Episode 36 - "E. Henry Thripshaw Disease"

"Tonight on 'Is There' we examine the question 'Is there life after death?' And here to discuss it are three dead people." -  John Cleese as Moderator Roger Last

I watched Monty Python's Flying Circus whenever I could as I was growing up, whether on the syndicated channels like WTOG Channel 44 in St. Petersburg, or on any of a number of PBS fundraising marathons, wherein they'd trot out the Pythons to raise money for less worthy programming. I saw them all-- or so I'd thought. Some episodes, however, eluded me, even though I had seen others as many as ten times. These "myth-isodes" were rarer than UFO sitings, than that Wacky Package sticker that you need to complete your collection, and no matter how many packages you buy, you never get it-- and neither do any of your friends, so you can't trade.

This episode is one such "myth-isode", scarcely seen on regular programmed schedules. In fact, of the four episodes we have remaining in this season, two of them are "myth-isodes." Although I don't have access to PBS in-house programming documents, I suspect this was due to the naughty nature of the episodes.

As we've read in previous posts, the BBC took a stronger hand in censoring their light entertainment content, in response to the shrill rants of socially conservative activists such as Mary Whitehead Whitehouse who angrily denounced permissiveness, sexuality and homosexuality in the media. After two seasons of a hands-off approach with Monty Python, the third season saw some definite "hands on" action, as executives insisted on reading the scripts before shooting, and issuing memos. Though reluctant to yield, moist and viscous with artistic freedom, the 60s backlash was fully engorged, and viciously and repeatedly penetrated the artists and their content, plunging brazenly into the creator's prerogative, resulting in exclamations, violent bucking, and a crusty old white stain on the material-- all in the name of purity.

Specific to Monty Python, this impacted most directly on the last three shows. This show in particular was the last show recorded (though not the last aired). The BBC read the scripts and issued an edit list which came to be known as "32 Points of Worry", and they asked that all three shows be taken from the broadcasting rotation and stuck in a drawer. Fortunately, saner minds prevailed, and with some brief cuts (which Terry Gilliam is still angry about,) the episodes were ultimately broadcast.

One of the cuts came from this episode. The sketch was shot, but removed completely from the final episode, and is now not to be found even on the non-broadcast version. It was called "The Wee-Wee Sketch." In it, Frenchie Idle offers Jones some wine from a vast collection. After Jones drinks it, Idle reveals that the beverage was not a Talbot 63, but "wee-wee". Jones drinks from another glass, tasting Chablis. "No, Monsieur, that too was wee-wee." There is a whole cellar filled with bottles of various vintages of "wee-wee", including (hilariously yet disgustingly) a pink rose. ("Roh-ZAY". How do you do accents on this blog?)  The BBC claimed that this was a reference to menstrual blood. Gilliam asks, in outrage "What the fuck are you talking about?!" But come on, Terry! It's pink urine. It's either blood, or beets. And as Alice Cooper pointed out, only women bleed. 

This sketch not only indicates increasing trouble with the BBC, it also displays a rift within the group. Many in the group insist that Cleese was the rat fink who went to the BBC and complained about the sketch, requested the censorship. This seemed poor form from part of the team who brought us last season's Undertaker Sketch ("Fred! We've got an eater!"), but although Cleese is unapologetic about hating the sketch ("...a deeply embarrassing piece of material,") he never cops to pointing it out to the BBC. As we've seen, the BBC were already rooting around for breaches of taste, and would have needed no help from Cleese.

Finally, it establishes something else that the Pythons have said from time to time-- that they were running out of material. This is a sad thing for me to face up to, as a writer. I cannot imagine being given an opportunity to create content for a television show, and just not be able to do it. But the "Wee-wee" sketch shows that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel, and when it was cut, there was no bench-warmer sketch to bring in. They just went with a shorter show that week. Cleese was reluctant to do the third season because he believed the lads were repeating themselves, but this late in the game, even repetition was beyond them.

But enough about what's not in the show-- let's take a look at what is in the show. Because what remains in the show was still enough to keep it off of the air in the States. But today, you can watch it. You can claim that elusive Wacky Package sticker and complete your collection. And all you gotta do is BUY THE BOX SET ALREADY! (Wee-Wee not included.)

On film, Chapman (in modern garb) enters a door, marked "Tudor Jobs Agency". Inside (in studio,) he meets Jones behind a desk. Jones is dressed up in Elizabethan garb, ruffled collar and cuffs, gold doublet, the whole thing-- but his manner is still modern. Chapman asks for a job, and Jones offers him things like sailors on a Raleigh expedition, and master "joiners and crafters" for building the Globe Theatre. When Chapman asks for something more modern, Jones insists they only have Tudor jobs. He seems to wait for a laugh a this point-- which never comes. It's a funny idea, conceptually, but the promise of the premise never extends beyond dialogue. When Jones finally admits that "We haven't put anyone into a job since 1625," he earns the first real laugh of the sketch. Bemoaning the terrible business model of filling only Tudor-era jobs, he finally drops the pretense entirely-- a wall panel slides back, revealing a dirty book shop.The whole Tudor jobs is a front to befuddle the cops.

This brings us to the comedy meat of the sketch, the juxtaposition of porn with the more refined Tudor era foppery. Cleese tries to buy a book on Devonshire Country Churches, but Idle can only offer him books like "Bum Biters". This is all as close as Python gets to a cheap laugh. Actually, it's not close-- it is a series of cheap laughs. Even when Palin gets the plot going as a cop leading a bust with an absent partner, the sketch never strays far from these opposite themes sewn together.

Palin's character, Superintendent Gaskell, carries the Twilight Zone-ish story that fans of the Lifeboat Sketch from "Salad Days" will find hauntingly familiar. Stuck in this Tudor-esque porn shop, mistaken for one "Sir Phillip Sidney", Palin finally escapes-- only to discover that he really is Sir Phillip Sydney, in the Elizabethan era. We follow him on his adventures as he singlehandedly fights off the Spanish fleet and their porn ("Toledo Tit Parade") before returning home to wife Cleveland, who surreptitiously reads "Gay Boys in Bondage", which she claims to be Shakespeare's latest. Soon, Palin's heretofore absent partner Chapman shows up, arrests everybody, and even steals the best laugh in the long sketch as he glances at one of the forbidden books. "That's a long one," he asides, and packs the protesting Palin up in the paddy wagon, with preminiscent shades of the "Holy Grail" ending.

Shades of "The Holy Grail" ending.

It's a very long bit, at over 11 minutes, and they clearly spent a lot of time and resources to get it right (even though it has some spectacular technical gaffes-- a slow close up of Cleese during one of Idle's best lines, jokes that are swallowed by the production value, etc.), yet it never really goes beyond the central conceit of having Shakespearean types read out dirty porn book titles. Palin's existentialist dilemma is interesting, but not funny, and they never manage to find the joke they seem certain is there. Is all of this the lads' way of saying that porn has always been with us? That censorship is retrograde and behind the times? I don't know. The whole thing is pretty mystifying. It feels as though the crew is more interested in making a cohesive film than they are in making us laugh.

Is that a dagger I see before me?

Fear not-- they've finally exhausted these shallow waters, and Gilliam arrives to save the day-- with an animated bit on Shakespearean porn. We get an odd cut to a hole (in the ground, you perverts. What hole did you think I mean?!) and this takes us to a series of tubes, which takes us to an animated version of Jones' nude organist. Do we get the titles now? No!

Cleese and Cleveland sit at a metal table, obviously at some sort of vacationing spot. They take hands, blissfully in love and happy to be alone at this glorious resort--  when Palin arrives, in a vicar's outfit, a bald cap, and crazy red hair coming off the temples, and asks to join them. Cleese and Cleveland agree, just to be polite.

"You're sure I won't be disturbing you?...I don't want to disturb you." After countless reassurances that he won't be disturbing them, he finally sits-- and totally disturbs them. He puts his fingers in their ear, smashes plates and sings a nonsense song (a grating song that we heard in the phone bank sequence of the "Summarize Proust" episode-- "DOO-doo, do-DOO-do" ad nauseum). Cleese's milquetoast reaction is priceless, while Cleveland seems genuinely disturbed by all the plate smashing. Makes you want to just reach out and comfort her. When they try to make their departure, Palin breaks into tears. "I knew I disturbed you!" Too British to leave, they sit down, and Palin continues spraying himself with silly string.

But then we get a wavy time-lapse dissolve, and we see Cleveland and Cleese at home, smashing plates and being silly with string. Cleveland's VO tells us that Palin changed their lives. We get a great filmed bit, with Cleveland and Cleese rushing to Palin's church. Silence for a long beat-- and then that horrific song and the sound of plate smashing from within. It's a nice, silly bit of fluff. It feels like Cleese/Chapman material, having a go at British middle class propriety. Though it never will live on as a classic Python bit, once you hear that song it will never leave your brain!

NOW we get the real nude organist, and the titles. The show is half over. Deal with it, bitches.

A Gilliamination follows-- against a jungle backdrop, animals pop up like a whack-a-mole arcade game, shot at by an offscreen rifle. Such animals include a Norwegian Blue Parrot, Big Al from the Country Bear Jamboree, and one of the actors from the earlier nudist Shakespeare production. A giant hand reaches into the foliage to claim all the bodies, and throws them into a giant mechanical drink shaker next to a pub. We go inside the pub, and a nice bit follows that gives new meaning to the term "sucking face".

An antiquated matte frames the screen like an old silent film, and a new "skit, spoof, jape or vignette" is announced, this one about the "free repetition of words." Idle and Jones play a customer and telegraph operator, in a very stilted and awful way, all within the matte. As they work through the not very good joke with intentionally bad delivery, all we can do is wait for it to be over. Thankfully, it soon is. The goofy bad-ness of the sketch is sweet, but only because we know what they are capable of. Less said, the better. Let's move on...

Gilliam takes over again-- kinda his show, really, post the Tudor-porn stuff-- and provides us with a link, folding up the matte and delivering it via long horse to the BBC, where he unfolds it-- and the next sketch starts. In what feels like another Cleese-ian bit, moderator Cleese (in a moustache that makes him look a lot like Basil Fawlty) interviews three men on the existence (or lack thereof) of an afterlife. Did I mention that they're all dead? It's similar to the bit from season 1, where Jones interviewed the taxidermified animals-- the main joke lies in the lack of response, although Cleese seems more comfortable with it than Jones did. Silence means "no." There's a nice bit at the end, when the credits roll--  Kubrick, Welles and Lindsey Anderson, among others, get credit for "research" as the cadavers are dragged off the set.

Today, just a disease! Tomorrow, t-shirts!

Without a link, we dash to Dr. E. H. Thripshaw's office.  Palin steps in, speaking with an odd jumble of words that Cleese interprets with little difficulty. "My particular prob, or buglem bear, I've had ages. For years, I've had it for donkeys." Standard Idle-esque gibberish that Palin pulls off beautifully. Finally, Cleese diagnoses him with a disease "so rare that it hasn't got a name. Not yet. But it will have, oh, yes!" Guess what he wants to name it? (For a hint, check out the episode title.) As the lights go down in the office and a spot comes up on Cleese, we learn that his plans for the disease don't stop there. Merchandising-- a game-- Film Rights!

And now, the... filum. Clip.

We see that film, with titles by Gilliam. The movie shows us stock footage of a battle fought in Syria in 1203. Horses, swords, armor-- the crusades!" We soon cut to Chapman, wearing a big dry grey wig and speaking with stalactite stentorianism, as a film critic. "That... clip... comes from the new David O. Seltzer... filum." Chapman interviews Thripshaw, who is aghast at what they've done to his disease-- the film bears no resemblance. This is much like the Anne Elk sketch, only this time the interviewer is maddening instead of the guest. Chapman is great-- though he gets few laughs from the studio audience, he gets a lot from me-- and Cleese plays the victim very well. Cleese brings a clip of his film, remade to better represent his original diseased vision. It's just like the last clip, only now, as a knight goes to battle, he runs into Cleese at a desk. "What seems to be the matter?" It's a nice little bit of visual trickery, and a silly and grandiose end to this pretty simple bit.

Have you tried oiling it?

Palin pops up out of a water barrel, dripping wet, and says that the next bit will be preceded by silly noises. Sure enough, over black, silly noises, and an establishing shot of a church with bells. We cut to a brick-walled church study. Palin, a vicar (second of the show) with nerdy glasses, his hair plastered down, leads straight-man Chapman in, ostensibly to discuss some biblical question that Chapman has. But Palin can only talk about sherry. He's got some, he can't share, he finds more, Idle comes in with a twelve thousand gallon shipment for him, ("You're one of our best customers-- you and the United States," Idle says, which is hysterical-- we don't drink sherry here.) Finally, Jones leads in a team of mariachi singers, with Cleveland on the maracas, (and what maracas!) to celebrate his purchase of Amontillado.

But when the song ends, with a final "Ole", we find it's all a front for dirty books. And the censored credits roll, with naughty nicknames attached to the regular gang of co-conspirators. A final BBC announcement tells us that E Henry Thripshaw Disease t-shirts are on sale, details to be determined.

And that's it. Not much of a show, to be frank. It feels uninspired and lacking in the playful curiosity that made the rest of this season heretofore such a blast. The Vicar smashing plates is as close as we come to a surprising, visceral moment of comedy, (although the "Is There...?" show was pretty funny in a gut punch way) and the rest, while still well-performed and written, just felt empty somehow. I doubt the "Wee-Wee" sketch would have done much to help. Is this what Cleese feared? Is this what Monty Python looks like when they're out of new ideas?

I think they got a bit more junk in the trunk.

Next week; "Dennis Moore"