John Cleese, Eric Idle... and Me!

"They told us to 'just have fun'... but then they wouldn't let us out." - Eric Idle

Way back in the spotty days of my teenage-hood, I wanted to be a comedy sketch writer, and I pursued that dream with some alacrity. I wrote material for my high school drama club that shamelessly ripped off Steve Martin and Saturday Night Live, and spun off sketch and improv groups out of various restaurants and resorts that I worked at. I always received tremendous joy writing comedy. Cracking oneself up is a great way to spend one's day.

Though I had some success in the New York comedy scene, it never translated into big bucks, or little bucks, or big cents, or any sense. I watched the careers of my idols and felt as though they were dwelling within a completely different reality than I, a million miles away. But something happened last Tuesday night that has comforted me considerably. Maybe the distance between us wasn't uncrossable.

Not because I might become a successful comedy sketch writer-- but because John Cleese and Eric Idle came to Glendale.

Two weeks ago, my wife called from work in Glendale. She had driven past the Alex Theater marquis and seen John Cleese's name perched on it. "Why don't you look that up and see what's going on?" Abby knows how obedient I can be when she asks me to do something I want to do. It turned out that not only Cleese, but Eric Idle was on the bill for Tuesday, Nov. 18th. Unfortunately (for me, not for Cleese and Idle), the L.A. Live Talks show was sold out. Exhausting all possibilities (how do you think she wound up with me?) Abby asked a kind co-worker with connections to the Alex Theater and the Glendale arts community, who scored us a couple of general admission seats. My sincere gratitude to the co-worker, the wife, and whoever the hell his contact was.

Our evening began with a pork sandwich and tremendous anxiety. After dinner at Porto's across the street (my sincere gratitude to the owners of Porto's, the counter server, and whoever the hell the pig was,) we walked over to the theater an hour early to find it mobbed, with two lines snaking out from the theater in opposite directions. Once we got our tickets, we realized the seats were not assigned. We were going to have to race and fight for our seats. Lucky for me, Abby was wearing gorgeous but uncomfortable boots, which means I'd be doing the racing. We stood in line, eyes sharp for any advantage, listening to the conversations around us. It was a genteel crowd of older wanna-be hipster intellectuals, trying to out-conversate each other, with an occasional whack job wearing a Holy Grail shirt shambling by. "I hope Eric sings," one man pined. (Spoiler alert; His dream would be crushed!)

But the crew at the Alex had their act together, and Abby and I found two very nice seats off right in the balcony, with a nice if slightly distant view of two red thick plush velvet chairs, with a small coffee table between them, water bottles at the ready. Is it unjust that their seats were so much nicer than ours? We watched other people play games on their phones-- there was solitaire to the left of us, and some ball sorting game down and to t right. After a decent interval plus an indecent delay, the Live Talks representative announced other upcoming shows. One of them, Anne Rice, the writer of Gothic horror and erotica, being interviewed by her son, seemed promising. ("Mom, can we discuss "Sleeping Beauty?" "No!") He then said that it was pointless to introduce tonight's guest, and instead, he had asked them to introduce each other. (Spoiler alert; This never happened! Gyp! I want my money back!) Then out they came-- Eric Idle and John Cleese, big as life, entering from stage left.

Then, off they went, cheerfully sauntering off stage, no doubt congratulating themselves on a job well done. We clapped, called for an encore, and kept our eyes affixed on stage right, where they had exited-- Only to be surprised by another stage left entrance. These guys are good!

Okay, house cleaning time-- I didn't record the show (wasn't sure it was ethical, let alone legal) and my shorthand gets confused with my backhand, which kept poor Abby on her gorgeously booted toes, so my recollection of everything they said is incomplete. My general impressions follow.

They began by getting comfortable, each stretching out in his chair and sighing contentedly. There was some confusion over who was interviewing who. Cleese had a cold, which he apologized for, and he complimented Idle's youth and health-- 71 years of age, versus Cleese's 75. After a bit, it was decided that, since Cleese had the new book out, Idle would ask the questions. "I've written a book," Cleese brags. "Have you ever written a book?" Whereupon Idle embarrasses Cleese with the vast number of books he's written, none of them particularly successful, but all of them numerous.

Idle complimented the book, ("well written") but criticized it for stopping at the Monty Python years, or presumably, just when it got to Idle. But as it turns out, Idle was at Cambridge while Cleese was there (though they only overlapped a year,) so they had worked together before, including Idle playing some thankless roles in "At Last The 1948 Show", such as a hand or a dead body.

The book, I hear, is primarily about Cleese's childhood and college years, and Idle brought up some anecdotes, such as Cleese waking up to find his controlling mother cutting his hair. I had thought Cleese had a hostile antipathy towards his CPA Dad, but apparently, he was very fond of his Dad, and this comes out in the book. Cleese, having failed to get into college at first due to the influx of returning WW2 soldiers, taught at his prep school for a year or so, and referred to that time as the happiest of his life. This stunned me! Life as a writer and star of stage and screen was less happy than teaching kids? But, Cleese insists, "There was no pressure."

There was some mention of the other Pythons, including an anecdote about Terry Jones ("Jonesy") cutting his face in the middle of the recent O2 show, and performing the Four Yorkshiremen sketch with blood running down his cheek. So alarmed was Cleese that he completely went up on his lines (that he wrote) and the sketch was totally messed up. Backstage, Eddie Izzard consoled him. "They all know the sketch," Izzard counseled. "They've seen you do it right. This time, they got to see something new." Cleese did a hilarious impersonation of Terry Gilliam and his incomprehensible midwestern accent, and there was some discussion of Graham Chapman ("Dear Graham", Cleese called him,) who was much beloved and very aggravating. Cleese recounted a Monty Python sketch about a sculptor that had to be abandoned because Chapman was too drunk to remember the lines. And there were some digs thrown at Palin's Diaries, which I found unconscionable. As readers of this blog know, I am aghast that anyone would have anything negative to say about Palin's Diaries... his maddeningly incomplete diaries. (Cleese and Idle apparently find them a bit dull.)

At the evening's mid-point, questions were presented, and Idle dutifully asked some of them. One of them, "What five people, alive or dead, would you want to have dinner with?" created a sweet, if slightly unctious moment. Cleese's dinner-mates were mostly dead-- W.C. Fields, Cary Grant, Plato, ("Don't go to Socrates'," Idle warned, "The drinks are shit.") Christ-- at this point, Cleese racks his brain to think of a fifth, until he lays eyes on Idle. "Oh, and you!"  Awwwww!

One of the questions asked about influences, and all of the influences both Cleese and Idle named were unknown here in the states, except for "The Goon Show." Radio comedians and personalities were what influenced these comic giants, because, they reminded us, they didn't grow up with television, but with radio. Idle even opined that radio fostered a more intellectual form of humor. I can see that (or hear it) as the medium forces your brain to make connections that television won't ask of you.

Of the entire evening, there were two sections that really stood out for me. One was the sketch of London in the early 60s, just before things started to "swing." Cleese and Idle recalled where the good shows were, which dorms had a "smoker", and the first time they saw "Beyond the Fringe", which was the funniest thing either of them had seen to date. Up until that point, you never made fun of the PMs, the royalty or the cabinet-- it just wasn't seen as polite. Idle talked about the deference shown to authority, how all the talk show guests were senior politicians and captains of industry, until the Beatles swung through and everything changed. Things changed at Cambridge, as well. Cambridgean David Frost ("Sewwwww-PAH!") had hit it big with "This Was The Week That Was" and suddenly comedians fresh out of college were being hired to write for BBC Light Entertainment and ITV. Their recollections of the era brought it to life for me, and made me wish I'd been there.

All of the Pythonians were part of this lucky surge from college straight to television writing, and it didn't end with television. Cleese's Cambridge show "A Clump of Plinths" was a huge hit at the Edinburgh Festival, and a theater impresario decided to take it on tour-- to New Zealand. "We left London in 1964--" Cleese began, and Idle continues "And arrived in New Zealand in 1864." One of Cleese's bits in this show was the Biblical Weather Report, which Idle briefly ran through. "We have frogs coming in from the north, and tomorrow's forecast, the death of every first born." Cleese recounted doing that bit for a group of ladies during a matinee. Cleese allows that if you're doing comedy and you get pallid laughs, you get anxious and try hard to be funnier. But on this particular show, they were getting no laughs whatsoever. On top of that, before the show they heard a lot of clinking, and when they peeked out from the wings to see what the deal was, they saw that all the ladies in the audience had tea cups and spoons. The entire show played to their bemused silence. Bets started flying around backstage, and Cleese bet a lot of money that he would get a laugh out of these women. He went out to do the Biblical Weather Report, and there was not a titter. He decided to ad lib. "And coming in from the South Southwest? Boils!" Nothing-- except for boisterous laughter coming from his fellow comedians in the wings. Cleese lost it and started laughing hysterically, unable to stop for some time. "The ladies weren't much bothered by it," Cleese tearfully finishes.

The other nice thing was the sketches. Having written for, among other things, "At Last, the 1948 Show", Cleese expressed regret that the BBC had opted to wipe the videotapes that had the old shows on them. The result was lots of television material lost forever. Some of it was being recovered, discovered in a BBC vault or whatever, but all that remains of much of it is in the memories and old scripts of those involved in making the show. Cleese had a few of those scripts, and he's reprinted them in his book. Bragging that they were "as funny as anything Monty Python ever did", he cajoled Idle into reading them with him, and so we got to see two members of Python perform lost material.

Both sketches were typically Cleese, with a man walking into a shop, engaging the steward, and one driving the other crazy. Of the two sketches that were read, only one of them was truly "lost". The other had been performed by Idle and Cleese (in a rewritten form) on the Contractual Obligation album. It was the book shop sketch with a customer asking for strangely named books by Dikkens (not Dickens), the well-known Dutch author. Written originally for Marty Feldman, (who was a mere writer before Cleese kicked him out in front of the footlights, according to Cleese-- imagine, no "Young Frankenstein" if not for Monty Python!) this sketch takes the side of the company in the whole customer service debate that Cleese had going on in his early years. (As opposed to the Parrot Sketch, which takes the side of the customer.) It shows, once again, Cleese's proclivity for recycling his material. Although not asked the hard question of why he doesn't write more, Cleese was asked about psychotherapy and what effect it had on his writing. "Therapy makes you more creative, but less productive," he replied. A-ha!

The second sketch was new to me, though, and quintessentially 60s. It was a man walking into a shop (of course) trying to improve his memory. Cleese read the part of the memory expert, who had created a byzantine technique for memorization involving association. The associations were random, long trains, often involving a "nude lady" (I love how polite the Brits are, to refer to naked women as nude ladies. Much more amenable than the current euphemisms used on the porn sites. "Big dick totally destroys a... nude lady.") and a hole through which to spy on her. Although I would disagree that it was as funny as anything Python had done, it was pretty funny. "The Battle of Trafalgar, Trafalgar Square, a square hole, you look through the hole and you see a nude lady. The nude lady has boots so you can't see her toes. Subtract ten..."

But the real joy for me, beyond the material, was seeing Cleese and Idle read it together, and enjoy reading it together. There was an effortless grace to their reads, indifferent to timing, supremely confident in the audience's reaction. Idle was all crisp precision, while Cleese read with a rumbling pride and delight in his old sketches, sharing them with all the affection of a grandfather showing off his grandchild's pictures or finger paintings.

Idle was quick and brilliant, posting bon mots throughout the night, every one of them hitting the mark. He threw in the quick jokes, while Cleese offered the anecdotes. He pulled out his Anne Elk impersonation, trying at one point to crack Idle up, and failing. The two of them shared a comfort and warmth for each other that resonated throughout the theater. They had been through the years together, had accomplished much, and were now at the other end of it all, looking back fondly and funnily at what the hell had just happened to them. At evening's end, they embraced, bidding each other goodbye, and I wondered fleetingly-- was that it? Was that the last time the two of them will share the stage before one of them kicks it? Tim Curry was apparently in the audience, in a wheelchair due to a stroke. Tim Curry! How much longer could either of them have, before infirmity sets in? Ten years?

But these thoughts were fleeting, as I said. What stayed with me were the quality of the reminiscences. Few of the stories were about their fame and success. (Although Idle floated the idea of having another Monty Python reunion, with no show-- just the five of them eating dinner on stage. They wouldn't even be mic-ed. Hell, I'd go!) They were all about the struggles, the failures, the debacles.

Well, hell, guys-- I've had those. I remember doing a sketch show, stepping off the stage during a blackout, and landing, on my feet, about two yards down. I remember a goatee falling off during a live show, and the jokes we had to instantly make up so that the sketch would still work. I remember cracking up cast members and enduring humiliations and performing for old ladies who had no friggin' idea what or who we were. Cleese and Idle were no longer alien beings a million miles away, but we were fellow troubadours with similar anecdotes. As long as we avoided topics like "accomplishment" or "success", I'd get along just fine.

Thank you, John Cleese and Eric Idle,for a wonderful evening, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. You looked as though you did. And next time you're in Glendale, swing by Porto's. They make a great pork sandwich!

Next week; Episode 30 - "Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror"

Episode 29 - The Money Programme

"...You did willfully take part in a strange sketch, that is, a skit, spoof or humorous vignette of an unconventional nature with intent to cause grevious mental confusion to the Great British Public. (to the public) Evening, all. " - Graham Chapman as Flying Fox of the Yard. 

The third season so far has shown the Python creative element humming with a lethal electric charge. Dissatisfied with being a mere sketch show, they have begun to aim a bit higher, with headier, more intertwined and complex bits that carry through for the entire episode, not just the next sketch. In addition, the lads seem to be playing well together, comfortable at last with each others strengths, mindful of their weaknesses, and creating more ensemble bits. (Except for Eric.) Can they maintain this golden moment, hold back for just a bit longer before they explode, gurgle and go limp?
Let's find out! Get out your box sets, and for those that don't have them, here's the link!

A filmed montage shows us all sorts of currency tumbling around, big buildings, spinning roulette wheels and gold bars. The title tells us it's "The Money Programme". (Isn't it adorable how the Brits spell "program"?) Idle addresses the camera from behind a show host's desk, with Cleese and Gilliam sitting nearby, bored. Idle promises a show about (you guessed it!) money, but the mere mention of the word sends him into an orgiastic oration, ("Foreign money rolling against the thigh with rough familiarity!") and finally, into song, joined by a chorus of Welsh milkmaids who happen to be male. This is, I believe, Idle's first Monty Python song, and it's a high energy doozy! Compared to the calmer, more lyrical "Lumberjack Song", which anyone can sing, few will get drunk and try to impress their friends by singing this beast. What it lacks in charm, it makes up for in speed and volume. It's also, in my opinion, as close as anything Eric's ever written to a personal statement. I'm told he really likes money, and unlike most of the other Pythons, he still has some.

A quick word about the milkmaids. This is yet another example where the randomness of Python comedy can sometimes work against them. The sketch is about a TV show, wherein the host, so enamored of his topic, breaks into sudden song. So far so good. But the milkmaids come out to join him, asking us to assume that the set of this show is populated by men dressed as milkmaids. Even this is not too far for Python. But once they join the song, which turns into a whole production number, we are now asked to assume that the TV show hired these men, gave them Welsh milkmaid outfits, and put them in the no longer impromptu number. But there's only one show who would do that, and it's not "The Money Programme". It's "Monty Python's Flying Circus". Having created this sketch, they now place a little signature on it, thereby destroying the integrity of the sketch itself. If the signature added to the humorous content, that would be one thing, but it doesn't. It's a stubborn, almost obsessive flourish that tears through the verisimilitude they worked so hard to create at the beginning of the sketch, and gives us nothing in return but-- randomness. Am I thinking too much about this? Hey, it's my blog.

What's wrong with this picture?

Idle's stand-alone cabaret debut ends with a flourish from the nude organist, still hanging out backstage. Cleese's announcer, Palin's "It's", (back after his devastating heartbreak last week) and the titles. (Did I mention in the previous posts that now, Palin's Gumby announces "Monty Pythons Flying Circus-eses"?) We start the show proper. In grand "Masterpiece Theatre" style, we set the stage for a Tudor-esque drama. A messenger approaches a barren castle, in silk doublets, tights... and a moped?! He putters up the castle as the title tells us, in exquisite script, that this is "Erizabeth". Wait, what? We got mopeds and a misspelling of Elizabeth, what the hell is going on?! We'll soon find out. Instead of setting the scene and laying out the jokes, the lads are launching right into the jokes and letting us figure out the scene. Don't worry, they'll drop more clues.

As Palin's Messenger marches stately down the stately halls, trumpeters tooting his arrival, the title continue; "Episode Thlee"... "The Almada"...   Palin approaches Idle, and by their stilted dialogue, we now see that everyone has changed their "r"s to "l"s and vice versa, as if they were all doing bad Chinese accents-- only without the Chinese accent. Palin is instructed to "apploach the thlone," and we follow him to the court of Erizabeth, wherein all those in attendance sit on mopeds. The scene plays out, with Idle's reaction to the size of the Spanish fleet getting the main laugh. "Broody Herr!" Finally, as Erizabeth stands to deliver some lines, the scene's director interrupts the play. He's a Japanese man with slicked-back hair and taped-back eyes, with a terrible, and I mean terrible, scarcely comprehensible Japanese accent. He's also poorly mic-ed, so it's doubly difficult to make his words out. But we get the general idea-- he's telling the actors they are "tellible". But when he reprimands Erizabeth for not being on a moped, (this being classic Python-- it's not strange when everyone walks around with wooden ducks on their heads, it's only when someone doesn't have a wooden duck on their head that things get weird...) the sketch comes to life as Chapman (Erizabeth) starts giving back."It's bleeding weird to have half the Tudor nobility ligging around on motorized bicycles!"

So. The mopeds have been explained, (the director wants them-- he thinks they're "sullearist"), and the odd accents might be because this isn't just a director, but a writer/director (who dictates his scripts.) But no sooner do we piece these clues together than Idle joins the revolt and takes us off into a whole new direction. "I'm telling you straight, mate," Idle says in his best working class accent, "I don't think you're Luchino Visconti at all!" Bam! This Japanese man got the gig by claiming to be a famous Italian filmmaker. Back against the wall, he denies being a "nip", and insists he's a "genuine wop", and to prove it, starts singing "Allivedelchi Loma" in a terrible screech. Fortunately, Cleese shows up in trenchcoat and moustache, as Inspector Leopard of the Fraud Film Director Squad, and stops the singing. Cleese is all bellow and belligerence as he shouts about the stage, kneeing Constable Gilliam in the nuts to establish his violent streak. (Gilliam's rubber-faced expression keeps the laugh going as he sinks to the floor. It's awesome!) Cleese goes into a long (too long, in my opinion, but it's kinda the point) tutorial on the career of Luchino Visconti, apparently to demonstrate why "Slit Eyes Yakamoto" (Jones) isn't him. But during the film lecture, Yakamoto scampers. Cleese arrests Chapman instead, insisting "There's violence to be done!"

Just had to include Gilliam's expression!

Once again, this sketch is a nice mix of madness and method that resolves in a vivid display of smart-assery (the film class), punctuated with nice energy from Chapman, Cleese and Idle. What begins as opaque silliness finally opens up to us, and we throw in a little old fashioned ball racking for a laugh. The boys are letting it all hang out on the edge, but they bring us back in.

Cleese's call to violence summons a Gilliamination. Cops from all over London avalanche a row of cars to stop a mugging. They shouldn't have bothered. In one of his inspired bits, Gilliam creates the lethal victim. The mugger demands he raise his hands-- only he's got like twenty of them. The crook knows he's in trouble just before the victim "hands it to him". Get it? Hands? Hey, it's my blog.

Uh-oh... this won't go well...

Next comes one of the oddest of Python sketches, that for reasons beyond my meager understanding, made it into the live shows. Jones plays her Ratbag Pepperpot, with Idle as her older husband. They listen to the radio as she prepares dinner. (The radio has a funny bit. Political candidates are asked what they would do if they were Hitler. The answers are way too sensible.) But Jones turns it off to get her husband's dinner preference. The options are sick-making. Apparently, the only "jugged fish" (must be a British thing) is rabbit. When asked if it's dead, Jones replies "Well, it was coughing up blood last night." Idle consents to have it. A caption takes us to after dinner, and the dessert options are no better. Everything is made up of rats. Another caption takes us to after the dessert-- thankfully, we don't have to see Idle eat this stuff-- and Chapman steps in as their son. How did these two create such a handsome boy? The sketch so far is made all the odder by a strange production glitch at the start that makes Jones sound like she's in an echo chamber.

Chapman takes us back to a throwaway gag from season 1, announcing a dead bishop on the landing. As Idle goes out to check its diocese, Jones complains "I don't know who keeps bringing them here... the dustmen won't touch them." Apparently, this is a common occurrence for this neighborhood. Once they establish the dead bishop's diocese, they question whether to call the church, or the police.

Long Arm of the Law, the Hand of God

"Call the church police," Chapman suggests. Idle calls out for them, and Bam! Palin shows up at the door with a crook and a polite "Yes?" It's pretty funny, actually, the speed with which he walks through the door. Like it was meant to be. Jones and Palin, unaccustomed to getting spontaneous bursts of applause, I guess, have to stop the sketch and repeat a few lines, which finally get delivered with Palin's face hidden behind his staff. I'm telling you, it's all so weird! Finally, to find the killer, Palin's Church Detective prays for guidance. A giant cut-out of Michelangelo's rendering of the hand of God floats down, pointing directly at Idle. Case closed, with a hymn. "Jerusalem" makes a reappearance on the show as Palin leads Idle out. It's just a strange sketch, a train of random chugging through our awareness at great speed.

A Gilliam string takes us from a beautiful shining sun, to it's tenant, to a flatulent, bouncy, dowdy wrecking ball, and the man obsessed with her, to an untamed jungle. We slide easily into a filmed bit of a black native guide leading Idle, Cleese, Chapman... and Cleveland! She has returned. Only she has a moustache. The years have not been kind to my chinchilla. Anyway, the jungle guide leads them to-- a posh open-air restaurant in the middle of the jungle. Idle gushes over it in typical metrosexual fashion as they walk into the scrum of tables, peopled by explorers like them. Palin as the black maitre'd, sporting an African accent and black face (taped eyes, black face... man, these guys have it easy!) approaches them with all civility. But the civility is a thin sham. Diners on the periphery of the restaurant space get attacked by gorillas and dart blowing savages. The brave Palin does his best to beat the wilderness back, but he's only successful insofar as he retrieves the dead bodies of the diners,

Heart of Dark face.

at some cost to his own flesh. Finally, as he takes the orders of our hero, drums start beating in the distance, and Palin ominously warns them that there may be some delay. We get a tense cross cut close-up as Palin spirals into terror over the shaking bushes--

And the BBC globe cuts in, with Idle announcing the next scene has been cut because of the violence and nudity-- which he then goes on to describe in great detail! Finally, Idle promises to replace the scene with a scene from the presumably innocuous "Gardening Club"-- which turns out to be "Ken Russell's Gardening Club"and involves a vast outdoor orgy with naked ladies, a pantomime goose, and a

See Mr. Gumby in there at the orgy?

Gumby stalking the periphery, all rolling around in a small garden plot. Glad they gave us something suitable to watch. (This clip is actually a precursor to the classic "Salad Days", coming soon!) But back to the safari story--

Our intrepid explorers are led away by the natives. Now things start to get goofy in the typical Palin-esque fashion. The explorers halt at a clearing, pointing to ominous things in the distance, and riffing on them, similar to the first sighting of Camelot in "The Holy Grail" a few years later. Some of the sightings are out of time and place-- like a London brick factory-- and some of them get a huge, tense build up, only to be

Jones with a savage tan and script

deflated by Idle saying "I still can't see it..." Then Jones comes in as a savage, with a script. After confirming the page, he reads and quick-memorizes his line, only to get it wrong.

 We cut back to London at the British Explorer's Club. Some nice visual gags, like a sled team, with snow falling around them, making their way through the library. Tweedy "Bulldog Drummond"esque explorer Jones (he even has a sign that reads "Our Hero", if you can read it) asks the club's porter, Palin, about the lost expedition. The script gag continues.

Back in the jungle, the natives have abandoned the safari crew, who are on their last legs. As they say their dramatic good-byes, an epiphany strikes Cleese-- They're on film! "There must be someone filming us!" Discovering the camera, they walk towards it-- and find a three-man crew. But wait! They're still on film! They find another crew filming the first crew filming them.

Look! We're on film!

As you can guess, this Escher nonsense can go on forever, and the lads have the good sense to stop it after two iterations. The second film crew is led by Michelangelo Antonioni-- played by Jones, still all blacked up. A door appears out of nowhere, being knocked on by Idle, as Det. Baboon, also from the Fraud Film Director Department-- Jungle Division! (He's violent, too, and shoots Carol Cleveland to prove it.)  As he goes into his dissertation on the films of Antonioni, the credits start to roll. Thank God! Even the cast is bored.

But wait! Keep your seats! There's a post credit sequence that's much more satisfying than anything you've seen in the Avengers movies! Idle announces over the BBC globe another 6 minutes of Monty Python's Flying Circus-- and Palin steps into a reception area and asks for an argument. What follows is "The Argument Clinic", arguably (heh.) the best comedy sketch in the entire Python oeuvre. Cleese, as we've read, was torn about whether to return for this third season, but if he hadn't-- there might never have been an "Argument Clinic" and the world would be more dismal for that. Thank goodness he sucked it up and spat out this sublime piece of comedy-- so sublime, the entire troupe decided to isolate it and perch it on the end of the show, like a bejeweled crown. I can't say enough good things about this sketch! If "The Spanish Inquisition" makes a case for the random and Dionysian Palin-esque style of comedy, "The Argument Clinic" is a resounding rebuttal, an Apollonian triumph. It proceeds along classic lines; establish the conceit quickly, create conflict from the conceit, use the conflict to explore all permutations of the conceit, build, build, build, release... and build again. We never break the rules of the conceit itself, as the Welsh milkmaids did in "The Money Programme" at the start of the show, but despite staying within a strict circumference, we are delighted, engaged, and blown away.

And THAT'S how we do it at Cambridge.

It's deceptively simple. Palin has come in to purchase an argument. He is assigned a specialist by the receptionist, and after a bit of confusion (this place doesn't just do arguments-- it does abuse, complaints, and getting hit on the head lessons) Palin steps into Cleese's office. Palin asks if he's in the right place. "I've told you once," Cleese replies. "No, you haven't." "Yes, I have." And that's the argument. Palin, frustrated with the lack of depth, tries to veer the argument into deeper waters, but Cleese always pulls him back with a "No, you didn't" or "Yes, I can." I know, it doesn't sound like much. But the high speed back and forth between Palin and Cleese, and the subtle variations of the central theme, make almost every line of this sketch a huge laugh. Just as Palin is getting somewhere, his time is up. Palin goes to complain, but the complaint department in this sketch is a person who complains, not one who addresses the complaints of others. Seriously, if you haven't seen or heard this sketch, do yourself a favor, and watch it immediately!

 Finally, Chapman interrupts the proceedings, as Det. Fox of the Light Entertainment Police, Comedy Division, Flying Squad-- for "Flying Circus", I presume? (He's violent, too, but fortunately, Palin has been trained.) Apparently, the sketch is too strange and must be stopped. But Idle arrests the whole show for having policemen interrupt sketches, instead of ending them properly with a punch line. In

an echo of the previous "multiple film crews" existentialist/absurdist dilemma, Idle realizes he's guilty of the same behavior. A cop arrests him. Someone arrests the cop. "The End" as we descend ad infinitum into interruptus enternus. The BBC globe promises us one more minute of Monty Python, and like Godot, it never arrives.

Though this episode doesn't have the comedic unity of the last two, it still expertly weaves threads in and out of the narrative. The fake directors, the cops arresting them, and beyond that, the Russian Doll motif that pops up in the safari sketch, and at the end of the Argument Clinic, all create a cohesion for the stand-alone bits such as "The Church Police" and the "Argument Clinic" sketches. We're also beginning to see connections to future shows. If it wasn't clear before, it is now certain that even if the lads have the sketch chops to do a successful revue show, it no longer interests o satisfies them. They're going for something more complex, and they're getting there.

Next week; An evening with John Cleese and Eric Idle... and me!

Episode 28 - Mr. and Mrs. Brian Noris' Ford Popular!

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"...It contains material that some might find offensive, but which is really smashing." - Eric Idle as Host of "Farming Club".

Monty Python's Flying Circus is no longer limited to television. As they write and record this show, they are stars of the cinema in a current hit film (in Great Britain) "And Now For Something Completely Different", as well as performing live on stage across the country and making albums. Freed from the constraints of televisual demands, you would think their best work resided in different mediums. You'd be wrong. In fact, one can scarcely equate the timid, regurgitated film with the creatively electric, brilliant and multi-leveled material on this week's show. The credits tell us they were created at about the same time. But these lads on telly are a different thing altogether, and they are flaunting it this week. Let's get to it--

But, hey, buy the box set, and save me the trouble of repeating myself with the same limpid results as the first Monty Python movie.

The intrepid explorers, and their fan.

We start with a long pre-credit movie that anticipates Palin's future in broadcasting. It's a documentary film about suburban accountant (more fun with accountants!) Brian Norris, who becomes an amateur sleuth-explorer searching for an anthropological link between the residents of two separate but identical London suburbs. The lads have a lot of fun with the dramatic build-up to Norris' "historic journey" (named after his car, just as "The Kon Tiki" was named after the raft), complete with a sudden meaningless twist at the end. But beyond the spoof of self-glorifying documentaries is an incisive critique of the loss of identity in a mass-produced world-- or is it a dig at anthropology? Probably both, as Norris identifies similarities between the architecture and lawnmowers of these supposedly disparate cultures. Palin, in his Pewty reprise, is hilariously stilted, and Chapman as his huuuuuge wife is Stan Laurel-esque, smiling inanely at the camera. There's a nice bit about how little diaries can reveal (word to the wise, Mr. Palin!) and a whole slew of jokes in Idle's narration that keep this nice bit chugging along. Usually, when the lads want to show us how intelligent they are, they limit themselves to fast-paced name-dropping. Here we see the real brains behind their humor as they effectively and organically skewer the simple modern life and the intellectual self-obsession with it, as well as the movies that compound the error by self-aggrandizing the whole silly affair. Well done, all!

The organist, in a cluttered backstage corner, plays us in, with Cleese and Plain tossing in their brief words, to the credits. A quick public school sketch brings us back in the studio, away from all that film, with Palin as a stern head master reprimanding three awkward but very high achieving young men (Idle, Jones and Gilliam). Their crimes-- creating  a unit trust linked insurance scheme, winning the Gran Prix, solving American racial tensions and being a gynecologist. Of course, all of this is for naught-- they're British school kids, and are therefore the bottom of the barrel. We close out with a nose picking joke (ah, nose! You're always there for us!) and lapse quickly into--

"How to Do It", an ultra-positive smiley kids show that tells kids how to be a gynecologist, how to solve all known diseases, and how to play the flute in 30 seconds. Cleese, with his half-cracked grin, is all repressed hostility, bending forward in emphasis on every point like a constipated rabbi. The big dog is a nice touch.  Then something interesting happens. We pan-- not cut, but pan to the next sketch. The camera slides across the edge of the set, right into an adjacent set of a suburban living room. Palin and Jones play two Pepperpots cooing over some baby pictures.

Palin's name is Mrs. Niggerbaiter. Now, I'm told that the troupe had some difficulties with the censors this season. My question is, where the hell were they when this character was named? This goes well beyond black face and political incorrectness-- this is the muther-fuckin' "N" bomb, tossed in to create a silly name. Was the name "Puslicker" or "Queef" taken? Was the Mad Lib book misplaced?

"Mrs. Nigger Baiter"? Really?

I'm a huge fan, and we have a great show going, but this seems like a rare misstep for the lads, and for such a minor gain. I admit that the creators are, to a man, British, and I'm coming at this as an American. The show still wasn't playing in America, and most of the Pythons had never been to the states. It's probable that they saw the word as a quirk of Americana-- a silly Southern colloquialism that deserved to be mocked. The audience it was created for would not have the same associations, blah-blah-blah. I get it. But as intelligent as they all were (are), and having seen what happened here during the sixties, (this was only four years after Martin Luther King's assassination,) their use of the word seems deliberately oblivious, designed for shock value and insensitive to the repression and violence that lies behind it. We now see the crucial boundary of random silliness. Tossing in such a word seems cold, insensitive, and a tad cruel, just to be seen as wacky. Anyway...

The sketch itself is a sweet one. It's clear that the Pepperpots are besotted with a little child, but when that child walks in, it's John Cleese, in a suit. "Does he talk?" Palin asks in a "cootchie-coo" voice. "Of course I can talk, I'm the minister for overseas development." Cleese's patronizing grin is perfect as Palin tempts him with a rattle. But as he and Jones (Mother) settle down to business, Palin goes off camera-- and explodes. "Oh, Mother. Don't be so sentimental. Things explode every day." Still, Mother has an existentialist dilemma-- people don't just explode, do they?

Chapman, a Doctor, sets us straight. Exploding is a perfectly normal phenomenon. In fact, Chapman uses dynamite to cure athlete's foot. (His record-- 84 dead, 65 maimed, and "12 missing believed cured.") I should also mention, in the name of completeness, that Idle interrupts both the Pepperpots and Chapman's presentation as a vicar trying to sell encyclopedias, or anything else. Both marks demur by claiming not to be religious, which is kinda funny.

Beyond the Fringe...

As Chapman's dynamite-deranged Doctor tries to demonstrate his method by poking at an anatomy chart, the skeletal human decides to beat it, donning a face (it looks like Hubert Humphrey?) He walks rght off of the film, past the sprockets, and into the white abyss. "There goes that link," Gilliam mutters.

So far, the show seems to be structured like a marathon race, or tag team wrestling. One sketch gets handed off to the next sketch, and the next, without any linkage, but spinning a single word or concept from the previous sketch into the next sketch. It feels like an improv team working a call. But now we get a full-on team treatment of a television special, similar to Ethel the Frog or Ken Clean Air System. The subject seems to be music, as Idle introduces guest Gilliam as a stodgy musical impresario here to discuss Tchaikovsky. "Which is a bit of a pity," Idle veers, "as this is Farming Club." This is similar to the bit Palin did last season, and it still works! Gilliam is ushered off the set as a cute pig pops up on the screen behind Idle, who lines up all the agricultural topics to be discussed. But once Gilliam is gone, Idle says "But first, a Farm Club special-- The life of Tchaikovsky!" Sweet! They just didn't want the stodgy guy on their show!

Now things get interesting. We hear the music of Tchaikovsky, mixed with farm sounds-- cattle and pigs, etc. The video is also of cattle, and the show's credits claim that this special is brought to us by various agricultural marketing boards. So we have a loony juxtaposition of a famous composer on one hand, and livestock on the other, for no particular reason, but it's funny and strange.

Now we get into the breathless, urgent talking heads, starting with Idle giving us the background on Tchaikovsky, particularly his homosexuality. Cleese takes over with a brilliant monologue, splicing biography with film credits. Tchaikovsky's father, Leo McKern. His mother, Julie Christie. His hometown, Eddie Waring... (And who the hell is "Stan the Bat"?) In keeping with the gay theme, Palin takes over as historian/hair dresser Maurice, who feminizes Tchaikovsky, as well as all nouns, verbs and adjectives with goofy names. "Eventually, she Dickie-died of Colin-cholera in St. Patsy-Petersburg in Gerty-great Percy-pain." Cleese rushes us over to Chapman and Jones, who pull an Apollo mission coverage on us, even throwing up a "Tchaikovsky XXI" graphic on the wall behind them. Chapman anxiously tries to get across to us the scale of Tchaikovsky's body, which is pretty much body-sized. Not content with simple measurements, say 6 feet, Chapman goes for the analogies. "If you can imagine Nelson's

Column, which is three times the size of a London bus, then Tchaikovsky was much smaller!" He hands it over to Jones, who pulls his best geek out to divide a Tchaikovsky doll into three stages-- the legs, the main trunk (with the very naughty bits indeed!) and the "command module" (the head.) Though seated at the same desk, when they talk to each other they look off in the opposite direction. A quick round robin takes us to the next bit, but we realize something-- this whole bit seems to be performed live! Three sets, five talking heads, all working in fast-paced unison, using the momentum and scattered focus to keep the audience deliriously entertained. It's a masterful tour-de-force. The accomplishment may even be lessened by the television medium. Used to such quick cuts, we can't easily spot the genius of doing it in real time. Wonderful!

Jones has sack!

And now, a performance of Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto. Jones, the pianist, also escapes from a sack, padlocks and handcuffs. This is Jones at his best, clumsily flailing around on the piano as he wriggles out of the sack. His physical dexterity and courage is astonishing. We also get an appearance from our old friend Rita, the Vegas showgirl who accompanies various magicians, and who has been played by Carol Cleveland in the past. This time, she's played by Julia Brck, and to be frank, I couldn't care less. Where is Carol Cleveland? Carol! Get your butt inside! The new season has started!

The applause for Terry Jones' amazing feat takes us to "Trim Jeans Theater". Three stilted Australian spokespeople (one, Chapman, is a woman) shill for the upcoming productions of TJT. Apparently, you watch the show while wearing the Trim Jeans, an orange balloon-ish pair of knee length shorts with a white belt around the waist, incredibly unflattering and hideous, and doing some floor exercises, and you lose "inches" off your thighs, buttocks, abdomen, etc. The famous productions staged for TJT have been altered to accommodate the product, including title changes. "Enjoy 'The Trim Gentlemen of Verona' and 'Long Day's Journey Into Night While Inches Melt Away'." The T.S. Eliot play "Murder in the Cathedral" is hilarious, and their version of "The Great Escape" is sublime-- even the German Shepherds are wearing Trim Jeans! 

His mouth gets away from him.

An inspired Gilliamination follows, with a fopish game show host type getting ready to introduce the next bit, when his lip-sticked mouth decides he can't keep uttering these bullshit inanities, and floats off the face. The emancipated mouth sounds like a stoner, ("I'm off. Gone. Split.") and the Host has to chase it around, and finally nail it in place beneath his nose. Once again, a gag only an animator could have come up with.

It turns out the act the Host was trying to introduce was none other than... The Fish Slapping Dance! In between season 2 and 3, Monty Python produced this little gem as part of a pan-European May Day special. MPFC was tasked to create some bits, and they came up with a series of folk dances. I don't know what happened to the rest of them, and as soon as I find out, I'll let you know. But the Grimsby Fish Slapping Dance made it into Monty Python's Flying Circus, and has become a fan favorite, a classic example of the silly, odd, yet hysterical comic stylings of the group we're all here to love. By the bank of the Thames,

Palin tries not to crack up.

Palin and Cleese, both in African bush country outfits and miltary moustaches. Palin holds two small fish, one in each hand, and prances towards Cleese, slapping him in the face with the fish, then prancing backwards. Cleese stands rigid for a few rounds of this. Then Palin stops and stands at attention. Cleese produces a gigantic fish and swings it at Palin, knocking him into the Thames. Cleese displays the fish in a courtly bow. It's so simple, yet so brilliant. Palin looks as if he might burst into hysterical laughter the whole time, but he holds it together. He has since claimed that this is one of his all time favorites, and its easy to see why. A truly inspired bit, and the inspiration for the title of this blog.

This takes us to yet another Gilliamination-- Palin's figure sinking to the bottom of the sea gets swallowed by a Nazi fish. From inside you can hear the sounds of "enhanced interrogation", as the Germans try to suss out allied shipping routes. The German fish is swallowed by a larger British fish, which is in turn swallowed by a giant Chinese fish, complete with stereotypical squinty eyes and buck teeth. The Chinese fish is alerted to a British ship up above (seen on the "ladal scannel",) and it bites out the bottom. This takes us to the final dizzying sequence of sketches and bits all tied together with a steadily increasing gravitational pull, taking us in like a black hole or a toilet flush.

The ship is sinking. We see footage from "A Night to Remember" as Jones voice instructs passengers not to panic. "Women and children first," he drones. We cut to the bridge, and Jones as the Captain is putting on a woman's dress. Chapman next to him is dressed as a child. "Women and children first," he reminds the passengers. Then Cleese steps up as a Red Indian. "It was the only thing left," he whines. Astronauts join the mix. Then Idle comes in dressed in a Renaissance costume. An argument ensues over whether he is a Renaissance man or a Flemish merchant. Idle gets insulted, stamping his foot in insistence-- he's very funny. It's a nice silly little bit that takes us into the next scene. The caption reads "A few days later..."

With the argument about Flemish merchants still going on behind closed doors (sorry, I was tired of typing "Renaissance." Oops...) Jones is pushed into the room by Idle-- who now wears military khakis. Cleese sits at a desk in the corner, evilly smoking a cigarette and wearing a thin moustache. He's a Venezuelan General, and the rest of the crew have been found on his shores. Watch, though-- the crew have been switched out. Idle's Renaissance Man (sigh) has been replaced with another actor, so Idle can play the soldier. Cleese's Red Indian is also recast. So is Chapman's kid and Gilliam's Space Man. Only Jones remains of the original cast, for reasons that will soon be obvious (if they aren't already.)

Now things get weird. He can't get any of his soldiers to speak to him. Cleese explains that this is because the BBC is broke and a speaking role costs 20 guineas. "28", the man corrects, and now he's got a speaking role. Someone throws themselves out of the window for no apparent reason-- except for the extra pay a stunt costs. Cleese angrily reprimands everyone. "We can't afford it!"

Idle cuts in, broadcasting from an echo chamber with a bare light bulb shining light on his script. Idle is naked but for a blanket, shivering in the cold. He denies rumors that the BBC is broke. So long as they continue broadcasting from the Kellys' flat, they should be fine 'til the end of the month. Mr. Kelly bangs on the door. "You gonna be in there all night?" Yes, Idle is broadcasting from the Kelly's bathroom!

Back to the Venezuelan sketch, Jones and the crew are shoved in again. None of the soldiers have pants anymore. Before the sketch gets started, Puss (of Puss and Boots) enters, grandly playing to the audience in what I'm told is classic British pantomime fashion.

Descent into Chaos

When Cleese insists that this is the Venezuelan Police Department, Puss (Ms. Breck), a pretty-ish poor man's Carol Cleveland holding a stuffed cat, gets the audience to chant along with her "Oh, no it isn't!" Poor Cleese struggles to get the sketch back on track, ignoring hecklers and interruptions. Finally, Jones starts to tell his story. "I had occasion to pass the forward storage locker..." The image warbles and fades out, as though we're about to see a flashback-- then comes back up. "Go on!" Cleese demands, and Jones continues his story. That's a nice bit.

So, Jones continues his story, a horror tale of a monster hidden in the ship. But while he fervently tells it, teamsters step in to carry off the set and furnishings, revealing a typical British sitting room. The chain-smoking Mr. and Mrs. Kelly (Chapman and Palin, respectively) finally stop the proceedings. "What's this about doing 'Horse of the Year Show' in here?" Palin asks in a masculine Scottish voice. (Readers of the blog will remember that last season, Monty Python was actually pre-empted by "Horse of the Year Show". A meeting with Paul Fox, head of the BBC 1 programming, followed, and the scheduling situation improved, but Fox defended his decision by insisting the horse show was one of their most popular programs. This is sweet revenge.) They figure out that this drama is BBC 2. BBC 1 is in the kitchen. We follow the Kellys out as the Venezuelan Police Sketch continues to descend into chaos.

Out of my kitchen, Horse of the Year!

 In the hallway, the Kellys listen through the kitchen door to the horse show. There's a spill. They rush in, and sure enough, a horse has tumbled over Mrs. Kelly's china. A jockey pulls herself up from the floor amid fallen white rails. The long-suffering Kellys have had enough and throw everyone out of their kitchen. Back in the hallway, as they chase out the horse show folk, Jones pops out of a hallway door with a big bulbous nose, addressing the camera. "It's one of our most popular programs," he says. "That's what you think, Mr. Fox!" Palin says as he slams the door on him. (Ah, sweet revenge!) Idle steps in with his blanket, trying to sign off, but the Kellys hustle him out the door. The closing credits are slid in through the mail slot on a sheet of paper as the music plays.

But wait! There's more! The show has ended, a new show has begun. The show's title; "It's". Yes, Palin's "It's" Man has finally gotten his own show. It's a talk show, apparently, with guests Lulu and Ringo Starr (the real Ringo Starr! Looking like Cornelius from Plane of the Apes) ensconced comfortably on a couch. Idle announces "The man you've all been waiting for!" Palin steps out in full shredded garb, awkwardly and humbly taking his long-awaited spot in center stage. He sits next to

Don't say the text!

Ringo and looks bashfully at the camera. "Hello, good evening and welcome. It's..." No sooner does he get that magic word out than the Monty Python march starts up, with the animated titles superimposed over Palin and guests. His show is over. Trying to stop the dream from ending, Palin waves frantically at the camera, wrestles with Ringo Starr to keep him on the set, pleads with Lulu-- all to no avail. That was it, his shot, and he blew it. Fade out.

What we're seeing is an increasingly complex construction to all of the bits. Few of the sketches can exist without the other sketches attached. They're either too short or incomplete on their own. But linking them together creates a novelistic complexity and depth the likes of which we haven't seen in prior seasons. The last seven minutes of this show are like a class in following concept lines to their end, weaving them with other concepts so that they are inextricable. It's a pretty amazing display. How long can they sustain it?

Tune in for next week's episode; "The Money Programme"!