(Sniff) It's okay. I can do this... The last episode?! Are you serious?!... it's okay. Just, do the thing. Will one of you buy a friggin' box set?! Can't you see the pain I'm in?!... it's okay. You can watch them again. At least you have the box set. Let's just rip it off the wound, and just... just...
We start right off with a blue screen, yellow letters announcing a
“Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Liberal Party”. What follows is
like no political ad I’ve ever seen. We meet the Garibaldis, a family of five
in a cluttered little cluster of rooms. Idle, who plays Mama Garibaldi, does
the ironing. Not clothes, of course, but surprisingly malleable teapots and
creamers. At the nearby table, Palin, preppy and spotty in spectacles, sweater and short
pants, reads the paper, The Daily Scun, while Dad Jones, tousled and unshaven,
sits on a toilet eating “A No Weet” cereal and praying for a bowel movement.
Jones waves a bit of the paper towards Gilliam, in a fat suit on the couch
behind them, rapaciously devouring can after can of beans, with the beans
spilling all over his chest, while Chapman, as a teen-ish woman, makes herself
up at the table in a slutty two-tone leather skirt. She applies make-up
liberally and poorly, more Emmet Kelly than supermodel. There’s also a sheep dog near Gilliam, hoping
for a scrap of beans.
That’s the set up. The sketch itself is essentially a slice of
life for this terrible family as they listen to the soccer game, with a team
made up almost entirely of people named Pratt. (A joke, most probably, but we
have movie stars named Pratt these days.) Jones complains about the paucity of
bowel movements in his life. Palin is apparently accident prone, breaking
almost everything he touches. Chapman insists on staying out ‘til 3 a.m., even
though she’s a member of Parliament, and denies that she was snogging with last
night’s date, even though Jones overheard some lewd behavior. Idle fights off
Ninjas from the Liberal Party at the front door. And Gilliam wants more
BEEEEEEANS!
(The beans gag, it should be noted, is before Mel Brooks’ similar treatment of the legume in Blazing Saddles, although it is doubtful Brooks actually saw this episode before he shot the iconic film, so it must have just been in the zeitgeist.) The sketch has no build, no real narrative—it’s mostly a bunch of visual gags that play out over a steady roll of laughter from the audience. Idle ironing the radio, the prize inside Jones’ cereal is the Pope, Palin breaking things, a Tarzen-esque postman, and the disgusting cesspool that is Gilliam. The dialogue is random—Chapman’s sexual proclivities and Palin’s curiosity about Rhodesia.
(The beans gag, it should be noted, is before Mel Brooks’ similar treatment of the legume in Blazing Saddles, although it is doubtful Brooks actually saw this episode before he shot the iconic film, so it must have just been in the zeitgeist.) The sketch has no build, no real narrative—it’s mostly a bunch of visual gags that play out over a steady roll of laughter from the audience. Idle ironing the radio, the prize inside Jones’ cereal is the Pope, Palin breaking things, a Tarzen-esque postman, and the disgusting cesspool that is Gilliam. The dialogue is random—Chapman’s sexual proclivities and Palin’s curiosity about Rhodesia.
But that’s okay—the family is only the start of the sketch,
co-written by Neil Innes, which is a game show about the Most Awful Family in
Britain, emceed by the spangly Palin. The Garibaldis, while pretty terrible,
only rank at #3 on the Disgust-o-Meter, according to the judges. Idle, a judge,
complains “I don’t think there was the sustained awfulness we really need.”
Second place are the Fanshawe-Cholmleighs, a family of upper-class twits. Idle,
Palin, Chapman and Jones all natter simultaneously, and yes, it’s pretty awful.
It’s great to see the twits again, and at home this time, instead of on the
field. But even they pale in comparison to the Joddrells, a family so disgusting,
they can’t be shown on television.
Jones’ judge character, in a mink coat, reveals in upper class tones that “Mr. Joddrell, the old grandfather, when he licks the....” Palin has to interrupt to avoid the inevitable censorship, but she still manages to compliment his gobbing as accurate and consistent.
Jones’ judge character, in a mink coat, reveals in upper class tones that “Mr. Joddrell, the old grandfather, when he licks the....” Palin has to interrupt to avoid the inevitable censorship, but she still manages to compliment his gobbing as accurate and consistent.
We cut back to Idle and Gilliam, as ladies, and Jones, an old man,
watching the show on television as Palin signs off. They’re a pretty awful
family, too, but they can’t get past the Joddrell’s. Another spate of visual
gags, including a hilarious puppet cat that has attempted a lunge through the
wall and gotten stuck halfway, and Jones using a loaf of bread to wipe the cat
feces off his feet. Chapman rings the doorbell of this awful family to try to
sell them Icelandic honey, but soon confesses that there’s no such thing.
Chapman has a nice moment here as a woman with sideburns and beard, complaining about Iceland. “Listen, cowboy, I got a job to do. It’s a stupid pointless job, but at least it keeps me away from Iceland!” (Shades of Galaxy Quest, anyone?) They push Chapman out, closing the door on someone in a bowler, suit, yellow badge and rubber mask waving from the threshold (Who is he?) before the credits roll.
Chapman has a nice moment here as a woman with sideburns and beard, complaining about Iceland. “Listen, cowboy, I got a job to do. It’s a stupid pointless job, but at least it keeps me away from Iceland!” (Shades of Galaxy Quest, anyone?) They push Chapman out, closing the door on someone in a bowler, suit, yellow badge and rubber mask waving from the threshold (Who is he?) before the credits roll.
Over Western-style music and a black and white etching of an old
West battle, cavalry vs. Indians, Palin’s V.O. reads the titles which set us up
for a Western epic battle. But no, we cut to a doctor’s office. It’s kind of
like a David Mamet movie—we expect the twist if you do it every time.
As with the prior episode and its Eisenhower shrine, we start with
the same shrine with a different picture. We roll out from it, to find
ourselves in Doctor Chapman’s office. He’s “treating” Gilliam’s “naught
complect”, and the treatment is a bag to be worn on the head, a bell, and a
sign that says “For Special Treatment”. He takes all of Gilliam’s money, throws
it in a safe behind him (which “cha-chings” happily), and tells Gilliam to “Get
out… Dirty little man.” It’s almost quaint to see how the lads see doctors, as opposed
to the poor overworked cowering things that the insurance companies have neutered.
Or maybe this was just wish fulfillment on Chapman’s part, since he actually
was a doctor. “Oh, the money I could have made… and being drunk wouldn’t have
been an issue at all!” Back to the sketch, Chapman calls for the next patient,
and it’s Jones, blood spurting out over his nice blue suit. “What seems to be
the trouble?” Chapman asks. Jones was
actually fine until the waiting room nurse stabbed him. But before Chapman can
do anything about the wound, he needs the proper form filled out. While the
spurting Jones tries to fill it in, Chapman practices his golf swing and his
peasant shooting. Jones faints on the form, blood pooling on the carpet beneath
him, and Chapman inspects how far he got. “Surely you knew number four!”
Chapman remonstrates. “It’s from the Merchant of Venice! Even I knew that one!”
While Jones blots his own blood from the carpet on his hands and knees, Nurse
Cleveland (oh, how the phrase leaves me weak!) steps in with a gun. “Doctor, I
just shot another patient. I don’t think there’s any point in your seeing him.”
She heads back out with a sword while Chapman outlines Jones’ options. “I’ll
stop the bleeding, but technically I shouldn’t even do that, on marks like
these…” But a scream from the waiting room announces that Cleveland has done
her good work, and returning with blood all over, she announces that there are
no more patients, so she and Chapman go to lunch, leaving Jones to bleed out
while he corrects his form. “Thank you, Doctor,” Jones croaks as they leave.
Oh, Nurse... |
This bit of bloody sadism comes to us courtesy of Chapman and
co-writer Douglas Adams, he of “The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy” fame. Not
content with his on-camera cameo last week, he and Chapman worked up this
hilariously old-school sketch, and it feels soooo good. Reminiscent of the
famous Saturday Night Live sketch, with Dan Ackroyd as Julia Childs, (“Save the
liver!”) but preceding it by a few years, the focus and clarity of this sketch
stands in stark relief to the parade of scarcely-connected gags that came
before. It’s not particularly fresh or innovative, but it still manages to
slay—literally, if Jones’ outcome is as predicted.
On to the next sketch. Idle wears a British army outfit, replete
with medals and badges. But as we pull back, we see that his uniform isn’t
strictly regulation. Beneath the tunic, he wears a tutu, knee socks, and
women’s character shoes, while he dictates a letter complaining in stentorian
tones about the previous sketch. The typist is a big-hatted bishop named Brian
played by Palin. When Idle asks for a readback, Palin reads something all
biblical, but it seems to satisfy Idle. Well… not completely, as it turns out.
Because Idle insists that they “stop pretending”, and in true British fashion,
they each declare their… moderate, or not very large… feelings for each other.
“I don’t suppose there’s much we can do about it,” Idle asks rhetorically.
“Not on television, no,” Palin responds. What follows is kind of
touching, actually—as close as Python ever really came to pathos, apart from
the David Frost sketch. These two characters, on television, are tragically
disenfranchised from following their hearts because they’re characters on
television, and the regret that suffuses their every line is a little heart
breaking. But they don’t play it long—just enough to get the censors nervous.
As they lean in towards each other, Idle asks Palin to take another letter. And
we’re out—
And at the opera. In a Gilliamination—the first of the show—an
opera tenor in a burgundy tux, standing alone in a huge empty but ornate space
reminiscent of Versailles (except for the floor, which is reminiscent of a
barber pole,) sings Wagner (“Wagner, Max!”), specifically a strange, doodly
“Flight of the Valkyries” tune. But, apparently, not everyone likes Wagner. A
cannon rolls in from the other side of the frame, pointed directly at the
tenor. The tenor picks up the gauntlet and continues singing, only to have the
cannon fuse lit. As it burns down, the tenor keeps warbling, until the cannon
fires, and the tenor pulls into his tux like a snail into his shell. But!
Miracle of miracles—no cannonball has erupted. Relieved and happy, the tenor
sings with renewed vigor. Then things get strange. The shell comes out of the
cannon, but at a snail’s pace, taking forever to emerge from the cannon and
creeping across the room, defying all laws of physics by staying afloat at that
(lack of) velocity. The tenor, relieved anew, continues his aria, apparently
confident that the shell constitutes no danger. But when the shell finally
reaches him—BOOM, right? Wrong! The shell hits the tenor, and then just drills
into the tenor, until it disappears without sight into the tenor’s bulk. Even
the tenor did not see this coming, halting his song once in surprise. But once
the shell has been absorbed, there’s no reason not to finish. The tenor blasts
his final note (voiced by an echo-y Palin, by the way) to great applause from
an unseen crowd. Acknowledging the adulation, the tenor boOOOOMS! as he bows. A
nice study in sustained anxiety brought to you from the warped mind of Gilliam.
We cut quickly to another blue screen with yellow letters, this
time reading “An Appeal on Behalf of Extremely Rich People Who Have Absolutely
Nothing Wrong With Them”. In case you can’t read, Palin voices it over for you.
On film, Chapman sits behind a desk, all kindness and warmth and moustache, a
flask and glass of brandy at his side, and a lamp that looks like Gilliam drew
it on his other side, a jarring blue screen behind him. I keep waiting for
weird images to pop up on the screen, but it’s all Chapman as he delivers his
pitch for the poor afflicted, only not poor, and not afflicted, and not even an
appeal, really. He just wants to raise the awareness of the average man on the
street, who “can’t appreciate the pressures that vast quantities of money just
do not bring.” After showing us some examples of wealth, he points out “It’s
only human to say ‘Oh, this will never happen to me,’… and of course, it won’t.”
Then he wraps it up, asking for no gifts, no matter how large or small..
Instead of going broad, as Mr. Neutron did last week, this solid spoof of the
Victim Generation goes deep, keeping a very tight focus on its unique selling
point and never straying beyond it. But every line builds beautifully on the
concept. Well done!
Towards the end of his “appeal”, we see Jones (as a pepperpot)
watching Chapman on television in her living room. The doorbell rings, and
after a couple of quick callbacks to the opening scene, she answers the door,
humming “Anything Goes In” to herself. Idle’s at the door. Jones starts to ask “You
must have come about…”
“Finishing the sentences, yes.”
What follows is yet another sold bit. Jones has difficulty
finishing her sentences, so she has contacted a specialist, Idle, who will
coach her into more self-sufficiency. All of this information is revealed in
sentences started by Jones and finished by Idle. After they’ve had some fun
with that, Idle explains the process, coaxing Jones to finish his sentences,
thereby finishing a sentence for herself. When Jones finishes a sentence and
realizes she has done so, the moment is one of revelatory empowerment. Now the
roles have been reversed, and following that logic, Idle shows Jones to the
door, and she leaves. The lads are on a roll, three very nice if contained bits
in a row. This one has the feel of the Argument Clinic in its Apollonian
discipline, and although they could have taken it further, it’s a sweet little
nugget—Not at all offset by the return to random as soon as Jones leaves.
Cleveland, Idle’s off stage wife, has just had another baby—her twelfth since
lunch, and oops, there’s another one. This tag-on raises a lot of questions
that can’t be answered. Was Cleveland really Jones’ wife? How did Jones, a
woman, impregnate her. Didn’t Jones mention a husband in the sketch? (She did.)
So all of reality reshuffled once Jones learned to finish a sentence? I guess
the real question is, was this random joke worth shredding the prior sketch?
(It wasn’t.)
There's the guy in the rubber mask!... and there's Stonehenge. |
Still on film, in the deep forests of Africa, we meet intrepid but
oh, so British explorer Palin, in a bush outfit, blond hair, and dripping with
sweat—actually, pouring with it, in twin waterfalls from beneath his shirt,
trailed by four black “natives.” Palin is in turn trailing the famous Walking
Tree of Dahomi, and after six months and three days, has finally caught up with
it. He waxes rhapsodic about all the various gaits this tree might have used in
its journey of four thousand miles, while dripping sweat—only to be told by a
whispering native that this isn’t the tree. The tree has moved on. They head
off after it, and we see that the natives aren’t carrying supplies, but saxophones.
They look a little bashful to be jazz musicians, but what else could they be,
if they’re not natives?!
Later, Palin gives us an update—they haven’t spotted the famous
walking tree, although apparently there are many trees that walk, and skip, and
bushes that sidle. But they have spotted a Turkish Little Rude plant, a plant
that imitates the pale buttocks of a Brit—it even farts when you drop it! And
that’s not even the headline. There are
natives playing cricket! But that fails to get the now spurting with sweat from
many holes Palin interested—not while there’s a Puking Tree on the other side
of the clearing.
Gilliam has to take over, just to bring focus to this enterprise.
An animated professor knitting himself a straitjacket in a Medieval room,
announces that they had found the legendary Bat Men of the Kalihari—a cricket
team lost in time. This is a riff on the Bush Men of the same place, famous for
having been passed by as history marched on, still living the old ways. Having
one of the old ways be cricket is a great idea—let’s see what they do with it.
The discovery of the Bat Men prompts a further discovery of rare
footage of the Bat Men of the Kalihari taking on W – a team made up entirely of
men named Pratt. This is where we came in, yes? Now, while cricket is a very
strange and exotic sport to me, I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be played
like this. Crickteer Jones steps up to the wicket, prepared, and the native bowler/pitcher
throws—a spear, impaling Jones, who complains just a bit before collapsing into
the sticks. Another cricketer gets one through the leg. One gets the head
chopped off, which is caught by the catcher. Needless to say, it’s a one sided
match. Chapman reads off a list of results, all of them varying the central
theme—this Pratt retires injured, this Pratt retires very injured, this Pratt
beheaded and bowled… I don’t know what it means but it sounds funny. Bloody
funny.
And there goes the head! |
We pan back to see that this whole thing is being watched by
spangly Palin, the MC of the Most Awful Family in Britain M.C., only now a
banner that reads “Sport” has been carelessly draped across the “Awful Family”
sign. He says “That’s all from us”—True that—and we cut to the closing credits.
The Monty Python font is used to spell out “A Party Political Broadcast on
Behalf of the Liberal Party”, and instead of the big military band playing the
theme, we get Neil Innes, on guitar, poorly picking out the tune. A fond
farewell from the lads, or an admission that, after four years, they were still
inept at all this? The sour picking is soon replaced by the military band as
the silly credits roll.
But as the credits finish, we cut to Cleveland dancing energetically
on a table, while four drunken Brits, one of them the bowler, suit, yellow
badge and rubber mask man, dance around her. Idle comes into frame as a
newscaster, sternly announcing the silly news. Millions of pounds lost at the stock
exchange when someone coughed—we’ve seen that happen when software coughs.
Capital punishment reintroduced in rugby—yeah, that’s what the soccer dads over
here do.
After a bit of this, he sends it on back to… himself… and then
over to Palin, on the Paignton Pier. (Hey! Paignton! One of my favorite
locations, from the Grill-o-Mat episode!) Palin announces that “It’s from
Paignton that we can take you back to the studio!”
(The bowler yellow badge rubber mask man is there, too.) Back at the studio, Chapman, in swim trunks and scuba mask, with an impaled otter on a spear, sends us back to spangly Palin, who sends us back to Idle, with Cleveland dancing in the background. Idle announces an upcoming documentary on Ursula Hitler and her Magical Bees, as he switches out seats with Jones. But before Jones can speak—we cut away. This is a nice, dizzying round robin, getting all the lads in for one last wink at the camera—except for Gilliam, noticeably absent.
(The bowler yellow badge rubber mask man is there, too.) Back at the studio, Chapman, in swim trunks and scuba mask, with an impaled otter on a spear, sends us back to spangly Palin, who sends us back to Idle, with Cleveland dancing in the background. Idle announces an upcoming documentary on Ursula Hitler and her Magical Bees, as he switches out seats with Jones. But before Jones can speak—we cut away. This is a nice, dizzying round robin, getting all the lads in for one last wink at the camera—except for Gilliam, noticeably absent.
Finally, we cut back to the graphic that started this all off, the
Party Political Broadcast. Palin reads it off for us—but gets an attack of the
giggles halfway through and can’t continue. Others seem to laugh along with
him. The announcer tried to take it seriously, but he just couldn’t hold it. It
was all too silly. Fade to black.
And, at last, the lads pull out one of the better shows of the season,
with some solid sketches. In this “meme” era, all anyone really remembers from
this episode is Gilliam screaming “BEEEEEANS!” from the filthy couch, but there’s
so much more that deserves our fond recollection—the Patient Abuse sketch is
awesome, and the Two Characters in Search of a Gay Boink (not the official
title) is also quite good, as is the “Finishing Others’ Sentences”. And
although the writers resisted the temptation towards commenting on the “last
show” dynamic and getting all maudlin, I’d like to call your attention (as if I
needed to), to Carol Cleveland dancing gleefully on the table, surrounded by
drunk, rubber-faced Brits.
Could there have been a better final image? I don’t think so.
Given the tenuous relationship between women and men, especially in England,
with all of its upper class embarrassment and pompous rectitude, things can get
messy. Add professional comedy into the mix, with its use of the baser instincts
and a natural inclination towards hostility, and you get a very heady and
intoxicating brew. This was all indicated by the role of gender in Monty Python—their
insistence on playing the female parts, and their resistance to writing
material for Carol Cleveland (until the movies, that is) suggests a discomfort with, even a subtle
hostility towards women. But at the same time, they liked them, and used them
often as objects for sexual lust. I guess what I’m saying is, most human
endeavor is in the service of getting laid. And at least five members of the troupe
wanted to be laid by women. And chicks dig funny guys. There, at last, is the
truth—not only of their feelings for women, and Cleveland specifically, but of
the motivations behind their silly behavior. They’re going to keep grabbing at
the dancing woman on the table for as long as they can, and hope that she
favors their silliness. This is an eternal struggle.
This is the last episode of nothing.
I just wanted to thank you for writing these episode commentaries. It's really interesting hearing someone else's point of view on them, and sometimes discovering things I've never noticed before. Also nice to see series 3 getting some love, as I'm rather fond of it and I definitely recall it being given less than its due at times. Anyway, good job and I enjoyed reading!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Fen, and sorry for the unconscionably late reply.
DeleteThese articles were interesting and fun to read, thanks pythonluv!
ReplyDeleteThanks for these great writeups. Amazing work!
ReplyDelete