"What do you keep your hard boiled eggs in?" - Michael Palin as Pither the Cyclist
In last week's "Salad Days" episode, I heaped derision against the erosion of cohesion in the show's creation. The sketches seemed to increasingly be the work of a single team or person, and little or no effort seemed to be made to unify the whole, as had happened beautifully in previous episodes. Well, as if the lads had heard me, this week's episode is chock full of cohesion, unified by a single vision. Am I happy?
Well...
It's the single vision that bothers me. This episode was written almost entirely by Jones/Palin, for another project outside Python. Then, on what Idle refers to as a "script dare", the others took a whack at it, changing the ending, specifically, and in general sketching things up a bit. But the sketchifying was not enough to bring this show "into the fold", so to speak, and it plays as a stand-alone episode belonging to a different show entirely-- pretty much how it was conceived. This was not the cohesion I spoke of. It was about the team blending their styles and talents together, not one voice dominating the others.
The Evil Geniuses Greatest Hit
It also plays like Paul McCartney's first solo album-- a warning shot across the bow that Palin and Jones were breaking out, no longer content to do sketches, seeking more long form entertainment opportunities-- perhaps a Jonesian swipe at Cleese for his diffidence about doing a third season. It is telling that they hadn't tried such a long form bit since the Blancmange sketch in Season 1, and in the short Season 4 (the Cleese-less season) they did two long form bits (out of six shows.) One also can't help but notice how well "Cycling Tour" would fit in Palin's "Ripping Yarns" series (without all those bullshit sketches.) It would appear that Palin and Jones were eager to do something more "cinematic".
According to Jones, they paid the price in the studio. Audiences were flummoxed, if not hostile, during the taping sessions. Jones, in the finest of cinematic tradition, had to "save it in post" with Ian McNaughton.
But all of this is mere back story. The episode only seems strange if it's taken in the context of the other shows. Since when is being odd a bad thing for these guys? Being odd is what they do for a living. The overall story is still funny, with some very funny bits thrown in once things get moving. Palin is great, as we shall see, the picture of clueless, pleasant persistence. And this show is far from their worst. It would rank as a triumph if Saturday Night Live had managed it.
A pastoral English countryside is made complete by the appearance of a cyclist, a pleasant, blissfully smiling young man named Pither, played by Palin (Palin and Jones' muse.) He wears glasses, sideburns, a red knit cap with a white flounce up top, brown vest and pale blue short sleeved shirt. He lugs a backpack, jangling with cups and sundry items. He is the ancient hippie before hippies were old enough to be so, but not militant about being a hippie, or anything else. He just lives for the breeze on his face, the warmth of a summer breeze, and the embrace of the road to his face. He falls off his bike a lot.
This is the first of many running (cycling) gags. After long shot sequences of Pither riding his bike, accompanied by a lush orchestra playing a waltz, he will disappear behind a tree, a bush or a rock wall, and we'll hear a loud, painful crash. The music will abruptly end. Pither's voice over will explain, in diary format, what just happened. "August 18th. Fell off near Bovey Tracey. The pump caught in my trouser leg."
The accident is usually a prelude to an attempted exchange (read "sketch") with some local. In Bovey Tracey (a town in Devon county, southwest England, for you Britophiles out there.) It has been noted by better reviewers than myself that these initial exchanges are odd bits for the lads, in that Pither, a milque-toast-y man with the curse of meaningless gab, but more ordinary than anything else, is the strange one in all the exchanges. His blithe cluelessness to the ugliness going on around him, or the hostile indifference showered upon him, is the only weird or funny thing about all these exchanges. But don't despair-- they're just lulling us into a state of apathy. Things get weirder.
I should also mention that the Monty Python opening titles get a break this week. Early in our ramblings, we get the title "The Cycling Tour" thrown up on screen, and that's all. If we wait for the titles, holding our breath, like we did for the Black Eagle episode-- well, we'll die. They never turn up. This episode bears the dubious distinction of having no titles. Folks watching the show in London might have thought they had the wrong channel, but for Palin's recognizability, and the audience laughing at all the crashes.
So. Long sequence. Crash. Exchange/Sketch.
The first exchange demonstrates Pither's irrepressible good nature and terrible conversational skills, as he regales a bored shopkeeper (Idle) with how strange it is that he doesn't crave bananas, or cheese, but likes banana and cheese sandwiches. His sandwiches, we learn, were crushed in the crash. This detail plays into the narrative later on. Cleese makes a walk on as a customer buying "woods" (cigarettes), and ignoring Palin almost utterly. I'm always amazed at Cleese's skill as a performer, his specificity. While Idle's straight man plays attitude and snark, Cleese seems to exist in a reality of his own.
They're coming to get you, Laura...
Long Sequence. Crash. Exchange/Sketch. This one is worth noting for two reasons. One, after Palin disappears and the crash sounds and the music stops-- we can still see his shadow on the hedges opposite the road, proceeding without incident. Two, before the exchange, we get our first glimpse of a dinosaur like creature hiding in the brush, drawn by Gilliam. Yet another rare hint that this is a Monty Python show.
Exchange #2 reprises the first. Cleese is a female gardener, hoe-ing about. Palin good-naturedly complains about his eggs, crushed in the crash and the inadequacy of the self-sealing Tupperware container they were in, as compared to the tarmac road.
Cleese completely ignores Palin, walking away from him in mid-sentence, but Palin does his best to keep the conversation going even after Cleese disappears into the garden shed. Mercifully, he says "Well, I can't stand around here chatting all day..." Side note to the Britophiles-- he says he's on a cycling tour of North Cornwall, but most of the towns he mentions, according to Monty Python's Flying Circus Complete and Annotated, All the Bits, are in Devon county. Just another indication of how lost Pither is.
Long Sequence. Crash. No exchange/sketch or food damage. Just a decision to wear shorts, since the crashes are due to "the pump caught in my trouser leg". Although there is no exchange, there is another dinosaur sighting. Another long sequence/crash follows. "Perhaps a shorter pump is the answer." Another dinosaur sighting, although this dinosaur looks different from the one we've seen before. This crash leads to an exchange/sketch.
First, Pither meets Idle at a crossroads, dressed as an old lady. He asks for a shop to replace his pump. "There's only one shop here," she says-- but points out a bicycle pump shop just ten steps away. Nice. Next, Carol Cleveland (Yay!!) ushers Pither into a Doctor's office. Idle, the Doctor, tries to examine Palin after his latest crash, but according to Pither, only the fruitcake was harmed. He's just there to ask directions. After the obligatory outrage, he agrees to give Pither directions-- by writing him a prescription for them. "Take this to a chemists." Suh-weeeeet. Notice how the world is getting sillier around him. The chemist (on film) issues him directions, and off he goes.
Long Sequence. No Crash. Although the music stops, Pither does NOT fall off. Repetition makes us vulnerable to the humor of nothing happening.
Long Sequence. Crash. Exchange.
Pither, in a pub, tries to engage two illicit lovers, played by Cleese and Cleveland. The distractions from Pither predictably destroy the relationship, and Cleveland storms out. Cleese, angry, asks Palin if he'd like to be shown the door. "No thanks, I saw it on my way in," Palin affably replies. This time, a lemon curd tart was damaged in the crash. The nail in the coffin-- Palin meets Cleveland outside. "I just had a chat with your Dad." This joke is less funny than it would have been if Pither hadn't already called her Cleese's daughter in the pub. You'd think, while Jones was doing all that editing...
Long Sequence. Crash. Exchange.
Note the tomato escaping.
But now, the story, such as it is, begins. Palin sits in the rear of a car, holding his bike tire. Jones drives, wearing a huge bow tie. They're actually in studio, working a little green screen magic. As Palin complains about what the crash did to his food, for the first time, someone is interested. Jones asks questions about all of his food and their post-crash status. "How do you know so much about cycling?" Palin asks. (I appreciate that joke.) It turns out that Jones is a mad scientist (the bow tie should have tipped us off,) looking for ways to modify food to withstand impact, or, in the tomatoes case, eject itself before an accident. "Even if it's in your stomach, if it senses an accident it will come up your throat and out of the window." We get a demonstration of this forthwith, as Jones monologues about his experiments. A tomato pops up from the front seat and loops out of the window, with a goofy slide whistle sound effect. "It works! It works!" Jones exults, taking his hands off the steering wheel. The tomato causes the crash it escapes from. We'll leave this riddle about fate vs. free will for another time. CRASH!
Now it's two men on a bike, Palin peddling the bandaged and delusional Jones (aka Gulliver). Jones, with a broken arm and a bandaged head, now believes himself to be Clodagh Rogers. (And who the hell is Clodagh Rogers? In 1971, she was the singer that represented Great Britain in the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest, said contest spoofed by the singing police constables in the previous season. The contest was broadcast from Ireland, her home turf, and she came in fourth. Her song "Jack in the Box" will soon be immortalized in this episode. So much for Python's famed non-topicality.) They go to the hospital to get him checked out-- which is strange because the bandages would indicate they just came from the hospital.
Watch your fingers, Graham!
In one of the strangest and least successful bits of the show, Palin takes Jones (aka Gulliver aka Clodagh Rogers) to the emergency room (aka the casualty ward). Nothing really happens here, but the joke is that horrible accidents keep injuring people in the ward, which seems inundated with booby traps. Quick cuts to collapsing wheel chairs, gurneys, falling cabinets and windows that slam shut on Chapman's hand. By the end, chaos reigns and everyone is screaming in agony as Palin and Jones make their escape. This is Jones working the editing mojo, and I have to say, it might have played better if it had been slowed down a bit. Maybe not, though. The joke is never really established or explained, and it all feels insanely random. Chapman plays the admitting nurse, his first appearance in the show, in a wig that obscures his face and much of his words. But he screams with abandon when the window slams on his hand.
Next, we're on film, at night. Palin writes in his diary by the fire, revealing that we're in Southern France. On a bike? That is crazy! Jones now thinks he's Trotsky and must get to Moscow, (a great Cleese-worthy performance here by Jones, who quivers with manic messianic intensity. "Stalin has allvays hated me," he growls, eyes bulging and fists clenched.) but Palin, slow on the uptake, introduces him as Clodagh Rogers to Cleese and Idle, the complaining French neighbors. Cleese and Idle take great joy in singing "Jack in the Box", pounding fists to palm on the "Bahm! Bahm! Bahm!" The kids, played by
Bahm! Bahm! Bahm!
Chapman and the silent Gilliam, come in for autographs, but Jones signs "Trotsky". A sweet turn here. Though initially disappointed that this isn't Clodagh Rogers, it's only because Trotsky was such a bad singer. Lenin-- now there was a great singer. Cleese, in an outrageous French accent, starts singing Lenin's signature tune "If I Ruled the World". We cut to news clips of Lenin, dubbed with a dulcet version of that song. As if he could see the clip, Jones runs off, screaming for Lenin, leaving Cleese and Idle to reminisce about other great singers, like Alexander Kerensky. (I didn't know, either. I had to look him up.)
Originally, there was a Gilliam bit inserted here, one of those "K-Tel Original Hits, Original Stars!" spots, with "Lenin's Chartbusters, Vol. 3," including songs like "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" "These and many, many more!" Out on the Bolshevik label. But in his editing frenzy, Jones cut it. Incomprehensible hospital scene stays in, funny Gilliam bit edited out. It's who you know, man...
Palin cycles through the French forest, taking some serious spills, chasing Jones. There's one nice gag, when Jones runs across the headlights of an amorous French couple making out in their car. They immediately recognize her as Clodagh Rogers, and start singing "Jack in the Box". (The original version takes over to finish the scene.)
The next day, Palin tows Jones (aka Gulliver, aka Clodagh Rogers, aka Trotsky) to Smolensk, ostensibly at Jones' request. An insert courtesy of Army captain Idle shows us exactly where that is on the map. Palin thanks the insert before continuing with the story. Now we get a lot of post-modern stuff tossed in, as Palin interrupts his own voice over and yells at the constantly interrupting Idle inserts. But they finally get to the local YMACA (The Young Man's Ant-Christian Association) and the story resumes.
Lots of cute sight gags in the lobby, with framed pictures of past notables in Russian politics "X"-ed out with masking tape. Gilliam plays the clerk, asking them if they want a bugged or un-bugged room. But Gilliam recognizes Trotsky's name in the register. "Trotsky? My lack of God! It's Trotsky!" (C'mon, that's funny. Admit it.)
Pither, meanwhile, goes to the British embassy, which is completely staffed with Chinese diplomats. In the second least successful, strangest and most offensive bit,
No tickee, no Bingo!
Chapman plays the Chinese British consul, with taped eyes, fake buck teeth, silk robe, and an inability to pronounce "l" or "r", which makes saying "Cornwall" very difficult. It's the worst Chinese charicature since Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I guess the logic behind the sketch is that the Maoist revolutionaries have taken over everything. But Chapman seems to go to great trouble convincing Palin that he's from England, so maybe it's about how horrible Chinese spies would be? I don't know. But the bit soon devolves into incredible silliness as Chapman and the rest of the staff reveal a love-- obsession, really-- for Bingo! You can hear that they dubbed in some extra bingos, with Jones doing the dubbing. Cleese, as servant Livingstone, is particularly enraptured, unable to stop calling it out, even when told not to. Soon, everyone is waving the little red book around and crying out "Bingo" as Palin wanders off, confused. Well, get in line, Palin. You wrote the damn thing!
Note the terrified double salute from Cleese.
Back at the YMACA, Palin finds that Jones has gone to Moscow. In a nice sketch reminiscent of Billy Wilder bits from "Ninotchka" and "One, Two, Three" Palin is picked up by the secret police, or not, and taken to Moscow, or a clam bake, via film clips and graphics, such as "Lesliegrad" and "Etceteragrad". On a small stage, Russian general Cleese introduces Pither as the man who brought Trotsky back. (The sign behind him reads "International Clambake". Nice call back.) Finally, they bring Jones out, in full Trotsky mode, uniform, goatee and moustache. But in the middle of his rousing speech, he lapses back into Clodagh
Jones stripping on stage. Back to his old tricks
Rogers mode, mincing about and singing "I'm Just an Old-Fashioned Girl," even pulling a white boa from behind a stack of books. So now he's Eartha Kitt. Cleese has Pither taken to jail for foisting an imposter on the Russian people-- but lets Jones keep singing. "He's going down well."
Writing in his diary, Palin says"Thrown into Russian cell. Severely damaged my Mars bar." He is taken out and placed before a firing squad, but he's too clueless to notice. They have a lot of fun with the firing squad. First, as the men take aim at Palin, who's trying to figure out what their target is, Chapman races through the prison with a not clenched in his hand, screaming
"What are they shooting at?"
"Nyet!" He hands the official telegram to Commander Cleese. A pardon? No. It reads "Carry on with the execution." Then, the firing squad fires-- and nothing happens. Cleese steps over. "How could you miss?" he asks, exasperated. "He moved," Idle replies, embarrassed. Palin is thrown back in his cell while the firing squad practices. On the next try, they actually wound themselves.
Palin, finally catching on to his own plight, falls into a troubled sleep. He wakes up back at home, Idle as his mother shaking him. "It was all a dream!" Palin cries, relieved. "No, dear, this is the dream, you're still in the cell," Idle
"No, dear... THIS is the dream."
replies. A very nice bit. We can see how the devotion to long form narrative structure has enabled them to play with the cliches that attach to said structure. The last minute reprieve, the dream, none of these would work in shorter sketches. (Geeks like me may notice a continuity lapse-- when Palin is thrown into the cell, there is no poster on the wall-- but as he starts to doze, the poster is there.)
As Palin awakens and is dragged out once again (having advised the squad how to better use their guns,) there is a poster in his cell for a show starring Eartha Kitt. We pan into the poster and fade to-- a terrible Russian variety show, MCd hilariously by Idle's fast-paced
This droog walks into a bar...
fake Russian. It's amazing how well bad jokes translate across language divides, and Idle is brilliant in this bit. Finally, in a change of mood, he brings out Eartha Kitt--aka Gulliver, aka Trotsky, aka Clodagh, aka Jones. But when Jones comes out, dressed in Bob Mackie glitter and boas, he speaks in the voice of Edward Heath and delivers a dry speech to the Trade Union Leaders. Apparently this sort of free-market capitalist nonsense does not play in Moscow, and the audience begs for "Old-Fashioned Girl". Finally, they resort to throwing fruit, which
they presumably had to stand in line for. When a tomato hits Jones in the head, in slow motion, his original mad-scientist personality is restored. "That turnip's certainly not safe." Then he realizes where he is, (although apparently not what he is wearing,) and calls out for "Mr. Pither!"
A foot race through the streets of "Moscow" (although it could be any industrial center) follows, Jones in a sparkly dress, black wig, high heels, white boa and ungodly dark tan, and a small army of goons chasing him with guns.
Check out the wicked tan!
Sometimes the Goons are on foot, sometimes in a car, but they never seem to gain on the spry Jones. Once again, it's all about the editing, lots of close ups and cutaways, with Jones' "Mr. Pither!" dubbed in. Finally, Jones stops beside a stone wall, calls out-- and Palin answers from the other side. Giving us another look at his climbing chops, Jones scales the stone wall (in high heels still!) and lands safely on the other side, reunited with Palin at last. "What a stroke of luck!" Jones exclaims-- just before the firing squad charges, bayonets fixed. And then...
I guess that's where Tarantino and Rodriguez got it.
"What an amazing escape!"
How Pither and Gulliver get out of that jam is lost to the ages. But seconds later they are at the crossroads outside of Tavistock, Jones back in his suit and bowtie, wishing each other a fond farewell. As they go their separate ways, the waltz music returns, and the crowd seems to go wild, with some very vocal supporters giving a rousing cheer as the closing credits roll.
But what about the dinosaurs, Uncle Craig? I'm glad you asked! After the credits are finished and Palin has disappeared into the background, we cut to a hedge.
The dinosaurs pop out. "I think he's finally gone," they sigh with relief. "Hit it, Maestro!" And they sing "Jack in the Box", dancing with wild abandon.
Like I said-- not a bad show. Some great bits, and you have to admire the dedication to the longform narrative. But... but...
Sadly, this is a taste of things to come. With the departure of Cleese in the next season, there will be no one to stand up to the hard working Jones/Palin juggernaut, and the others will increasingly become bit players working in service to Jones and his cinematic ambition, where sketches are saved by editing them, not by writing them well in the first place. Gilliam will go along, himself a cinematic visionary, Idle will keep his own Pop and Pop operation going, and Chapman will be too drunk to notice. Cinema's gain is sketch comedy's loss.
Still, there are moments of brilliance in this piece. The doctor writing a prescription for directions, the firing squad shenanigans, the self-ejecting tomato, and Idle's Russian emcee, all in the service to the central idea, show just how deep a bench the team has when partially benched. Even if the creative ambitions of the individuals are pulling the group in different directions, there's still plenty of firepower left in the Circus. As we shall see...
"I didn't have to submit my ideas to the group. I used to turn up on the
days we recorded with a can of film under my arm, and in it went." - Terry Gilliam
As we celebrate the greatness that is Monty Python's Flying
Circus, and as we tirelessly (tiresomely?) break down their content, it can be
easy to overlook the titles. Consistent and unchanging, there's no point in
exploring them on an episode by episode basis. But they deserve a place in the
Monty Python canon, and certainly the Gilliam body of work. And so we take a
break from the stream of episodes and character assassinations (I'm sorry, I
mean "bios",) to consider the brilliance of the Titles. But first,
some character assassination!
It’s amazing to consider how easily Gilliam’s cultural
contributions could have been snuffed out.
His Occidental College work for Fang has probably not been archived, and
Help! Magazine folded soon after Gilliam joined the editorial team. He’s not
very lucky that way. He freelanced for Car-Toons and Surf-Toons, neither of
which still exists, and once he joined The Londoner magazine, it predictably folded.
His work for Idle’s We Have Ways of Making You Laugh has not been seen since,
and most of the Do Not Adjust Your Set work has been erased as well, due to
ITV’s tendency to tape over their shows. If not for Monty Python and its
insistence on taking control of their own work, the show might never have made
it long enough to impact on us like the cultural meteor it was.
Of course, maybe it was Gilliam—something deep in his subconscious
that tended towards creating work with little or no permanence. Witness the
almost desperate attempt Universal made to shred Brazil. Look at the movies he
has made since, all of them plagued by Gilliam’s inability to actually forge
his vision without running up the budget beyond any possibility of recompense.
A recent viewing of Twelve Monkeys special features documents Gilliam
spending hours and hours getting a hamster in a wheel to run on cue. This was
an unimportant shot, but a rare opportunity for Gilliam to display his visual
sensibility, since the shot took place in the dystopian future. So Gilliam had
at it, pissing off his star Bruce Willis, who was ostensibly the subject of the
shot. “Just sit there naked for another hour, Bruce, while we get this hamster
to work the wheel.” The hamster wheel is scarcely noticeable in the final
version, but hey, the wheel is spinning, and Willis won’t work with Gilliam
again. (This is the man who worked with M. Night Shyamalan—twice!) Maybe in
retrospect the wheel wasn’t that important.
Fortunately, Gilliam’s tendency towards self-destruction has been
thwarted insofar as the body of his Monty Python work is concerned. This brings
us to Season 3 Titles.
We abandon the previously iconic rose vines, trade them in for pipes. Brass plumbing snakes its way up the left of the screen, finally leaking a huuuuge drip of water that reads "Monty". A twin pipe emerges out of the side, perpendicular to the first, but it soon snakes into paralell-ish motion, finally issuing its pre-ejaculate bubble, which nestles against the first. The name on the second reads "Python", with the possessive "s". Now, simultaneously, two other pipes make their way up and down the screen, and they issue
their own bubbles, with the words "Flying" and "Circus" on each one.
Clearly, this is the same pattern as the original credits, only instead of a rose vines, we have plumbing. Plumbing is a very big part of British life, with numerous pipes pressed into service to control the damp that pervades the country. Roses are also a big part of British life-- they even fought a war over them. Gilliam is pulling out all the icons to connect this comedy show with the proper British
touchstones. But as we'll see in a moment, he's not getting all sentimental. He's also railing against parochial inefficiency.
Just as in the vines, when we pull back from the drips, we find more pipes, a maze of pipes, a dense, impenetrable thicket of pipes, so dense that the title bubbles are no longer visible.It should be added, the pipes are not like the standard uniform pipes you used to see on computer monitors back in the 90s. These pipes are all drawn, of various sizes and shapes-- I like the one in the middle lower right that zig-zags. Someone (and I bet I know who) spent a lot of time drawing this elaborate testament to
bureaucracy and complexity. It is pre-reminiscent of the pipe systems in Brazil, Gilliam's future dystopian vision. Gilliam seems to understand how complexity works in general. One never starts over with a clean state. One adds to the existing system, creates patches and add-ons, many of which create needless inefficiency, waste and confusion. After all, what is this tapestry of fluid-filled pipes in service of, besides alerting the audience to the name of the show they're watching? All this brass goes to help one single clod squatting in a sink. He gets a moment to smile at us cluelessly before Gilliam's ever present foot comes down from the heavens to squash this rapacious jerk out of existence.
Now we are met with series of short vignettes. Gilliam has abandoned the farcical thru-lines he inserted in the previous titles-- while some of the bits are linked, there are no call backs or running gags. Still, to his credit, he seems to be drawing more of the art, instead of using old photos as he did before.
And here, in the first bit, he proves me wrong. Contrarian bastard! We see a pregnant woman, her head an old photo, but her body drawn and air brushed in the exaggerated 60s era agit-prop style that Gilliam grew up on. The belly is voluminous, while the legs and arms are sticks. The woman waits patiently in her empty room, her arms braced against her rump, like a mid-western farmers wife looking out at her soon-to-fail crops. This is not a hopeful woman. She expects the worse, and she's going to get it.
Send in the clowns! Two "doctors come in, one at a time, both
taking the time to photo-bomb the proceedings. We've seen the first doctor before, selling dolls in a prior episode. Even with a doctors mirror-light strapped to his head, his face stained blue and a red rubber nose tied on, his craggy face and shifty eyes betray him. The other clown, however, I can't
place. He looks a little like Ed Asner, but he's not. He has spikey yellow hair along the sides of his head, forcing the mirror/light on his head to hang askew. In turn, they each pop into frame, an introduction to the coming insanity. Short, much shorter than the stalwart, uncomplaining preggers woman, they proceed with the procedure. Ed Asner rides in a rolling, sheet draped hospital bed from one side. Craggy Shifty hops up on the waiting chair. Acting in swift concert, if the composer were Spike Jones, Asner grabs the woman's neck from behind and pulls her backwards. The woman opens up like a trash can, revealing a red but vacant interior. Not completely vacant, however-- Craggy Shifty reaches into the pit of her belly and pulls out, by the head, a squatting baby, as stoic and uncomplaining as Mom. (Mom, meanwhile, seems to experience no pain over this procedure-- her expression is unchanged and her arm still rests on
her rump for support. I imagine a lot of woman would prefer this knife-less Ceasarian to natural labor, especially if the seam along the middle rejoins easily, as I'd bet it does.) The baby, incidentally, is a photo, and a boy. Take that, censors!
We move on to the next bit. A man drives a car to a waiting brick wall with a traffic light signalling red. Note that the man operates his car like Fred Flintstone, legs sticking out from the bottom. He doesn't run up to the wall, but he hops. I guess he likes a rough ride.
He is completely drawn, with chin and nose thrusting forward. The traffic light and wall are also drawn, as is the bare Dali-esque background. Only the clouds are photographs. One wonders why this is the route the man has chosen-- he could easily hop around the wall. No matter. This is where the traffic light is, and this is where he will wait for the right of way. As the man waits for the light to turn green and presumably for the wall to disappear, a door opens up at face level and a long-armed fist juts out and clocks the
man in his protruding chin. Harsh! Clear justification for road rage. The man's head bobs back, then recovers as the fist disappears back into the wall, as fists often do. But the man's indignities have just begun. The traffic light and the wall crash in on the man in a triumph of forced perspective, as if the man were some sort of gravity center, sucking all nearby objects onto his head.The collapsing objects flatten the man-- his legs disappear, his long neck telescopes, and soon all that is left of him is the opposite side of the
brick wall, laying flat on the ground like a forgotten stage, or a plank without a ship. Many of us end the same way, in the ground with nothing but flat barren markers to note that we were ever there. I'm sure that Terry Gilliam would agree-- or he'd just slap me.
You'll notice something different about this particular set of titles-- there's a real lack of motion. While we were following falling babies and bird men in the prior title sequences, and thus moving through a variety of landscapes, Gilliam seems to have said "Fuck
all that" to creating new backgrounds for gags that last a few seconds. This particular bit is over, but baby, we're not going anywhere.
A giant head rises from beneath the wall, a phoenix rising from the gooey ashes of the crushed man in the car. It's a photographed head, with a newsie cap, darkened eyes and a thick, wide, black moustache that stretches back toward the ears. The New Man glares at us with an apathetic hostility, like a dancing chicken in one of
those glass cages, resigned to perform but not happy about it. Once we see his big party trick, we'll understand why. But first we need a volunteer from the heavens. A giant hand (mate to the giant foot?) reaches down and grasps the New Man by his temples-- and pulls. It turns out that this man has the stretchiest teeth on earth! His facial proportions remain the same, but his teeth elongate, clenched yet stretched upwards until half the frame is filled with his teeth. This isn't the first fun with teeth Gilliam-- we all remember his dancing
teeth from the previous season. Stretchy teeth is a logical next step. I don't think Gilliam ever got to widening teeth, so if there are any ambitious animators out there who wan to take the baton from the master, here's your chance.
As if to rally the audience to stirring ovations, a tiny man in a green suit and giant red bowtie leaps out from the wings, flourishing towards the incredible stretchy teeth. But as it turns out, there's more to the trick. The teeth are not only stretchy, they're
retractable, and they slide back into theinvisible gums, leaving a vast empty maw filled with dark energy... and a bomb, a Warner Brothers cartoon bomb, round, with a lit fuse, and the word "Bomb" written on it. How nice of the stenographers to alert us! The bomb rises up on a wooden platform, lifted presumably by the New Man's trained tonsils, and suddenly this trick is looking pretty astonishing. Stretchy teeth was just the beginning. This man can also light a bomb wedged in his own esophagus, lift it up on a platform, and...
yes... blow himself up with said bomb.Now that takes talent! I haven't seen anything that impressive on Dancing with the Stars, and believe me, I've longed for the exploding celebrity on that show. Something else I'd like to point out, just in case you don't know yet what a true professional Gilliam is... Notice that the small man flourishing towards the mouth now has a shadow cast by the explosion. Remember, this was in the era before computers did all that for you. Though it's a quick (really quick, like a second) effect,
and though Gilliam clearly isn't shooting for ultra-realism, he thinks enough of us and his explosion to add to the effect with a sudden shadow on the barker, just before the explosion engulfs him as well.
A brick wall interrupt the proceedings. Perhaps we have run up against the same impediment that the long nosed and chinned car man ran up against earlier, and a fist is preparing to sock us. But no, Gilliam has other plans, as the music suggests-- we've reached the end of another set of titles, and all that remains is the coda of the
show's name. In what must be exclusive to the reality of animators, a blue sea slides in from the right across the bottom of the brick wall, wiping out the lower two rows. A beautiful sunset slides down from up above, like they do, blotting out the remainder of the brick wall. Before we can even register the scene, like a flat rolled down a stage wall, we get some scenery slid in from the left, two palms trees arcing one towards the other, creating a natural frame, like the leaf clusters in the Cannes Film Festival Awards. Secret longing,
perhaps, or just symmetry? Then, tossed in as though flung over some alphabet lugger's shoulder, come the stacked letters that form the title "Monty Python's Flying Circus". They land perfectly placed between the two trees, blocking our view of the sunset, filling the frame.
But we know there's a squish coming, and it's no fun to just squish a bunch of letters that nobody cares about. We need hopes, dreams, aspirations, in order for the squish to be really cruel, and really
funny. Gilliam obliges. From beneath the letters, a Strong Man emerges, his arms outstretched, carrying the letters like an ant or an Atlas. He's bearded, big bellied, seemingly naked-- and he's smiling. Not one to bitch about the load he carries, he smiles with pride over his accomplishment, or with accommodation towards us, the audience, giving us yet another bit of value for the show. Maybe this is his stab at stardom. Maybe he wants us to think this is easy.
But we know there's a squish coming...
These title don't represent his best narrative work-- there's no through line, no brilliant observational humor like the cardinal on wheels chasing the nude lady from season 1-- just a series of strange visual gags, some of them too simple to credit. But visually, it represents some of Gilliam's strongest work, from the elaborate pipes to the many characters created and penned by the animator himself. And unlike the previous series, he redid the entire sequence, from opening bell to closing squish. Just another reminder that there has never been a show quite like Monty Python's Flying Circus, and there probably never will be again.
