Episode 32 - "The War Against Pornography"

"The mollusc is a randy little fellow whose primitive brain scarcely strays from the subject of you-know-what!" - John Cleese as Mollusc documentarian.

We've talked in previous posts about the increasing concern at the BBC over the content of their comedy shows. The first two years saw little oversight-- in fact, it's doubtful that anyone at the BBC even watched the show, and seemed mystified at its success, despite being given the most random time slots. That all changed in year three, and a huge part of that was due to Mary Whitehouse, a socially conservative activist who led vociferous protests against permissiveness in the media, and specifically, homosexuals in the media.

Well, this week, the lads take aim at censorship in general, and Mary Whitehouse in particular, and wind up creating one of the funniest shows of the season. While the lads can never be accused of being particularly topical, this show seems the closest they ever came to presenting a unified theme. Of course, it's easy to miss, because they're all so totally silly. Let's check it out. And hey, box set much? Do it now, and strike a blow against censorship in the media!

We start with a classic retro filmed bit. Black and white footage of planes and factories give us a stirring WW II-era documentary, as Idle's voice over extolls Britain's housewives who are "getting things moving." Reminiscent of "girl-power" documentaries during the recent unpleasantness, these housewives, played by the lads, are using purses, bats and pointy shoes to beat London society into submission.

"Right here, dearie."

Starting with strikers, then slow moving workers, they soon move on to the arts, forcing nudes to wear clothes and tearing Desdemona away from that dirty foreigner Othello. (Okay, they got that one right...) Soon, they're burning books, putting down Hegel and wielding armbands and tanks. "Where do they stand on young people?" Idle asks. Idle, on film as a housewife, replies "Right here, dearie," her foot proudly placed on a hippie's neck. It's an awesome bit of comedy and filmmaking, exposing the violence behind Mary Whitehouse's brand of social repression-- but you don't need to know about Mary Whitehouse to get it. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this is one of their best stand-alone bits.

The film ends with war footage, the housewives throwing purse bombs and shooting rifles. As color slowly bleeds into the proceedings, a bomb explodes near-- the nude organist, smiling in inane oblivion! Poor housewives-- all their weapons are powerless against this mad, naked bastard! Cleese and Palin give their words, and the credits roll.

Trumpets announce the next sketch, an upper class address, a doctor's office. High end, luxuriously appointed, but empty. As the music fades, there's a knock on the door-- that turns to pounding, banging. Finally, the door swings in, defeated, and walking in backwards is Palin-- as Gumby! Yes, it's the return of the Gumbies, the favorite son of Monty Python. Having gained access to the office, the carnage continues. "Doctor!" he bellows repeatedly, spinning around for some sign of life. He pounds the bell on the desk, taps the intercom-- bashes it into the desk, destroys the desk utterly, all the while screaming "Doctor!"

"No, my brain in my head."

Who could resist this mating call? The door swings open, and Cleese enters as the Doctor-- the Gumby Doctor! While Cleese isn't as physically violent as Palin, he stares out with his vacuous, empty eyes, taking seven beats to figure out who he is. Finally, we get to the classic line that defines Gumby for all time. "My brain hurts!" Palin complains. (There's a nice moment where Cleese goes to check Palin's brain by unbuttoning Palin's pants. "No," Palin improvises, "My brain in my head." But while he's saying it, he's trying hard not to laugh. Sweet.) Cleese diagnoses him, "It will have to come out," and after a long call for the "Nurr-urse!" Palin is lead away, leaving Cleese with the realization that his brain hurts too. It's an epidemic!

The sketch continues in the operating room. Chapman, the surgeon, importantly and calmly asks the nurse for various instruments; "Glasses... moustache... handkerchief..." Once the handkerchief is placed on his head, Chapman transforms into a Gumby. "I'm going to operate!" he boasts to the surgical team, all of them Gumbies. Jones has a nice entrance as the Gumby anesthesiologist, eschewing the doors for the wall and bashing the still conscious Palin with the gas tank. All goes black--

The baby pulpit

Gilliam picks up the thread, with a TV commentator, very old, with gravitas filling each wrinkle, trying to find the appropriate setting for his presentation on the meaning of life. At first, he's upside down, then sideways, then wrestling with large women (some of them all naked,) and in a baby carriage. The blackouts in between are long, with wacky sound effects. The man finally manages an empty room, which collapses on him. Not Gilliams' most inspired bit, but goofy and strange enough.

We cut to a TV screen, being watched by Jones and Chapman, both wearing slightly tattered evening wear, although Chapman's is a glittery low back dress. So frustrated is Jones with the poor state of television, he pulls a medieval mace from behind the couch and smashes the TV, while Chapman stuffs a chicken. We see that Jones wears a dance competition number on the back of his jacket, and when Chapman goes to answer the ringing doorbell, the same number is drawn on her bare back.

Why won't he turn off?!

This silliness is only prelude to the real silliness. Cleese enters as a TV documetarian, selling a documentary on molluscs door to door. Since it's free, Jones and Chapman agree to watch. Cleese comes with his own cardboard TV frame, sitting behind it as though he were actually being broadcast. He starts talking about molluscs, like snails, but it's pretty dull. Chapman tries to change the channel, and Cleese asks "What are you doing?" When they complain about how bad his presentation is, he whines "Well, it's not much of a subject, is it? Be fair." They give him twenty more seconds, and Cleese starts to sweat. But at the last minute, he's hit with an inspiration. "What is most interesting is the, uh, the mollusc's, uh... sex life!"  

And there it is! The dichotomy that perplexes entertainers and audience members alike. While Mary Whitehouse storms the barricades of permissiveness, the rest of us watch, crave, are roused by, sex and violence! We hate it, but love it, and hate ourselves for loving it. How can simple-minded morality stand up to the nude man at the organ, or the insatiable periwinkle?

What follows is a prurient description from Cleese of the disgusting reproductive antics of various shell-dwellers. The limpid, for instance (the lads had fun with the limpid a few episodes ago, you'll remember,) is a "hot-blooded little beast." "Frankly, I don't know how the female limpid finds the time to adhere to the rock face." The common clam "is a right whore... a Rabelasian bit of seafood that makes Fanny Hill look like a dead Pope!" Throughout this diatribe, Chapman and Jones become

Jones aroused.

increasingly aroused, Jones licking his lips in awkward and vaguely repulsive perversion. Finally, Cleese comes to the climax, so to speak, as he grimaces through the sex life of... The whelk!  "...Nothing but a homosexual of the worst kind!" Keep in mind, one of Whitehouse's favorite targets was homosexuals, (something she had in common with many homosexuals,) and the probable co-writer of this sketch, Chapman, was a homosexual. Cleese, decrying the wanton whelk, finally produces one for Jones and Chapman, who stamp it into their rug with vicious rage, channeling their sexual energy into an act of destruction. That done, there's an awkward "morning after" beat between the grateful, satisfied couple and the living television. This sketch, in case you can't tell, is one of my favorites of the entire Python canon, as overlooked as it is brilliant, a devastating attack on media, close-mindedness and hypocrisy that never gets preachy or self-righteous. Bravo!

Gilliam gives us the link, in two ways. He makes a rare on screen appearance as an unctious television announcer with a big mop of hair (lucky bastard!), but as he tries to make his announcement, he gets interrupted by Roman Chapman with a swim toy, and Palin's "It's" Man who has a new word-- "Anyway..." Then Gilliam interrupts himself with an animation. Much more inspired than the last one, it starts with big heads looking at us and cooing in baby-babble. As we pull back, we see it's a room full of people checking out the new arrival, the cutest little baby you ever saw, with a pacifier in its mouth. One of the adoring aunties goes to remove the pacifier. "No! Don't touch it!" the mother screams. But it's too late! The pacifier now removed, the baby sucks everyone and everything into its tiny mouth. How like life!

A man with wheels for legs pushes the crime scene out of frame, then wheels in a bust of an old, stodgy man, also on wheels. A foot kicks him into gear, and he mutters unintelligibly, taking us to the next bit. Palin is the news anchor for "Today in Parliament" a fast-talking bit that gets its laughs from strange minister names, secretary names, and department names. "The minister for inserting himself between chairs and walls in mens clubs", "the undersecretary for making deep growling noises, gruf!"

and so on. Funny, cute, ephemeral. But Palin effortlessly changes his delivery, and Today in Parliament" becomes a BBC drama, then a Home Improvement show, back to the drama, onto documentary-- a great, almost dizzying series of shifting genres. Idle takes over, lapsing from documentary, to story-time for kids. Gilliam takes over, with Idle's voice over help, giving us a children's illustration that transforms into a financial stat as we lapse back into the documentary, then back into story-time. Captions keep us apprised as to which genre we're watching, which helps us a bit with the joke, but we don't really need them. The lads are doing an excellent job of this quick, silly exploration of television styles. Jones takes over, with a stodgy party-political rebuttal/story-time; "It's very easy to blame the big bad rabbit when bi-elections are going against the government..." which quickly shifts to a religious broadcast and then, as Jones expertly headbutts a soccer ball, a soccer match.

The soccer ball takes us to a game on film. Amidst footage of
cheering crowds, we see Chapman and Jones, Idle and Palin, celebrating an apparent victory-- or maybe they're just into each other. Romantic music, slow motion, and the uncomfortable kissy-face Chapman makes, leans us towards the latter conclusion. It's a nice bit that can't help but draw laughter from you, and the lads look like they're having so much fun!
  
Next, over footage of green English countryside, graphics roll out an apology-- a back handed apology to politicians, swearing that the show never meant to suggest they were "crabby, ulcerous, self-seeking little vermin", etc. concluding with "We're sorry if this impression has come across." You get the idea. A bit on the bitter side for Python, but well done, with Idle's voice-over perfectly relaying the officious, cautious hostility beneath the words.

But the English countryside montage behind it takes us to one of the strangest, silliest Python filmed bits ever-- The expedition to Lake Pahoe! Silliness and a myriad of random running gags dart in and out of this sequence like frightened fish in a coral reef. Yet somehow, it all manages to hang together, the jokes building and shearing off until the final resolution.

We start in a field. This Navy expedition is starting in a field, yes. There is a van, and men (and a woman) in navy whites are loading oxygen tanks and rope into an RN van. Cleese is the newsman documenting this historic voyage. He walks into frame, microphone in hand, and doesn't even manage to get through his opening sentence before he steps into a bear trap. Swallowing back the pain, he introduces a bearded Palin as Sir Jane Russell. Palin is a hippie, complete with a flower lei and a peace badge dangling from his neck, talking in hippie slang. "Well, the real hang up was with the bread, man, but when the top brass pigs came through, we got it together in a couple of moons." During this back and forth interview, with each successive cut, Cleese looks more and more like

Long John Silver, his hurt leg replaced by a peg leg, a parrot screeching "Pieces of eight!" perched on his shoulder, a pirate hat... That's a good four running gags going at once, best I can tell. But wait, there's more!

While interviewing Idle (Lieutenent Dorothy Lamour), playing a whole different type of hippie, clean shaven and stoned, Cleese loses his bearings, rasping out commands as Long John. A tranquilizer dart hits him, and as he collapses, Jones takes over. Before he can finish apologizing for Cleese's behavior, Palin grabs the mic, urging viewers to join the new Royal Navy. "It is something other than else!" A high energy, psychedelic RN commercial follows, courtesy of Gilliam, and it is fantastic! He gets a lot of due credit for his use of photographs, but the bastard can also draw! His boogie-ing hippie seamen are hysterical!

We return to the field, getting, at last, to the meat of the sketch. After Jones apologizes for Cleese's behavior, hinting hilariously at "trouble at home",  he interviews Chapman, the admiral of this expedition. Chapman's name is Cunningham. We've dropped the 40s film star references. In the drizzle, which noisily hits the clipboard held near Jones' mic, Chapman mentions, apropos of nothing, that "There is no cannibalism in the British navy. Absolutely none. And when I say 'none'," he adds, "I mean that there is a certain amount." Finally, having cleaned house, he declares the purpose of the expedition-- to find Lake Pahoe, which is located at 22A Runcorn Avenue, in the heart of London. "It's just an ordinary street?" Jones asks. "Course it's not an ordinary street! It's got a lake in it!" The interview is
interrupted when the cameras spot Jenkins, a sailor eating a human leg.

Jenkins! No!

We cut to the RN van pulling up to an ordinary street. The search begins pretty inauspiciously. They approach an ordinary looking brownstone and knock on the door. In between, they hush-up another instance of cannibalism (that Jenkins is hungry!) and a pirate parrot appears on Jones' shoulder, which he shoves off in terror. Answering the front door is Palin, looking ordinary and suburban. Chapman asks for a Lake Pahoe. "There's a Mr. Paget," Palin offers. But Idle shows up, as Palin's wife, and after getting over her delight of being on telly, she clears everything up-- they want 22A, the basement. Chapman and company dutifully retrace their steps downstairs.

Chapman peeks in and raps on the window. Sure enough, there's a lake. In a small basement apartment filled with water (it was shot in a swimming pool,) Jones and Palin sit in suburban bliss, aqualungs and underwater goggles. Chapman speaks to them through the window, from off camera, asking them questions. "Is this Lake Pahoe?" "Well, I don't know about that," Palin the wife replies, "But it's bleedin' damp!" A shark bursts out of the fridge, and Palin and Jones swat it back in. (Don't do that-- it'll leave fin marks in the butter!) Finally, Chapman asks if they can come in. Palin flips them off in true British style, and that's the end of the expedition.

It's a silly, insane, acid-trip of a sketch, and one has to wonder if an unimpaired brain could have possibly come up with this, like Lennon writing "Strawberry Fields". Whatever they were on, I want some. It feels like the best of all of them, coming together in one oddball bit-- Cleese going nuts, Jones as the straightman, Chapman in charge, Idle stoned, Palin doing his chameleon thing, and a fierce bit from Gilliam tossed in the middle, all in service to this silly idea of looking for a lake in the middle of a street.

Yes, but why Dorset?

Well, how do you follow that? You just kinda goof off until the credits roll. Cleese, as a talk show host, investigates the Magna Carta with guest Idle, who answers questions in mime. They go out to dinner together, Idle orders nothing but whiskey, Palin the waiter gives muttered asides about how bad his part is, and everyone decides the sketch is just too silly to continue. So they stop it, everyone walking off. The credits roll slowly, with rousing applause from the audience.

Ah, bliss! This episode, for me, is the televised Python Pinnacle. With an organic balance between randomness and cold, calculated humor, the lads allowed themselves to be influenced by what was going on around them, and made their mark, without resorting to cheap topicality. We are  the mollusc, they slyly suggest, randier by far than the rapacious limpid. We all know that they were great, but this episode depicts in its totality their greatness in situ, and in motion. Though they still have some high marks to hit, they will never be quite this funny, or quite this cohesive, ever again.

Until next week.

Next week; Salad Days

We're outta here!