkwardly in a bikini with (hilariously) flowers on the tits. For all the talk about Monty Python revolutionizing comedy, let's face it-- the cross-dressing gags always kill.

The credits follow, and once again, the lads change it up a little. This season, more than any other, they play around with the credits. We've seen the Chicken Man origin story, and the foot ravaged by time and turned into a wooly mammoth. This time, the alterations wait 'til the end. As Chicken Man flies across, he kindly hovers so that we can that his banner is different. Cleese reads it out for us, in his snooty, overly precise intellectual voice. "How to Recognize Different Parts of the Body". The foot comes crashing down on Chicken Man, and an arrow points out that this is "#1 - The Foot."

Yes, it's a return to the glory of "The Larch"! The linking device for this show is a series of usually still photos showing us strange examples of body parts. Topless (and armless) Venus is offered as an example of the shoulder, for example. Every picture gets a laugh, if only a small one. And then they start running the "naughty bits" series, a soon to be iconic Python phrase. A man in long polka-dot boxers gets an arrow aimed at his presumed junk, and this is offered as an example of "The naughty bits". They'll have a lot of fun with this as the show continues, most naughty bits accompanied by polka-dot boxers. But finally, we get a close-up of a very hairy knee, and we are linked.

The knee belongs to Idle. What follows is a very silly sketch indeed that essentially slams Australia, but in a good way. A trio of incredibly Australian men, all named Bruce, in bush hat and khaki shorts and shirts, speaking coarsely yet poetically, like you do. Talk about "monkey's bum"s gives way to Cleese ushering in Jones, the outsider, wearing a suit and tie. Cleese reveals that this is the philosophy department of the University of Woolamaloo, and Jones is the new guy. (He's not even named Bruce.) This is the origin of one of the most popular Python Live bits, the Bruces' Philosophers' Song, embedded below. (Song is not included in the sketch.) The sketch, though it never really goes anywhere, is funny, playful and loud, one of the few collaborations between Idle and, well, anyone, but in this case, Cleese. Oddly enough, the group thespian Palin seems out of touch with this piece-- his timing is off, taking his lines into audience laughter, then having to repeat them. Gilliam (I think) gives us the climax as an "abbo", an aborigine, in black face, crazy wig, and a ring in his nose. This sketch is an odd yet successful paring of Cleese's general hostility, mixed with Idle's snarky mean. And of course, there's philosophy, because they're both very smart.
The sketch closes with a strange shot of Cleese chewing some meat, which is used as an example of "#9, the Ear." More body parts follow, with an emphasis on naughty bits ("#15, the naughty bits of Reginald Maudling."), but resolve into "The Hand". This turns out to be a fake hand covering a pirate's hook, worn by TV show host Palin, who interviews professional contrarian Jones. How do you interview a contrarian? You just can't. (Yes, you can!) Cleese, the pig-cuddling announcer, interrupts and takes us back to the body parts, which include "The Feather." (Rare.) "The Nose" links

This isn't your nose, it's a false one

us to the next sketch, as Chapman seeks the surgical affections of plastic surgeon Cleese. This is a slight and silly bit, but incredibly fun to see Chapman and Cleese work together in their shorthand way. This is also the first Python bit with fake noses, returned to in "The Holy Grail". This is also the triumphant return of Mr. Luxury Yacht, who, fans will recall, never got to do his interview with Palin because he was too silly. Fortunately, plastic surgery has a lower silliness bar than televsion, and Luxury Yacht finds happiness at last on a camping holiday. And that's not even the happy ending.

"I'll scratch your eyes out, two, three."

Palin returns as the hook-handed TV host, who introduces one of the funniest bits Python has ever done-- The Derbyshire Light Infantry do close order drills of "Bad Temper" and even better, "Swanning About". Military uniformity juxtaposed over a gay cat fight had never been done before, or since. It is nothing short of sublime. Python brings in ringers for the front row, particularly agile and skeletal gay-ish men who nail the performance with a commitment only Cleese could ever match.

This links us to an animated bit of three twin admirals in full regalia from the waist up, in tutus and tights down below, dancing to the Nutcracker. A man (the "I confess" man from earlier) threatens to kill himself if they don't stop. (Spoiler alert-- they don't stop.)

The bullet from his gun displaces the right iris. The iris plummets through a children's story onto a roadside and becomes a bus stop sign. An old lady tries to flag down a series of buses. (Spoiler alert- they don't stop.) Her only recourse is to stick her Mr. Fantastic leg out and trip the bus. A nice visual bit that segueways into "The Killer Cars", a Gilliam B-Movie homage to "Them" and the like. It's a very cool bit, with stalking cars and giant mutant cats that eat whole buildings, and disembodied hands that squish grateful pedestrians.

As people leave town, two of them, Chapman and Carol Cleveland (not in a bikini) take the cut-rate transcontinental experience. Decades before fare wars and airlines like Jet Blue, there was "Verri-fast Plaine Co." a rubber-band airline that served injections instead of meals. Idle plays the haggling captain. ("The flight is five hours. Ten for the pair of you.") and Palin silently reprises his Luigi Vercotti character. The pilot is (and is named) Kamikaze, and Jones, as the departure lounge hostess, advises them to stay away from battleships. And now things get a little strange...

Monty Python is usually pretty smooth with their transitions. In fact, they're celebrated for the ease and cleverness with which they tie together disparate sketches. But this time, they seem to be a little confounded. The body parts won't serve them, and they don't have any other ideas, so they rely on technical transitions like dissolves and throwaway voice-overs, all to get them to the beach. It's one of the few times you can see them really working hard to connect weird bits. It's as close to forced as they ever get.

Off the reference to battleships, we see film clips of battleships, and a terrible, awkward Cleese voiceover that ends in self-apology and never fails to crack me up. We cross fade to John Cleese on a gravelly beach, (with sunbathers behind him!) announcing the winners of an Edward Heath wet wood statue competition. (One of those topical gags that have no resonance to Americans today.) It's apparently a gay joke-- the prize is ten guineas and a trip to the sailor's quarters. But it's only 15 seconds of irrelevance before we cross fade again to--

The Batley Townswoman's Guild! Fighting in the muck of the English countryside. Some of you might say "Hey, that sounds familiar." You're right! It's a expurgated repeat of last seasons triumph. Cleese reminds us who these women are as the tide rolls in around him, and Idle returns as Rita Fairbanks to announce their new production, "The First Heart Transplant". And the women rush each other again, only this time, (wait for it...) the scrum is in the surf. The camera is further back, so we can't see the action as well, and there's no mud or pigs. Overall, it's a tepid sequel, and we never see the ladies of Batley again. If only we'd been that lucky with the Matrix.

An entrance with a splash!

But, back to Cleese, the tide swamping his knees now, as he announces other underwater events-- Shakespeare, musicals, car racing! Gilliam saves us with an animated bit before we have to watch Cleese drown. A racecar speeds out of the water, past a nude lady. A sign signals "Pit Stop". You see where this is going, right? So does the audience. And, of course, the arm pit brings us back to body parts. We stop with "The Nipple", which is actually a radio dial, and we're into the next sketch. The lads have regained their transitional feet. (#1 and #3, collectively.)

This sketch is one of my favorites.As you will recall from the last episode, Chapman and Idle did a Pepperpot sketch, one of the first examples in the series to date. The Pepperpots are the big, tall, female characters with high, screeching falsettos. We've seen them before in the vox populi segments, as well as an early Chapman/Cleese museum sketch from season 1. But last week was the first time we saw them in their natural habitat-- sitting around, opining absurdly about life. In that sketch, they talked about how lucky the upper class were to have people to do their relaxing for them. Yet, Idle seemed awkward and out of place, never meeting Chapman's gaze, eyes always up or down. There's a reason for this, and we discover it this week-- those characters were meant to be played by Chapman and Cleese. We find the truth of the Pepperpots in their brilliant delivery.

We start with the radio dial, and pull out to reveal Chapman and Cleese sitting on the sofa, both in dresses, Cleese in a sweater, Chapman in an apron-- I guess it's her house. The radio announces a new BBC serial, "The Death of Mary, Queen of Scots", which is hilarious in its own rite. The title is literally what the show is about, with sounds of a massive fight scene interspersed with screams from poor Mary (Jones). This goes on for a minute before fading out. Episode 2 is promised (on a different station), and it picks up where the first left off, more screams and fight sounds, until all goes quiet. "I think she's dead," says an executioner. "No, I'm not," replies Mary, and the death rattles start again. A precursor to the "Bring out your Dead" scene in "The Holy Grail", it's a very funny little bit tossed in their. Finally, the announcer proimises an explosion, and the radio blows up.

Hold it together, Chapman!

But just as funny are Cleese and Chapman's Pepperpots, nestling into their seats and listening silently to the show. Chapman looks like a bird, his mouth and head twisting with sudden jerks. If Jones was influenced by Buster Keaton, it seems Chapman's idol was Stan Laurel. It's a delight to watch the two of them just be.

When the radio explodes, they decide it's time to watch telly. Turning the couch around, they both get comfortable. And we're blessed with one of the classic Python exchanges;
Chapman: What's on the telly, then?
Cleese: Looks like a penguin.
There is indeed a penguin on the television, and a great absurdist exchange follows as they wait for the TV to warm up. Male or female? Which zoo? When is it effective to stamp a penguin? Burma? The conversation, and the characters, so lived in and authentic, make this little piece a huge vat of fun and silliness. Finally, TV announcer Jones says "It's time for the penguin on top of your television set to explode." The penguin complies, and we move on.

It's worth noting that I'm not the only person who finds this sketch hysterical. Cleese and Chapman, who wrote it, had immense difficulty performing it, requiring around fourteen takes-- unusual for Python. The cuplrit? "Our very naughty laughing at each other," confesses Chapman in Kim "Howard" Johnson's book "The first 200 Years of Monty Python". You can even catch them nearly losing it on the take they finally used. If anyone knows of footage from the unused takes, please let me know. I would love to see it.

We're back to the body parts. They take a swipe at circa 70s Margaret Thatcher (so much for non-topicality!) and finally link to a country house sitting room. It's another Agatha Christie sketch-- they've done them before. Chapman wears a little boy's outfit with tiny shorts, but beyond that he plays it straight for Inspector Palin, who is demented and proletarian, working two cases at once (burglary and murder) and confused about which on this is. The jokes pop up in little eddies, then disappear. But all of this is set up for Sgt. Duckie's (Jones') entrance, who comes in with a battalion of back-up singers to sing a pop song about feeling sad. Palin feeds him his intro line, and off he goes. Jones has a nice-ish voice, but he's a terrible singer, failing to keep the beat, and dancing awkwardly. But it's funny, so it's all good. Cleese and Cleveland, neither in a bikini, sit awkwardly on the couch as he sings. The song ends abruptly with an "etc. etc." in unison. Suddenly, we're in the middle of a contest, with the crazed multi-lingual hostess announcing the scores. Palin stands behind him with a lampshade on his head-- okay, they're just getting goofy. The contest is apparently "Best Cop

Singer"-- a precursor to Bochco's Cop Rock? The champion is Chapman's Chief Inspector from Monaco, who, in a cheesy variety show setting with wafting tinsel, sings his winning song "Bing Tiddle Tiddle Bong". As he sings, he hops around like a tin soldier, screaming the words. It's a great, silly performance, although it's too out there to be funny. Finally, he takes a panting bow, and we get a shot of the last body part-- "The End."

While this particular episode isn't ambitious. it seems to contain some brilliant and oft-remembered Python classics. Every time I watch it, its greatness sneaks up on me. If you have a friend who has never watched a Python episode, this is the one to show. It has everything-- great animations, classic filmed bits, odd conceptual stuff like the singing cops, and of course, the Pepperpots and the Penguin.  It doesn't have any of the big set pieces or live performance sketches-- but we don't like stuck up sticky beaks here!

Next Week; Episode 23 - Scott of the Antarctic. Bring your own Lion.

Eric Idle - A Loony Alone

"Life is a comedy when watching, and a tragedy when experiencing." - Eric Idle

They were all born during World War II, grew up with radio and television, and went to college in the 60s, but strangely enough, Eric Idle was the only hippie. With long hair and the obligatory guitar, he seemed the flower child of the group, and stood apart from the tweedy conservatism of the rest of the lads. Sure they were silly, manic, brilliant-- but only Idle was cool.

Just goes to show how misleading appearances can be. Underneath the Woodstock-ian veneer was a caustic wit, a relentless suspicion of others, and a resistance to conformity or fellowship. While Cleese tried to team up with other members of the troupe besides Chapman, (with limited success) and while the others often chose their favorite partners to develop material with, Idle almost always worked alone. In "Monty Python Speaks", Idle relates his process; he gets up, makes his coffee, and writes until he's tired of writing.

Unless you're a prostitute or a trapeze artist, there's nothing wrong with working alone. I'm doing it right now. But Idle also confessed frustration with getting his material into the show. The Python process involved reading material in front of the group. If you wrote with a partner, you knew you had extra laughs during the read, and extra votes when material was being chosen for final shows. Idle blames this process for many of his sketches not getting in. Because he wrote alone, he had no partner to advocate for the material. This begs the question; Why does such an intelligent person, with an awareness of how the process works against solitude, and a peck of talented writers to team up with, why does said intelligent person resist working with someone else? Apparently, Graham Chapman was just sitting there, drinking! Why didn't Idle adjust his process to greater advantage for his material's inclusion?

I'm not sure, but it looks like-- he's kind of a dick.

I have no first hand knowledge to base this on. I do have a second hand anecdote from a trustworthy colleague who hosted Idle for one of his gigs, and according to him, Idle was an utter bastard. Insulting, sarcastic and all around mean. You didn't hear it from me.

Doing a quick Brainy Quotes search of his witticisms, you don't come up with much mean stuff-- an anecdote about him giving Cleese some money to shut up, but that's about it, and I'm sure Cleese had it coming. The rest is positively positive-- expressions of gratitude for his good fortune and involvement with Python. So maybe my colleague was just easily perturbed that day, or Idle was on the rag, I don't know. But it certainly fits with the portrait of a man who refused to write comedy with some of the best minds of his generation, even if it cost him air time.

The portrait spreads to his material-- much of it involving a lone man behind a desk addressing the camera. Even his sketches that existed in a non-television reality often devolved into long monologues-- the travelogue sketch immediately comes to mind, wherein Idle delivers an impressive, fast-paced, hyper-intelligent and enraged rant, as travel agent Palin politely, then angrily, tells him to shut up. Not only does he write alone-- he performs alone. His follow up to Monty Python, Radio 5, was all him, all the time, written and performed in multi-track solitude. (He let others join in for Rutland Weekend Television, a precursor to Fernwood 2 Night and Second City Television, which spawned the glorious Rutles.)

Idle grew up in a boarding school, a harsh and abusive place. Humor and caricature soon became his best defense, achieving parity by mocking the authority figures at school. This gift for mimicry becomes apparent in the series, with his impersonations of British TV personalities, most notably David Frost, portrayed as a person and a tree in different episodes. The impersonation is devastating, almost cruel, aimed at a man who employed him early in his writing career. (Idle might substitute "exploited" for "employed".) The sketch doesn't employ the random cruelty that Cleese and Chapman use so often. It's pointed right at Frost. The theme of the sketch could best be expressed; "David Frost is an asshole." (I bet Nixon loved that sketch.)

Still, being a brilliant loner has its advantages. Idle was the spearhead behind the Monty Python books, projects which began as exclusively Idle, the others only getting involved when they saw the possibilities Idle had already begun to realize. Book writing, of course, is uniquely suited to smart and wordy people who like to work alone. As the group disbanded and the Python process became less exacting, Idle found he could get more material into the albums. The "Contractual Obligation Album" might be considered Eric Idle's, with an avalanche of tunes that he sings, as well as a rock report that he delivers solo. (The others contribute material, but the album is dominated by Idle.) And speaking of exploitation, we would be remiss if we didn't mention "Spam-a-Lot", Idle's musical theater bastardization of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."as well as a few songs off the aforementioned "Contractual Obligation Album." Insofar as Python the entity exists, it exists because Eric Idle (alone) saw the benefits of exploiting said entity. It could be argued that without these contributions to the Python oeuvre, the group would mostly be remembered as the creative team behind an old TV series. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" created the cult. Eric Idle created the commodity.

Finally, there is "Life of Brian", perhaps Idle's (and Python's) crowning achievement. The idea began with an Idle joke about their next project; "Jesus Christ; Lust for Glory". There was no next project, and Idle was just being silly. But the idea stuck. Idle provided the locale for the Python retreat that resulted in the script, and Idle's friend George Harrison rounded up the funding. And lest we forget, the iconic song, indelibly embedded in the zeitgeist, was Idle's. Remember that guitar?

Hey, you don't have to be a perfectly centered and progressive human being to be brilliant and talented. So Idle works alone. So he's querulous and cutting. So his creative vision is often limited by what he can do, alone. His contribution to the Python canon is undeniable. His eagerness to create product under the franchise banner has kept the franchise going, 45 years later. And like Death, he gets the last laugh. After years of being frustrated by the Python process, he is the single member who has managed to turn the material into huge bags of gold for himself, while Jones wrote history books and Cleese racked up divorces.

Always look on the bright side...

Episode 21 - Archaeology Today

"You hate him, and then you respect him. Then you kill him " - Eric Idle as  Hunter Roy Spim.

Like archaeologists, who gather bones and assemble them, the Pythons would collect material at the beginning of their season, and apportion the sketches across the thirteen episodes, only then creating linking material for cohesion. Just as archaeologists wouldn' try to cram two rib cages into one skeleton, Python would usually try to spread out the sketches according to quality and casting; If Episode 2 already had a Cleese/Palin sketch, they might try to schedule another Cleese/Palin sketch for a later episode. As a result, the shows are usually quite balanced-- everyone gets something to do, and no one dominates. (With the exception of Chapman, the laziest and most hedonistic of the troupe. People didn't write a lot of material for him, but he often dominated anyway, by sheer animal magnetism.)


This particular episode, however, is slightly skewed, with a lot of material going to the group's loner. This is Eric Idle's episode. And after seeing and hearing so much of him, we can use our comedically archaeological skills to divine the man behind the hippie do-- the hyper-intellectual, slightly snarky snob.


Let's get right to it. As always, please get yourself the box set. The lads could always use the money, and it's about time you gave them some. You didn't give any to PBS during that pledge drive when you discovered them. Let's show 'em some love!

Do you know this man?... Neither does anyone else.

We start with the BBC graphic we've discussed earlier-- The lads are making frequent use of this graphic, which is actually pretty cool in a 70's lava lamp way. Idle's voice over announces a choice of viewing. What follows is a series of random jokes that are pretty incomprehensible to an American audience, i.e. me. I think the point of the whole piece is how often the BBC turns to sports to beef up its ratings, to the point where all they show is sports. British sports icons (in other words, non-entities,) are announced to be appearing in dramas, sitcoms, variety shows and mysteries. It is interesting to note that in the middle of this season, Monty Python's Flying Circus was preempted by the Horse of the Year show, so clearly this was a thing. The most impressive thing about this piece is its mass. In the 80 second bit, Idle crams an impressive array of shows and drops a metric ton of names, all with his standard, rapid fire bland yet excited delivery. Even though the jokes fail to land across the pond, the energy and silliness carry us through to the titles, which proceed without incident--

Or do they? At the end of the title, the foot hangs out for a bit-- and then crumbles like plate glass into a heap on the dirt. Time passes, indicated by the rushing of wind, the rising of the landscape, and the disappearance of the rainbow. The mound of shattered foot is soon gone. Trees grow, civilization follows, with a golden city called "Hot-Cha-Cha!" playing rag time. The party ends, as they do, and soon the city is a black, fly-infested hulk. Gilliam tells us that we're all just dust in the wind. As a single 'dozer shoves the condemned city away, a sign is revealed-- luxury flats are coming. (Can I have the condemned city back, please?) An excavator digs the foundation-- and they find something! A perfectly preserved toe from the giant foot! They rush it to the British Museum (thanks for the arrow, Terry!) where the best minds of the age figure out that the toe is actually-- a snout for a wooly mammoth. Why do intellectuals hate other intellectuals so fiercely? Worse yet, what do they have against wooly mammoths? I don't know, but it's funny.

"Toooo-dayyyyy... I hear Terry Jones sing..."

The show title pops up beside the much-maligned mammoth, and we fade to a typical interview set-up. Palin, the interviewer, has Jones on one side, Cleese on the other. Both Jones and Cleese seem vaguely anachronistic-- their ties are vintage bow affairs, and Cleese wears a suit reminiscent of Mark Twain. Palin is modern day, and of course, they're on television. Palin introduces both men as archaeologists, but seems much more interested in their height than their calling. This all takes us back to the Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson sketch from the first show, but Palin seems to be in charge of this one, and in true "Lumberjack" fashion, he's going to drive this train right off the rails. Palin rhapsodizes about the Watutsis. "Some of them were eight feet tall! Oh! Can you imagine that! Not one on anothers shoulders, no! Eight feet of solid Watutsi!" This drives the insecure Jones into an hysterical breakdown, and Cleese reprimands Palin by socking him in the jaw (missing him by a mile, but it's fun to watch!) Cleese has bought in to Palin's obsession; "I can do what I like, 'cause I'm six foot five, and I eat punks like you for breakfast!" Palin swears revenge on Cleese, who stares nobly off in the distance. It turns out this whole show was just prelude and back story for an old western-- about archaeology.

Awesome shot!

We cut to film of an Egyptian dig. We are solidly in the 1920s. Carol Cleveland's voice over tells us that Cleese is digging and discovering and-- singing? Yes, sort of. Cleese breaks into song, accompanied by organ music and dubbed by Terry Jones. Cleese is legendary for being a bad singer, but he must have been really bad if Jones is an improvement, with his warbly baritone. The effect is hilarious, as Cleese and Cleveland keep breaking into, and out of, and back into, song. The song itself is insipid tripe, bearing no relation to archaeology whatsoever, which makes the archaeological inserts all the funnier.  Cleese acts well in a trench. (That gag will make more sense later.)

Believe it or not, the guy on top is real.

Suddenly, an organ crash alerts Cleese and Cleveland. In a brilliant shot preminiscent of Tarantino or Nolan, Palin stands stiffly on a plateau in his 70's garb, his long-promised revenge now at hand. Jones, cravenly and cowering like Renfield at Dracula's feet, is now Palin's ally. In a strange, surreal special effect, Jones leaps up onto Palin's shoulders, making them cumulatively over 11 feet. Cleese doubles down, or up, as Cleveland leaps onto his shoulders. Each human tower adds a third, and they have a vast, destructive chicken fight, destroying the priceless artifacts that inspired song just a few minutes ago. Hysterically, one of the dummy heads on top falls off before the two heaps collide. The fight scene destroys all and sundry, and only Palin is conscious enough at the end of the melee to announce next week's show. A hand sticks up out of the dirt right next to him, shaped into a fist. Nice little detail, that.

We cut to a PSA by the reverend Chapman, who makes an appeal on behalf of the people who, through no fault of their own, are sane. The camera pulls back to reveal he has an ax embedded in his head. This is prime Chapman, the group's Wilde-ian heir, encouraging his viewers to spread the weird. "It is up to people like you and me, who are out of out tiny little minds, to try and help these people overcome their sanity." His demonstrations on how to do this quickly devolve, and we cut away to another appeal.

Idle, looking very Thatcher-esque, tries to remember who she is and what she's making an appeal for. She confuses her lost name with her favorite singer, fruit, and way to spend a Saturday night-- it's about a minute and a half of frustrating silliness, mercifully cut short by Gilliam as a feral boxer, knocking her flat and turning to the camera for the next comer. The vintage film clip of ladies clapping takes us to the next sketch--

A marriage registrar. Hey! We've done this sketch before, haven't we? Last time, Idle was the registrar and Jones the applicant. This time, Jones is behind the desk, and Idle is looking to switch wives like you'd switch a defective television. It's a slight sketch, well done by all concerned. Finally, Idle complains "All I wanted was a jolly good--" and before he can get the
 dirty word out, a soccer referee halts the play, taking Idle's number (he's got a number on the back of his jacket, handing out the penalty, and re-starting the show. Palin and Chapman, who have been waiting patiently, do their irritating sketch, where Palin can't get Chapman's name right. This whole section of the show is starting to feel like an odd lots bin, where all the goofy sketches with nowhere to go, the oddball exchanges written in the margins, get stuck in as filler. But the lads seem to eel the same way, and they're okay with it, and if they're okay, I'm okay. A soccer whistle halts the play, they abandon the sketch, and we cut to an animated bit--

Hard boiled!

A huge stadium dominated by an even huge-r soccer ball. In a nearby apartment, gangster Mugsy Siegel, a big broad man in an equally broad suit, daintily eats a soft-boiled egg-- which then machine guns him. It's the work of Eggs Diamond, a crimelord hen with a coterie of fedora-wearing eggs. (Spiny Norman makes a brief appearance here-- Enjoy!) There's a nice visual bit where a Victorian fop narrates Eggs' reign of terror. He points at a map, and a bloody bullethole appears. The noir ending is predictable, turning last week's existential question on its head; "Which blew up first, the chicken or the egg?" This takes us to a pitch for other gangster books, a tad more transparent than most ads tend to be. "Buy it now, suckers, " Palin urges, "Sound clever at your next cocktail party."

Dreary Fat Boring Old vomits into her purse.

At a cocktail party, Chapman introduces Palin to Jones, who's name is "A Sniveling Little Rat-Faced Git." This is a fun sketch, as Palin trues to navigate the mortification of speaking to someone with said name. Git's wife and children are no better named. Cleese plays "Dreary Fat Boring Old" to perfection, keeping his voice low, manly and flirtatious as he vomits in his purse. Yes, it turns out that the Gits are as repulsive as their names, painting the house in pus and vomit
and throwing the kids disembowling parties. They follow up with a nice version of the same sketch, which is not funny at all. A nun, played by Cleveland, (what a waste!) claims to prefer the dirty version, and she is slugged by Gilliam's boxer. The man's a beast!

"There's nothing more dangerous than a wounded mosquito."

We follow with a filmed bit. Chapman and Idle play two Australian hunters who stalk mosquitoes and the like with automatic weapons, missiles and tanks. Both are excellent; Chapman says "I love animals. That's why I like to kill 'em." And when the one-armed Idle is asked why he doesn't just use fly spray, he responds "Where's the sport in that?" The (literal) overkill of the insects is hilarious, as is the sportsman mythos the hunters attach to what is essentially an unfair and incommensurate  slaughter. Unlike the opening bit, this film resonates well with American audiences, who suffer from less enlightened but equally brutal and entitled "sportsmen".

Without even the benefit of a link, we cut to Idle and Palin walking down the hallowed back halls of a Justice Court, complete with robes and wig, looking solemn and very important. But you know what's coming, don't you? As seen in many of their live performances, the judges get into the locker room, the robes come off, and they're drag queens, swishing about how cute the foreman is, and how they "waggled me wig" to emphasize a point. Idle is more lushly effeminate, while Palin is child-like and playful. It's cute, but it's a one-joke sketch, embroidered with mincing and costume gags.

In case you haven't been paying attention, (and really, why would you?) there've been five major Idle sightings in the show so far-- the opening voice over (technically not a sighting so much as a hearing,) the PSA, the marriage registrar sketch, the Aussie hunter, and the transvestite judge. Compare this to Cleese (the Archaeologist) or even ol' reliable Palin (the interviewer, the straight man in the Gits sketch, and the brief but somehow not brief enough wordplay sketch with Chapman). But wait, there's more...

Did John Cleese call in sick?

The Pepperpots! We've seen a couple of these ladies in past seasons, such as Cleese and Chapman in the art museum smacking their kids. We tend to associate them with Cleese and Chapman, because Cleese and Chapman usually wrote and performed in these sketches, wherein middle class Brit fraus bandy about odd non-sequitirs and leaps of logic that cast a cruel light on the non-consciousness of British middle class existence. But this is actually the first time that the Pepperpots appear in a sketch that doesn't have another sketch wrapped around them. There's no wacky eating of the art conceit-- just a couple of white, very white, couldn't be whiter, chicks, sittin' around talking. And the cast is not what we would later come to expect. It's Chapman and IDLE! The man is like a body snatcher in this episode! He trundles in, just as Cleese would, and greets Chapman. "Hello, Mrs. Thing." "Hello, Mrs. Entity," Chapman responds. They have a goofy conversation about how exhausting it is to have tea. Chapman is his usual absurd self. Idle, on the other hand, seems oddly pissed off. He's constantly looking down, with pursed lips, like he resents having to be there. Maybe Cleese called in sick, and Idle had to abandon a hot, willing blonde in the green room. It doesn't interfere with the quality of the sketch, fortunately. And the sketch serves as a link to one of the most frenetic, lunatic sketches Python has ever produced.

That's a live rat on Beethoven's head.

Remember Cleese's terrible Mozart from the first episode? Well, he's back, only this time he's playing Beethoven, my personal favorite composer. The opening gag, that Beethoven had a mynah bird, and once he went deaf, the mynah bird would just mime, is already brilliant. As the sketch begins, Beethoven is working on the 5th symphony, and can't figure the notes. The Mynah bird mimes, and Beethoven snarls at him "I'm not deaf yet." "Just you wait," the mynah replies. Beethoven shoots him. "Right in the wing," the mynah squawks. Chapman, as Mrs. Beethoven (yeah, right,) comes in to ask him stupid questions, or vacuum, or anything to keep him from figuring out his symphony. Cleese is all manic aggression, screaming "Shakespeare never had this trouble!" We cut to a series of sweet gags as the great artists of all time deal with domestic bliss, tossing each other ideas. (Idle plays Shakespeare.) This takes us to the conceit of Mozart's son becoming a rat catcher, which brings us back to Beethoven's place, where Colin shoots at the flying rats with a machine gun, while Beethoven struggles to compose. There's a gag with the other tenants of Beethoven's building, there's hilarious practical effects with the rats running up Beethoven's wall, and a great awkward jingle from Colin Mozart. The sketch is random, but not gently, suavely random like much of the Python oeuvre. This bit is violently random, and the gravity of Beethoven brings everything back to him. It's full of lunacy, rage and brilliance, with funny jokes tossed off without a care as to where they land, or if they land. The Pepperpots give us the coda, and we get a final image of Beethoven, deaf and happy at last, as his mynah sings Durante.

The credits return us to the judges, still swishing and gossiping; "I love those Scottish assizes. I know what they mean by a hung jury." Finally, they pull a British in joke, impersonating the BBC announcer who would presumably follow them in the BBC Tuesday night line-up.

A couple of firsts in this show-- no "It's" Man, or announcer saying "And now for something completely different...". A couple of brilliant bits, and a couple of self-aware throwaway bits, tied together with the most meager of linkage material. And a lot of Idle. We can see the necessary limitation of Idle's process. Because he works alone, he tends to write sketches that only require him, and he tends to peter out after a minute or so, circling the drain with a one-joke sketch, however cleverly varied. But there aren't any unintentional clunkers, and some of the bits are genius.
This show lacks the cohesion of their other efforts. While it's identifiable as Python, it's not representative of them-- kinda like a wooly mammoth with a big toe for a trunk.

Next week; Eric Idle