Episode 42 - The Light Entertainment Wars

"The enemy are not only fighting his war on the cheap, but they're also not taking it seriously... doing very silly things in one of the most vital areas of the war!" -  Graham Chapman as General Shirley 

This is the third of the six episodes Monty Python shot in the fourth and final series, without John Cleese. I've been looking around for anecdotes about this show, and have found very few. No one seems to have much by way of recollections about this particular episode. And frankly, I can't remember ever having seen it. I know that Cleese gets an writing credit, as does, for the first time, Neil Innes, who collaborated this week on the television show itself. But apart from that, I have little to add to just watching the damn thing, so let's. Get the box set, yadda-yadda.

We start with Palin and Jones (of course) as two very happy go lucky hobos walking down the street. Palin finds butts on the sidewalk, while Jones is more interested in playfully mocking passers-by. This is all for a TV show called "Up Your Pavement". There's a nice visual gag, when Palin and Jones root through a trash bin. Palin pulls out a soggy sandwich, while Jones pulls out an unopened bottle of champagne, complete with two glasses. But there's something new here, as well-- original music. A New Orleans style horn section plays a ditty called "How Does a Dream Begin?" penned by Innes. We don't know the song's title yet, but that's the song. Palin's giddy voice over starts up-- "It's with these two ha-ha-happy go luck rogues that our story begins..." (See? I told you they were happy go lucky.) As Palin and Jones walk off screen--

SCREEECH! They are run over by James Bond-ian Chapman. We think it's his story now, but-- it's his lumbago surgeon's story-- or the surgeon's neighbor, a Naval officer. Or his daughter. Or the voyeur that haunts her woman's college, who is also a hen teaser... it goes on from there, a dizzying relay of main characters and their stories, but after  3 1/2 minutes, it finally lands, appropriately enough, on an RAF landing field in 1944 England. (sigh of relief.) Nice meta bit there-- we've seen it before, with the Science Fiction sketch from season 1, as well as in a few "show so far" segments, but in this context, the switching off of main characters, it goes to a new level. Nice. But we are assured by Palin's voice over that this is really the story we're about to unfold.

In an corrugated metal hut, Jones reads a magazine. Idle comes in with some Biggles-ian banter--  "Bally Jerry took a waspy, flipped over his Betty Harper's and caught his can in the Bertie,"--, that proves to be incomprehensible to the captain Jones. Jones and Chapman have their own banter, which makes no sense to Idle, but Chapman doesn't understand Idle any better than Jones. The banter itself is silly greatness, and gets greater when Palin comes in. "Bunch of monkeys on your ceiling, sir! Grab your egg and fours and let's get the bacon delivered!" he yells. Even Idle doesn't understand him. As they try to suss it out, the Germans attack, dropping cabbage crates all over London. Yes, cabbage crates. It turns out that Palin's banter-y line "Cabbage crates coming over the briny" wasn't all that banter-y.

News footage and Idle's voice over gives us the whole A and E treatment, before we cut to Chapman as a General, getting news from the front-- the Germans are dropping cabbages instead of bombs, wearing fairy costumes at the front, and instead of rifles, they've got spiders in matchboxes, enticing the enemy. They're not taking this war seriously. There's a nice visual gag (pardon the pun) when corporal Idle finishes his debrief, Chapman says "Thank you, Shirley." This would be funny if Idle's name were Shirley, but then a woman in a WAAF outfit emerges from under Chapman's desk. Chapman rises (again), accompanied by the strains of Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance", and promises that "anyone found trivializing this war will face the supreme penalty military justice can provide." A quick pull back shows us he's just saying this for the cameras.

Next, a military tribunal. Idle is in the dock, for ignoring his expensive rifle and attacking the enemy with a wet towel. But things unravel quickly. Palin mentions that the crime took place in Basingstoke. The Judge, Jones, interrupts him with questions about how Germany should have a town called Basingstoke. Palin reveals that the map (which names the town as Basingstoke) was made by Cole Porter. Not the Cole Porter we know and love, but a more obscure Cole Porter who wrote "Anything Goes". Not that "Anything Goes". Now Palin has to sing this strange song to the judge. Idle asks if he can go home. The lyrics are below;
"AnyTHING goes in
AnyTHING goes out
Fish, bananas, old pajamas,
Mutton, beef and trout!"
Yep, that's definitely not the Cole Porter we know. Satisfied, Jones allows the trail to proceed.

That blur n the right is the skating vicar. 

But wait! More distractions! Idle was wearing a pair of expensive gaiters (a lower leg covering). Jones wants to know why they were so expensive. And off we go on the gaiters. This feels much like a Palin sketch, where an authority figure is thwarted by some loser's OCD, but it doesn't work as well in this context as well as it did in, say, the argument between Arthur and Dennis in "Holy Grail". Who is the authority figure? It should be the Judge, but the Judge is the OCD loser, and he's not really. Kind of a mess. The details are funny, but the dynamic is just irritating. Do these clowns have a sketch to do, or don't they? Even Idle, purportedly the subject of this sketch, wants to go home. We finally get to a comedic cul-de-sac, as Jones persists in knowing why the gaiters were so expensive and why Idle had them-- turns out he performed sexual favors for the others in his unit. Even for Jones, this is TMI. Jones asks Idle for a statement, and Idle gives a well-reasoned assessment of the hypocrisy of military action. Gilliam, as Idle's attorney, objects that his client is being pretentious, and Palin objects, and then Jones brings the hammer down. "I'm in charge of this courtroom," he insists, and orders up a pixie-hatted musical number of "AnyTHING Goes", complete with hand gestures and choreography and a skating vicar. That'll teach 'em not to trivialize the war!

 A retro "Coming Attraction" clip, with tutu-wearing soldiers storming a beach, and a soap-opera-ic bisexual love triangle that devolves into bi-species and quad-species stories, fades out with an exhausted narrating Palin saying "Uh... and everything. Don't miss it!" A Gilliam-esque hairy ape with a fairy voice announces, with the Nude Organist and the "It's Man", the titles. It's the first time we've seen either Organist or "It's", and noticeably absent is Cleese's "And now..." Continuity, only without the continuity.

Just before we get to the final foot smooshing the half-a-troll, we cut to a sitting room. Jones and Chapman, as two upper class pepperpots, watch television from the couch. The foot comes down on their TV screen. Standing next to the TV is Gilliam, looking like an

 Indian slave in turban and loin cloth and nothing else. The turban has wires dangling from it. "Up Your Pavement" starts up. The ladies watch it for quite a while before Chapman complains "Bloody repeats!" She presses the clicker-- which sends an electric shock through Gilliam. Spasming, he changes the channel, then resumes his place. Nice visual gag, that!

Jones, ever the performer, talks over the huge laugh Gilliam's torture receives, but she basically complains. (She uses the word "micturate", which is my second Big Lebowski reference of this post.) Chapman is offended, as programming executives treat the public like idiots. "Well, we are idiots," Jones confesses, and as proof, shows clips of her being an idiot. The clips are pretty funny. Get Jones away from a live audience, and he can do some serious damage.

At this point, we cut to Jones (freaky-- we were just on Jones!) in a mustache and suit with a button on the lapel, proving him to be a "Chief TV Planner", looking down on Jones (told you-- freaky!) in the parking lot acting silly. "The public are idiots," Jones mutters. We might just as well show them the last five miles of the M2" (a road in England) "they'd watch it." Sure enough, back with Chapman and Jones as the upper class pepperpots in the sitting room, they're happily watching the traffic on the M2, pleased it's not more of the same old thing.

Back at the TV planning session, we find out who the real idiots are. Idle, Chapman, Palin and Jones hash out ideas for shows based on motorways, only they don't want to spend money on new shows, so they decide to retitle the old shows. They brainstorm new title ideas, all of them silly, while someone knocks on the door. Whenever Idle says "Someone's knocking at the door," Jones replies "No, that title's too long." When Gilliam, on the other side, screams "Open the sodding door!"

Jones rejects the title-- you can't say "sodding" on television. Finally, Gilliam rolls in, a sword through his head, with the news that the World War series isn't "taking it seriously anymore." When Palin goes to check the TV news, he bumps Gilliam's sword. "Mind me war wound!" Gilliam bellows. There's a nice thematic through line here, of the younger generations rejection of canonizing past national traumas. We could do with a little of that over here in the states. It's not translating into any great sketches or lines, but I still appreciate it.

We get a Gilliamination here-- a "feature", if you will, and the first substantial bit of this season. We start with BBCs Television Center, rocking and bucking all over the place. A man (who looks remarkably like a bald John Cleese) enters and grumpily complains about all the war series they do over there. As he walks home, bombs drop around him, all of them duds, hitting the ground with a flatulent plop. Just before he gets home, he spots the evening star, and wishes for a good day tomorrow. He then goes to sleep-- but the evening star, having heard his wish, has turned the area around his home into a construction zone, building the requested beautiful day. When the man wakes up, he has a moment to appreciate the day-- before dropping dead from exhaustion. Terribly linear for Gilliam, and longer than it should be, but nice nonetheless.

We cut to a manor house, croquet wickets and sticks on the lawn, and a title that, after four tries, finally identifies the place as 1942 England. An 40's jazz song that sounds like it belongs in the credits of a Woody Allen film plays in the background. We go inside to see how the other half lives--
Chapman, Cleveland (Chapman's daughter) and Idle (Chapman's wife) in the sitting room, staring out from their various seating appliances, bored and still, in 20's attire. Behind them, the staff in waiting stands waiting-- one of them, the maid on the left, wearing sunglasses for some reason. Cleveland pours tea-- why she doesn't let the staff behind them do the pouring is beyond me, they're just standing there, and they must be expensive-- and Chapman, having nothing better to say, comments on how nice the croquet hoops are coming along this year. The trio agrees that wood hoops are better than tin hoops. This inane chitchat runs its course. "Gorn," Chapman explains, filling the silence. But he soon confesses that word "Gorn" gives him confidence. Soon, the three are categorizing words as either "woody" (good) or "tinny" (bad-- egregious and unconscionable). After chasing Cleveland out with accusations of "tinny", Chapman discovers that most lewd words are "woody" (They certainly can inspire wood) with the exception of "tit" (tinny). (I love tinny tits.) He gets a bit carried away rattling the lewd words off, and Idle has to douse him with a bucket of water. Then he shoots a caribou (woody) and heads of to fire the servant Simkins (tinny) and take a bath to break the boredom.

Early in Python's childhood, Cleese and Chapman would claim that many of their sketches began with a word that they found funny. For instance, "plummet" amused them, and as they discussed why, they came up with the flying sheep sketch. This sketch, while it never really gets going, feels like a transcript from a Chapman/Cleese writing session. Most of the fun of the sketch, as performed, is Chapman chewing over the various words he comes up with. "Gohhhhhrnnnnn." "Prrrrrrrobing." But it feels kind of like filler.

No fear! Palin steps in as the WW2 pilot. "Cabbage crates coming in over the briny" makes as little sense to Idle as it made before. Palin calls back the caribou, the woody sound of "She's gone off" and the tepid bath joke. Idle, out of nowhere, asks Palin to sing a song. "Okay," he agrees. If you're guessing that he'll sing "AnyTHING Goes", you're wrong. He sings "She's Going to Marry Yum-Yum" (from Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado"), only he cozies up to her and then screams it, killing her instantly. "Crikey! The old song finished her off!" "What a blow for her," Chapman sighs when he re-enters and discovers his dead wife. This Orton-esque line gets a big laugh from the audience.

Suddenly, the sitting room is on the TV of the upper-class pepperpots, with Gilliam still standing by. They complain about why they're showing this "crap", when "there's still bits of the Leicester by pass what have never been shown." They change channels again, and the byway appears on screen, with a tally of what cars have appeared that day. Another channel change, and they see themselves complaining about the repeats. They, in turn, complain about the repeats. It's M.C. Esher's Flying Circus! Finally, they get to "Show Jumping", which the pepperpots call "Motor-Cross", to great hilarity incomprehensible to me.

"Show Jumping" is horses jumping over large musical casts, narrated by Idle as Dorian Williams, a horse jumping commentator in England, with special guest star, actual show jumper Marion Mould. This feels like another stab at the preemptive pony shows from the second year. The first show jumped is "The Sound of Music". They line up the huge cast, Maria starts to sing, and the horse trots towards them--

We cut to the pepperpots watching--

And the jump has been successfully made (off screen, of course). Chapman actually comments on it-- "You notice how we never actually see the horses jump?" But Python is all about rule breaking, even the rules they make. The Black and White Minstrel Show is next (a show that ran on the BBC from 1958-1978! Suddenly, the "Niggerbaiter" name seems more contextualized.) and the horse actually jumps this cast, although they are all clearly dummies. (They'd have to be, to be in that show.) The commentary tells us that the horse "just flicked Leslie Crowther with her tail", which is kind of ironic-- Leslie Crowther was a comedian who flipped his car and had a bunch of blood clots end his career. Anyway, back to the real jokes-- next up is the cast of Ben Hur. Chapman predicts "Bet we don't see this one." The horse runs towards the camera--

And real newscaster Peter Woods cuts in with an urgent bulletin-- WW2 has just gotten sentimental. "The Germans started spooning at dawn. The British Fifth Army responded by gazing deeply into their eyes, and the Germans are reported to have gone all coy." We cut to old footage of, I believe, Neil Innes, in WW2 uniform, singing to a woman (Shirley?) also in uniform, both standing in front of a plane. I've embedded it below (thanks, YouTube and ivorykisses!) The girl goes all coy, looking away, so that Neil has to keep grabbing her chin and pulling it back. Truth to tell, she seems more disinterested than coy-- she's just not into you, Neil!

So the song frames the show, and another episode comes to a close. This one, like Michael Ellis, had some nice moments, but they seem to be unable to really land the whole enterprise. It's all nice enough, and silly enough, but it lacks the pointedness or anger of prior Python shows. Still, the commentary on depictions of the war is great, and jumping over casts is also a lot of fun. Some fascinating new discoveries are coming to light, even as we can admit that the shows are a bit sub-par.

Next week; "Hamlet"!