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!