Episode 33 - "Salad Days"

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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!

Episode 31 - The All-England Summarize Prousr Competition

"Mount Everest... forbidding... aloof.... terrifying... the mountain with the biggest tits in the world--"
"Start again." - Michael Palin as Announcer, Terry Jones as annoying director.

Hope you all had a great holiday season. As for me-- look what I got for Christmas! You can get one for yourself here. In the bottom of the cup, "Monty Python" in the classic Ben Hur style. Makes my tea soothing and silly.

As with life, we begin the new year pretty much where we ended the old year. Monty Python's Flying Circus is enjoying a great run of pretty great shows, as they use their new status as London cult icons and mmmmmovie stars to further push the boundaries of the BBC's tight little envelope. While very permissive by U.S. standards, the TV brass is feeling the heat from grass-roots organizations, and have started actually reading the scripts the lads submit for the show, even going so far as to object once in a while. Case in point-- the following episode. As always, if you weren't good and didn't get the Monty Python box set for Christmas, be good to yourself and give the gift of laughter... to you. (It may be that too much "being good to yourself" got you on the naughty list in the first place-- he knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake, and he knows what you're really doing in the shower...)

We begin with pipe. Lots of pipe. It's an organ. I mean, it's a pipe organ, played by Jones' nude organist... so now there's even more pipe. This character, like the Gumbys, is evolving. A blacked out tooth has joined the lack of costume, making the manic grimace even more demented. Cleese's Announcer and Palin's "It's" do their bit, and the credits roll. More pipe.

Eric Idle voices over a pretty shabby town-hall style stage, festooned with those strings of multicolored triangular flags you see at used car lots. A dark banner stretches across the top of the stage, telling us what Idle is also telling us-- that this is the All-England Summarize Proust Competition. Contestants must summarize the seven-novel ode to navel-gazing, "once in a swimsuit, and once in evening dress." Judges are cardboard cut-outs of a Surrey cricket team, and Omar Sharif. (Also a cardboard cutout.) Idle ramps it up for the introduction of the MC, Arthur (he's back!) Me, played by Terry Jones, in a garish gold tux and a fop-adour. He starts with a joke, in French, and there's a shot of the cardboard cutouts not responding, which is nice. Jones is giving these guys 15 seconds to summarize, with a thermometer graph on the side indicating how far they got. Sounds impossible, right?

Well, it turns out, it is. Chapman is the first contestant. Doubled over, he speaks fast, forcing each word, scarcely pausing to breathe. Idle informs us that he gets as far as page 1 of Swamm's Way, the first book. Jones does a little human interest with him, and asks about hobbies--

And something strange happens. We hear "golf and strangling animals", but Chapman's words don't match his lips. The original line was "strangling animals, golf and masturbation" and the BBC objected to "masturbation". (Speaking of "being good to yourself.") (Speaking of "pipe".) Jones went to the mat for the inclusion of masturbation, insisting that we all do it. The BBC denied any knowledge that it masturbates, and the joke was cut from the show with the strangest dubbing and editing. Frankly, I find a fondness for masturbation to be a requirement for reading Proust, but what is really strange, perhaps too obvious to be mentioned, is that "masturbation" was found offensive, while "strangling animals" was not. Ostensibly, the reason to cut sexual references is to keep children from doing it. I'd really rather have little Timmy jacking off than strangling Lassie. You can't choke the chicken, but you can strangle it. I could go on all day. Let's get back to the show...

Next contestant, the way-too-eager Palin, who assumes the position-- and goes up on his lines, unable to think of the names of characters or the nouns associated with them. He stammers through his fifteen seconds before Jones shoves him off the stage. Ironically, he managed to get up to book three. A choral group is next, repeating the musical phrase "Proust in his first book wrote about, wrote about..." over and over until the gong goes up, not even managing to start. (It's funny how there seems to be some argument over whether Proust is pronounced "Proost" or "Prowst", even amongst the members of the chorale.)  Finally, Jones announces that he's going to give first prize to "the girl with the biggest tits." (In the States, we're, like, "Masturbation, no, tits, yes?!")  big-breasted (by 70s standards) comes out in her sweater... not Carol Cleveland... and the closing titles roll. We're on to another show.

It's a documentary about Mt. Everest, "the mountain with the biggest tits in the world." A gong interrupts Palin's announcer, and nasal Jones instructs him to "Start again." A buck-tooth clown waves at us, and we start again. They're laying pipe...

Palin starts again, over footage of Mt. Everest, recounts an attempt to climb the rugged, deadly mountain by the "International Hairdresser's Expedition". (Look at all the pipe!) The joke here is the juxtaposition between effeminate men and physically taxing and deadly feats. (Once again, by 70s standards. This was before the era of weekend warriors in their lightweight, space-age gear, oxygen tanks and strip malls at base camp 2.) The expedition fails because "People keep stealing your hair dryers." The performances are all fine, the jokes all hit, but we're not happy with that, are we? MPFK goes further, becomes prescient, as they list the various other expeditions-- the choir, the chiropodists, the vast swarms of tourists winding their way up Everest, inspiring the hairdressers to open a salon. They have anticipated, by a decade at least, the wave of thrill-seeking tourists to demean the accomplishment of mounting Everest. "Summarize Proust" proves they're intellectual, but this sketch proves they're smart. "Challenging Everest?" their cheesy cinema commercial asks. "Why not drop in at Ricky Pugh's? Only 24,000 feet from this cinema."

Gilliam takes up the cinema advertising string, showing us what's coming next at the Katmandu Odeon. It's "A Magnificent Festering", with Omar Sharif and... who the hell is that chick? Anyway, what follows is, for my money, a great example of the simple joys of repetition, expectation, variation and pay-off. This film promises Romance! James (Omar) and Beatrice (Anonymous) mutter sweet nothings fervently to each other. The lady finally says "I could make such a fool of myself over you." "Oh, Beatrice, do. Do!" And she does, putting on a goofy mask with googly eyes and going "Wy-be-dee-be-dee bulalala..." You see it coming from a mile away, and it still cracks you up. Then Gilliam repeats the same scene, with an Adventure theme, and a Suspense Theme. And it keeps being funny! Cleveland, who carries the vocal lode for Beatrice, has a lot to do with it, making her silly noises with such sweet abandon. (Note the medieval warriors parading by in the Adventure sequence at the end-- early "Holy Grail" stuff.) Finally, the bandaged-headed man interrupts the final variation, telling the caller to "Shut up."

Now, things get weird. Back in the studio, Jones, as a Britfrau, is trying to connect with the Fire Brigade. (They're giving themselves a personal day and won't answer her call.) Cleese, as her husband Mervyn, tries his hand, insisting Jones play the cello for their ailing hamster. That's what you do when your hamster is sick-- you call the Fire Brigade. Cleese stays on the phone with the Operator in a maddening one-sided exchange involving a long series of "yes"s and checking one's shoe size. Jones mercifully interrupts this with the news that the hamster has slipped away. (Presumably not strangled by Chapman.) Heart-stricken, Cleese tries to go upstairs-- only to be reminded that he lives in a bungalow. He walks off, and now Jones engages in the same maddening exchange with the operator. Still, she actually manages to hang up the phone. Chapman steps in as a Watusi native who also happens to be the prodigal son returning from Dublin. The phone rings... oh dear God... Cleese answers it, the same exchange ensues, this time with Chapman's shoe size, and we face out.

Do we get to move on to a less excruciating sketch? No! Palin, behind a desk, with a bouquet of flowers on it, and a hand waving from the flowers (The Adam's Family's "Thing".) announces that the Fire Brigade made an appointment for the following Friday night. We get more of this sketch. Yay?

It's not that it's not at all funny. Cleese is making some bold vocal choices, ("Sorry. Thursdays... RIGHT OUT!!") and he's been relatively absent from this show so far, but unlike the previous Gilliam offering, we're not gleefully anticipating some result-- we just want it all to be over. But the lads have other plans, and they haven't steered us wrong yet. So...

Film of the Fire Brigade rushing to the call. They scramble out of the truck, come in through the glass-less windows, where inconsolable Cleese, Jones and Chapman wait for them, with sherry and appetizers. "We do like being called out to these little parties," the Brigade says in unison. "They're much better than fires." It's a funny bit, in danger of being made incomprehensible by the in-unison delivery. But then... the phone rings! Arghhh! As half the brigade gives their shoe sizes to the phone, and the other half asks Chapman about Dublin, Jones breaks the fourth wall. "I used to hate parties," she says. She links us to the next bit. Thank God!

The next bit is "Party Hints by Veronica Smalls", a TV show with a Western epic title sequence. (As always, some of the credits are pretty damn funny.) It's a standard Idle bit, him, alone, addressing the camera, usually in drag. This time, it's a glittery sweater and red Thatcher-esque wig, sitting at a table surrounded by bowls, carafes and crockery. Veronica Smalls is a Martha-Stewart precursor, the glamorous yet somehow incredibly functional woman of today, who, this week, teaches us how to put down an armed communist uprising whilst hosting a party. (Spoiler alert; Put down some cloth on the floor and shoot everybody.)

Gilliam takes over, showing us the cowardly Communist leaders from Kruschev to Lenin, all hiding under a bed. They walk that bed door to door selling "communist revolutions." One lady, naive enough to ask for a dozen, gets pierced in the belly with a Russian flag and is spun around twelve times. Get it? Communist revolutions? Well, Lyndon Baines Johnson gets it! He laughs uproariously, until he is grabbed by a much-larger cigar-chomping Brit. "You make me want to puke my guts out!" the Brit says, and then pukes, getting a huge gross-out laugh. Another much larger hand grabs the puking Brit, and it's a salesman hawking the "Puking Peter" doll. I'm sure there's a reference here, but I don't have it to hand. Anyways, all of this links us to--

Chapman giving the timid Cleese a tour of his language school, where students in narrow booths learn accents and attitudes to make them better bigots, politicians and homosexuals. We get Chapman coaching Palin on how to say "Eee- eckie Thump!" and a dreadful earworm that will haunt me to my dying day. Finally, Cleese gets down to business-- he wants to learn a way of talking that will make him less insignificant. After Chapman parades a few huge accents, they settle on "Life and Soul of the Party", which is very similar to Idle's "Nudge, Nudge" character. As they walk out, all of the people in their little lab booths roll their chairs out and engage in a seated musical number, which we're told is Sandy Wilson's version of "The Devils". It lapses into the "Proust" song, the gong cuts them all off, Jones tells them to "Start again," and the clown leans in and waves us off.

This whole last section, while still amusing, is troubling to me. It's like we're getting our laughs the way an IV drip gives us fluids-- without our participation, and scarcely our awareness. The laughter isn't forced so much as involuntary, reflexive. They've taken us to a place where they can make us laugh at will, with odd juxtapositions and repetition... but is any of it truly funny? 

"Mt. Everest... forbidding... aloof... terrifying... the highest place on earth...no, I'm sorry, we don't go there." Okay, that was nice. We thought it was another docudrama, but we're actually in the office of Palin's travel agency, with a color shot of the big-titted mountain on the wall.

In something that resembles an actual sketch. Idle steps up to Cleveland. "Would you like to go upstairs?" she asks. When he stares back confused, she covers "Or are you here to arrange a holiday?" When he tries to get back to the whole "upstairs" thing, she dismisses it. Poor sap. Opportunity like that, and you settle for a trip to India? Cleveland ushers him over to Palin, as Mr. Bounder, the travel agent. This particular piece, for reasons that will soon become clear, made it into the live shows. In the shows, Cleveland would announce "This gentleman is interested in our India Overland... and nothing else!"

The tour-de-force is coming, but we have to get through the silly preliminaries. First off, Idle has a funny name ("Mr. SmokeTooMuch") but he's never realized it until just now, when Palin points it out. Idle can't pronounce the letter "C" (replacing it with a "B" sound), but he can say the letter "K", and has never thought to switch them for the purposes of oral communication. ("What a silly bunt." he mutters in the live show.) And then, it arrives. Idle starts carping about past travel experiences... and never stops! It's a brilliant bit of comedy, as he "drones onnnn, and onnnn, and onnnn," despite Palin's best efforts to shut him up. "Shut your bloody gob!" screams Palin, but Idle has transcended the scene entirely. There are wicked travel observations inserted, fat German businessmen performing pyramids, and an adenoidal typist from Birmigham and someone "throwing up all over the Cuba Libres." But the real accomplishment is the sheer, relentless length of this monologue, and the steady, implacable delivery that Idle manages, despite having Palin screaming at him.

Palin-- uh-oh-- picks up the phone to call the police. Like the fire brigade, they'd rather not answer. Palin is stuck with the operator, checking his shoe size, when Cleveland steps into frame, speaking directly-- to us? "Could you come with me please?" she asks. Is this it? Is she going to take us... upstairs? Any delivery from a replay of the whole "operator" sequence would be welcome, but this? It's too much to hope for.

What we actually get may not be as perfect as going upstairs with Carol Cleveland, but it's still pretty sublime. Cleveland leads us down a long hall to another set, where Chapman sits with Cleese, in drag, in a grey business dress, huge glasses, and a wig that looks like a ball sack draped over his head. This is Anne Elke, the guest on Chapman's talk show, "Thrust".

In their recent "evening with" in Glendale, Idle asked Cleese what his favorite part of performing in the recent Monty Python O2 show had been. Cleese responded without hesitation; performing this character. He even did it a bit for us in Glendale, trying hard (and failing) to crack Idle up with it. Anne Elk is a myopic, tense, anal-retentive, prim OCD wanna-be member of the intelligentsia, with a weakness for being on television and a bad bronchial condition. In the sketch, Chapman introduces "An Elk... Mrs. Anne Elk."

"Miss." Ann corrects. Chapman has her on the show to discuss her new theory on dinosaurs, but as Elk twaddles around with pseudo intellectual verbiage, and, hilariously, coughing fits that echo through the studio, making her testicle-do bob around her head, it proves very frustrating to Chapman to actually get the damn theory out of her. "You may well ask me, what is my theory." "I am asking," Chapman testily replies, trying to keep his show from going down in flames. The sketch itself isn't much, but Cleese's portrayal is a delight. It's also a nice bit between the old buddies Chapman and Cleese as they play off each others frustration and cluelessness (respectively) beautifully. Finally, the theory comes out, and (spoiler alert) it wasn't worth the wait. But, she teases as Chapman tries to wrap up the show, "I have another theory..."

The phone rings. (Oh, dear God!) Chapman answers it, as Cleese introduces the next theory. Soon, Chapman is saying "Yes... yes..." and checking his shoe size as Cleese coughs up a couple of lungs. Chapman gets up and walks off down the long hall, back into the travel agents office. Palin is still on the phone with the operator. Idle is still talking to Cleveland, who can only gaze with horror and admiration. Chapman tells Palin "The Fire Brigade are here." Ann Elk arrives just before the Fire Brigade, with her second theory that Fire Brigade choruses seldom sing about Proust. Guess what happens next?

The gong. "Start Again." The Clown waves us off, more deranged than funny. The show is over.

We (that is to say, me) are seeing a disturbing trend towards devolution. True, there are some gems in this show, but they seem to be swimming against the current. I can't even say the culprit is randomness, as the bits inserted into this show are repeated often, frequently with little or no variation. There's a clear pattern, but it's not adding up to much. In earlier episodes this season, such as Njorl's Saga, the conceptual humor was in service to an interesting and funny concept, as was the Everest bit here. There doesn't seem to be a higher concept in the overall show-- except that phone operators are irritating, which seems like pretty low fruit for these lads. Maybe I just missed it.

Still-- we get Beatrice and James, Anne Elk, Idle's monologue, and a come on from Carol Cleveland. Not bad for a middling effort.

Next Week; "The War Against Pornography" The BBC is gonna have a field day with this one!

Episode 30 - Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror

The pantomime blood looks more real than real blood.

"Just remember your announcer training-- Deep breaths, and try not to think about what you're saying." - Michael Palin as Announcer Dick

I sincerely regret my absence over the last few weeks, and my abject apologies to anyone who noticed.

Yes, it's the holiday season, and this aptly named episode, recorded near Christmas in 1971 and not aired until the following November, seems  especially appropriate. It has pantomime animals, nuns, and a man soliciting funds for orphans-- England's version of the Salvation Army Santas. In the full bloom of their third season, and with a cult following in England, the lads are feeling their pantomime oats, and this episode is yet another example of their brain twisting comedy in free-fall style.

What is fun about this particular outing is how on board the audience is. I look back fondly on the old episodes, where timid stabs at zaniness elicited the most pallid of laughs. But in these heady times, the lads can't seem to set a foot wrong, as every concept, almost every line, is greeted with enthusiastic, almost eager, laughter. Maybe the crowd was all doped up on eggnog. Let's check it out.

Remember, 'tis the season. Give yourself the gift of giving royalties to the surviving members of Monty Python by buying the box set! You'll get a little something out of it, too.

Archival footage starts the show, and smashing footage it is. Literally. Trains smashing into each other, car crashes, volcanoes, collapsing bridges. The words "blood", "death", "war" and "horror" come at us in red. (I guess "devastation" was too hard to read in such fast cuts.) But soon, jingly music overtakes the sounds of destruction under these horribly violent yet archivally nonthreatening images, and we fade to a flat with the show's title splayed across it, red letters in a variety of frantic fonts, bordered by potted greens. Smarmy host Palin has made a talk show out of these horrible things, which apparently include gardening. (I agree!) But in true Palin fashion, the guest on this show that promises gore, guts and grue, is Idle, a man who speaks in anagrams. Idle astonishes with his fast-paced recital of these strange words, and Palin doesn't miss a beat, translating them easily. But when Palin accuses him of speaking in a spoonerism, Idle, insulted, "pisses off" leaving the perplexed Palin in a jarring zoom close-up. "Piss off" ignites the audience into explosions of glee.

It feels like a Palin sketch. It feels like an Idle sketch. Have these two "insane in the membrane"s created their own mad child? It feels like the lads are increasingly comfortable working with each other, that the hard delineation between their individual styles no longer applies, which adds to an effortless fluidity.

The nude organist takes us into the credits-- only this time he's not on film! He's on the set, right in front of the audience and everything! Butt crack live! Cleese's "And Now..." Palin's "It's", and the credits roll. The credits manage to get solid laughs as well, and when the show title appears, it's in an anagram. Cleese deliriously voices it over; "Tony M. Nyphot's Flying Riscuu!"

Kloo tou orf het remham!

Anagram fun continues with a filmed "Beat the clock" segment. Jones, as Mrs. Scum, must unscramble "Chamran Knebt" (in only twelve hours!) with dizzying game show music in the background. Having accomplished the task and linked us to the "Merchant Bank" sketch, she gets struck on the head with a giant hammer, reminiscent of last season's game show prize. Jones seems to anticipate the giant hammer, looking off right in her celebratory spasms.

Cleese takes over, and surprise-- he's behind a desk! It starts off a little slow as Cleese laboriously establishes the character, a soulless money grubber who only cares about grubbing money. Over the phone, he outlines the draconian collateral list that a Mr. Victim will need to secure a business loan from Slater Nazi, including 51% of his wife and dog. While searching the dictionary for a definition of "inner life", Mr. Ford (Jones) steps in, carrying a jangly tray. (We catch a quick glimpse of Cleese's nameplate, in anagram form.)

The sketch is pretty simple-- Jones tries to convince Cleese to give money to widows and orphans, and Cleese is mystified by the whole concept."I don't want to seem stupid, but it looks to me I'm a pound down on the whole deal." Cleese is always good in these sorts of roles, and Jones' downtrodden bleeding heart is also funny. Cleese makes a joke that doesn't quite land about how the firm is eager to "get into" orphans, as a developing market that reminds me of the more successful Steve Martin version. "I do a lot of work with unwed mothers... just helping them get their start." Cleese also throws in an awkward bit of foreshadowing about the soon to be seen pantomime horse. Finally, the scales fall from Cleese's eyes, and he understands. This man asks people for money, and they just give it to him. Cleese sees it as a bold new business idea, and having wrested it from Jones, he pulls a lever and Jones falls through the floor. Poor guy-- he's having a rough episode.

After Njorl makes a brief cameo, ("Anyway.") we launch into a bit of silliness involving two (four?) employees of Cleese's merchant bank who function as the bank's-- wait for it-- pantomime horses. What the hell is a heartless bank doing employing pantomime horses? Because it's Monty Python. After elaborate fanfare and pantomime boogie, which tries even Cleese's patience, we get to the point. The bank has decided it only needs one pantomime horse, (Cleese is surprised it needs even one,) and they must now fight to the death to see which one it will be. This bit is silly, goofy, but not tremendously funny-- maybe you have to be British to really enjoy the humor behind pantomime characters. I often wonder if the British ever got Ernest. There's a nice bit with one of the horses crying, reminiscent of the fountain of blood coming out of the dead penguin in "Scott of the Antarctic." But for the most part, this whole second appendage of the sketch is one vast link to the next bit-- and in fact, to the running gag of the entire show.

The horses fight to the death, and very awkwardly. While fighting, we hear Cleese in voice over, doing a German intellectual nasal voice. "Ze ceasless struggle for survival continues," the narrator tells us, and once the fight is over (Spoiler alert! Champion is a wimp!) we cut to more archive footage, this time of nature. A colony of sea lions starts us off, with Cleese hilariously accenting words like "intruder" and "bull". "Zis example of aggressive behavior is typical of zese documentaries." But when we see two limpids fighting (Spoiler alert! The left limpid is a wimp!) the joke becomes clear. A series of increasingly silly "life or death struggles" follows, including a rematch of the pantomime horses with a cameo by the 16 Ton Weight, a pantomime Princess Margaret killing her breakfast tray ("Ping! Right in the toast!") and nature documentarians wrestling over foreign rights to their films. (My favorite-- Ant vs. Wolf.) All of these are fun, although the Terrence Rattigan joke went over my head. Maybe the Pythonites just don't like middle-class drama.

In the belly of the beast

We cut to animation when a gunshot takes out the narrator. A pantomime flea (unseen) carries the dead announcer off, past a couple sitting in their barren sitting room. Both have dark circles around their eyes, and soon we see why. Their house is a rapacious, hungry beast, clamoring for their flesh-- but in a funny way. Both of them go to feed their separate rooms with resigned British good humor. The postman is next, and as sad as Palin's fate was in Season 1, this guy has it much worse. Soon, the house, semi-attached, unattaches and roams the countryside in a hilarious horror spoof/reign of death. But all of this is prologue to the central conceit-- this is a show about men who hunt these monsters, called-- "The House Hunters!". Well done, Mr. Gilliam. The hunters find the house in the woods, pooping and  sleeping off its slaughter. They sneak up to it, throw a "condemned" sign on its side, and soon, instead of a house,

there's a miniscule parking lot with seven cars stacked on it. Gilliam pulls a strange twist, though-- when the house is condemned, the cheers of the hunters fade off into the echo-ey distance, and the sound of flies (film lanuage for "decay") buzzes in as the house collapses. It feels a bit depressing. The dig at NCP Car Parks feels a bit angry. Leave it to Gilliam to toss in a batch of emotional ambiguity in a short animated bit.

"Shove off!"

The credits to House Hunters link us to the name "Mary" (which merits a raspberry-- I'm not sure why.) A sign reads "Mary Recruitment Office". (Yes, it's more fun with anagrams!) Chapman makes his first real appearance in the show, stepping out as the erect and proper uniformed colonel and hanging a sign on the door. "Sketch just started-- Actor wanted." Idle sees the sign and steps in. After a brief interruption, with Chapman rearranging "Mary" to spell "Army" and chasing off a long line of nuns, the sketch gets underway.

Idle, soft-spoken and effeminate, asks to join the woman's army, or an effeminate branch of the Scots Guard. Chapman admits that there isn't one. "Apart from the Marines, they're all dead butch!" (Big laugh on that, after quite a slow start.) But when Idle finally gets specific about what he wants-- working with fabric and interior design-- it turns out there's an infantry for that. Chapman waxes rhapsodic about the bold, dynamic work the Durham Light Infantry is doing with interior design, leaving Idle in the dust. It's okay, though... it's all part of the sketch.

Idle complains about being the straight man, and Chapman agrees to switch the sketch so that Idle can be a funny bus passenger. But once the setting abruptly shifts, it's clear that Chapman isn't giving up the reins, as he tosses out one cheesy gag after another. Idle (there's no pleasing some people!) complains that his one line wasn't funny. "Nobody can say 'five penny please' and make it funny!"

But Jones proves him wrong. In a Jones classic, he plays a sad man who, just by saying "Five Penny, please", forces everyone to dissolve into hysterics. Jones is exquisite as this wounded, lonely man who only wants love and only gets howls of laughter. We follow him to work on a dark, rainy morning, leaving helpless hilarity in his wake. Much of the humor derives from the insane reactions of everyone to his most casual utterance, like the "funniest
joke" sketch in episode 1. There's an inspired gag with the elevator. The sketch, when it finally comes, is a bit anti-climactic, as Palin, Jones' boss, fires him for being too distracting to work with. Jones weepy appeal for help only drives Palin to fits of hysterics. Palin's attempts to hold back the dam of laughter are great, but we get it, and we got it two minutes ago.

The laughter that Jones' threat of suicide elicits brings us back to Chapman and Idle, as Chapman debases Idle in numerous vaudevillian ways, assuring him that "They're your laughs, mate, not mine! The fish is down your trousers. That's your laugh." Idle plays the straight man beautifully. Archival laughter and applause take us to--

"The Bols Story", which is basically yet another excuse for Palin to have a talk show. This time, he's a pleasantly crazy person who can't help but deviate from his planned message with discursions into unimportant details, such as when he is paused and when he has stopped, having not started yet. He finally works out a little pantomime hand gesture to indicate a pause, as opposed to a stop. Just as he gets started, the BBC globe spins in, just "to annoy you and make things generally irritating." By the time we get back to Palin, he's in the middle of a baffling process involving sailors.

The BBC announcer and spinning globe returns, this time just "to provide work for one of our announcers." A completely voiced over melodrama ensues, as Announcer Cleese tries to work back up the confidence to announce again, with the help of his announcer wife Jo-Jums (Carol Cleveland!) and announcer friend Palin. His success is cause for a party, that drowns out the following newscast. A real news announcer, Rick Baker, uses Palin's "pause" hand gesture, as well as others, as well as calling back to Palin's baffling sailor process,as well as signing of with anagram. They got a lot of value out of this Baker guy. I hope they paid him well. We also get a brief shot of the exploding Scotsman, coming soon to a blog near you!
    

This section, from the "Mary Recruitment Office" to now, recalls Monty Python from last season, layering and weaving sketches together. But now we lurch into the big finale, as Rick Baker announces tonight's "flim". It's an action film spoof, reminiscent equally of James Bond and last season's "The Bishop". The star? Pantomime Horse! The film is even called "The Pantomime Horse is a Secret Agent Film".  Gilliam works his usual magic with the credits, although it's a bit more prosaic than his work on "The Bishop". Still, very evocative. We begin in a lush, pastoral setting, with Pantomime Horse (voiced stiffly by Cleese) sharing a rowboat with his girlfriend-- Carol Cleveland! (Now, there's a sex tape I'd download!) They whisper sweet nothings to one another

Lucky pony!

before their tryst is interrupted by P.H. killing a would-be pantomime horse assassin, up in a tree. Another pantomime horse (it's a herd!) runs away, and the chase is on. (Chapman makes a quick insertion as a Roman. Now no one can say they didn't do anything for us.)  Clambering clumsily out of the rowboat, P.H. chases his enemy in a variety of gags-- in a car, a bicycle built for two, a horse! Finally, as P.H. closes the gap, with race announcer Cleese breathlessly describing the chase, he is waylaid by pantomime goose and pantomime Princess Margaret, and the documentarians, and as the anagrammed credits roll over the

crazy brawl, Cleese's German narrator (was Cleese the only one that got the memo to come to the dubbing studio?) sums up with  "Und here, you see some British comic actors engaged in a life or death struggle with a rather weak ending." Can't say I disagree, but it's still fun to see the lads going at it. Cleese sums up the Pantomime Horse's sad tail (get it? Tail?) and we cut out with a "Eth Ned".

Although this episode is funny, it lacks the bite of the previous three. The lads seem no longer concerned with making a point and instead just put goofy things in there. Despite truly inspired moments and bits, in the end there is no end, just a massive jumble, much like many of the anagrams featured in the show. I recall from the Smothers Brothers that whenever they couldn't figure out a good ending for their sketches, they
would just have a midget bite someone. The Python version of this is chaos, like with the Spam episode. Nothing says chaos like bringing all your characters back and letting them slug it out. It's the Achilles heel of random, stream of consciousness humor-- if you don't stay on the path, or any path, you're not really going anywhere. It becomes a bit of a trademark for the group. They used this same conceit at the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I guess they figured if it worked for the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, it would work for them.

Still, it's Christmas, and I like a nice ribbon on my presents.

Next week; "The All-England Summarize Proust Competition"

PS Here are the anagramized credits...