A Bit of Fry and Laurie

A Bit Of Fry And Laurie was a sketch comedy starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, broadcast on BBC2 between January 13, 1989 and April 2, 1995.

Series 1

Pilot

Stephen Fry: [when shown picture by Hugh] Oh, wait a second, isn't that a revolting sight? [throws picture aside]

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Hugh: Oh, well, it's because I'm deaf, sir, that my sense of vision is naturally enhanced. Blind people are known to have very keen hearing. So they sort of cancel each other out, sir.

Stephen: You mean you can see and hear perfectly?

Hugh: Yes, because I'm blind and deaf.

Episode 1

[Spoonbending with Mr. Nude]

Fry: Well next week I shall be examining the claims of a man who says that in a previous existence he was Education Secretary Kenneth Baker and I shall be talking to a woman who claims she can make flowers grow just by planting seeds in soil and watering them. Until then, wait very quietly in your seats please. Goodnight.

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Stephen: Bitchmother, Come Light My Bottom.

Episode 2

Various Characters: Hold the news reader's nose squarely waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.

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Stephen: Um, language is my mother, my father, my husband, my brother, my sister, my whore, my mistress, my check-out girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Um, language is the breath of God. Language is the dew on a fresh apple. It's the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning light as you pluck from an old bookshelf a half-forgotten book of erotic memoirs. Language is the creak on a stair, it's a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party. It's the warm, wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy. Uh, the hulk of a charred panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl. Uh, it's cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.

Episode 3

Hugh: Can I just interrupt you here?

Stephen: Certainly, Peter.

Hugh: Thanks.

Stephen: Pleasure.

Episode 4

Stephen: I can't pretend to be much of a judge of poetry; I'm an English teacher, not a homosexual.

Episode 5

[Estate Agents]

Fry: Estate Agents: you can't live with them, you can't live with them. With their jangling keys, nasty suits, revolting beards, moustaches and tinted spectacles, estate agents roam the land causing perturbation and despair. If you try and kill them, you're put in prison: if you try and talk to them, you vomit. There's only one thing worse than an estate agent but at least that can be safely lanced, drained and surgically dressed. Estate agents. Love them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them.

Episode 6

[Cocoa]

Fry: [voiceover] Good old Berent's cocoa. Always there. Original or New Berent's, specially prepared for the mature citizens in your life, with nature's added store of powerful barbiturates and heroin.

Series 2

Episode 1

[Dammit!]

Laurie: A good wife, or a good business partner?

Fry: Is there a difference, Peter?

Laurie: I hope so, John.

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Laurie: [Examining a plate] See this? You could eat your dinner off this.

Episode 2

[Vox Pop]

Laurie: [with an electronic organiser] Ask me anything, a telephone number, what time it is in Adelaide. Tell you what, I can tell you exactly what I'll be doing on the third of August 1997, say. Hang on... [presses a few buttons]. Nothing. See, it says. Nothing.

Episode 3

[Over To You]

Presenter: Did your children see the...

Laurie: No, they didn't. They didn't see it. But only thanks to the purest good fortune that they don't happen to have been born yet, otherwise I dread to think what damage may have been caused. It was simply disgusting.

Episode 4

[Dinner With Digby]

Laurie: Our Venice is being taken away from us. It's heaving with Germans.

Leslie: And Italians! The place is absolutely heaving with Italians.

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Fry: If I had my way with that Mervin Bragg...

Laurie: ..no one would be the least surprised.

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Laurie: You know what makes me REALLY mad? It's this new drug, ecstasy. Makes me MAD!

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Laurie: You know what makes me REALLY mad? It's this belief that I'm John the Baptist.

Episode 5

[Amputated Genitals]

Fry: I appreciate that you're trying to help here, but I also used my genitals for, you know, expelling urine.

Laurie: That's the beauty of the system. When people see you in a combat jacket and driving around in a white van with Killer in the back, the piss will be taken out of you constantly.

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[Bomb in a Restaurant]

Laurie: [nervously] Good evening. Table for bomb, please.

Episode 6

[Vox Pop]

Fry: Well, I was born Mary Patterson, but then I married and naturally took my husband's name, so now I'm Neil Patterson.

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Fry: It's ludicrously easy to knock Mrs. Thatcher, isn't it? It's the simplest, easiest and most obvious thing in the world to remark that she's a shameful, putrid scab, an embarrassing, ludicrous monstrosity that makes one frankly ashamed to be British and that her ideas and standards are a stain on our national history. That's easy! Anyone can see that! Nothing difficult about that! But after tonight, no one will ever accuse us again with failing to come up with something to take her place. Hugh?

[Hugh Laurie pulls out a coat hanger]

Series 3

Episode 1

Fry: Twenty-five years ago the doctors told your mother and me that it would be impossible for us ever to have children.

Laurie: Oh, why not?

Fry: I can't remember the exact reason; it was something to do with penises I think.

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Laurie: Yes, I drive a Vauxhall Nova Splash. Uh, it's a limited edition. I think they only made one and a half million of them.

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Laurie: Well, we had our first child on the NHS and had to wait nine months, can you believe it.

Episode 2

Laurie: I've always been a Daily Mail reader. I prefer it to a newspaper.

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Laurie: [Walking away] No, I can't stop, I'm afraid. My wife is being towed away.

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Fry: In my dreams I've played snooker with Stephen Hendry. I've sung with Barbra Streisand and I've been to bed with Anneka Rice. In reality I've played snooker with Barbra Streisand, I've sung with Anneka Rice and I've been to bed with Stephen Hendry. Sometimes life can be even better than the dream.

Episode 3

Fry: How may we serve?

Laurie: Well, I was after a pair of shoes.

Fry: Very well. I shall serve them first.

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Fry: Ah. I fancy I detect a wrinkle of concern on your otherwise smooth and toboggonable brow. Yes, your intimations are right. Business is not what it was. It is not even what it is. It may not even be what it will be.

Series 4

Episode 3

[Barman]

Laurie: You ever been trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman you despise?

Fry: Ooh, not since I was nine! Do you like it straight up?

Laurie: What?

Fry: [holding up his drink] Or with ice?

Laurie: Ice.

Fry: Right-ho. [adds ice] Cocktail onion?

Laurie: No thanks.

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Laurie: She takes no interest in my friends, you know. She laughs at my…

Fry: Peanuts?

Laurie: Hobbies. She doesn't even value my...

Fry: Crinkle-cut cheesy Wotsit?

Laurie: Career. You know, it's just so depressing. Alright, so other men have got larger...

Fry: Plums?

Laurie: Salaries. And better prospects. And other men can boast a healthier-looking...

Fry: Stool?

Laurie: [sitting on stool] Lifestyle.

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Laurie: Alright, so, so I haven't got loads of cash hanging around. You know, but why complain? Other people are worse off. I've got a job. I've got two sweet, rosy...

Fry: Nibbles?

Laurie: Children. She goes on and on about my appearance. I mean, it's not as if she's an oil painting, you know. I mean, frankly she's...

Fry: [points] Plain and prawn-flavoured.

Laurie: She's not as young as she used to be herself

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Laurie: I don't know why I bother with women. I'd be better off being a...

Fry: Fruit?

Laurie: Monk, or a hermit, or something. At least if I was a…

Fry: Fag?

Laurie: At least if I was a monk, you know, I wouldn't have to put up with women. You know, women going on and on, who can talk the hind leg off a...

Fry: Camel?

Laurie: Donkey. Trouble is, I couldn't live without women. You know, in a monastery the best you can hope for is a bit of...

Fry: Chocolate HobNob?

Laurie: Peace and spirituality. Let's face it; we haven't slept together for years. You know, the best I can hope for is a bit of...

Fry: Savoury finger?

Laurie: A bit of a cuddle at Christmas. And, naturally, she won't let me give her so much as a…

Fry: [points offstage] Good juicy tongue in the back passage.

Laurie: Just a peck on the cheek.

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Laurie: The trouble with that woman is that she's just a…

Fry: Rather disgusting-looking tart that should've been disposed of ages ago?

Laurie: I tell you what it is: she's a complainer, that's what she is.

Episode 5

[Grand Prix]

Fry: Michael, you must be very thrilled with that result. Take us through the race.

Laurie: Yes, well, I was, uh... not very happy with the car. We had a lot of problems, and uh.. the car was not so good, I think.

Fry: Yes, but- but you won. It was a great result for you, you must be very happy.

Laurie: Well, we had a lot of problems with the car, and I was... was not so happy, it was very hard.

Fry: Yes, but you won...

Laurie: I won, yes, but, there were many, many problems, and it was very hard, and difficult, and I was not happy at all with the car

Fry: Yes, yes- *stammers* You did actually win, did I get that straight? You actually won the race?

Laurie: Well, a lot of problems, yes, and it was very hard-

Fry: Yeh, well, leaving aside, for the moment, how hard it was, are you happy... to have won... the race.

Laurie: Well, it was very difficult-

Fry: Yes, well, it really was difficult. Presumably, that's why you get paid half a million pounds per race, and get as much sex as you can eat. I just need to know if this makes you happy, having won the race. Delighted, enchanté, over the frigging moon!

Laurie: Well, we had a lot of problems-

Fry: ARE YOU HAPPY?!

Laurie: It was very difficult-

Fry: ARE YOU HAPPY?!

Laurie: Many prob-

Fry: AREYOUHAPPY?!

Laurie tries to speak again

Fry: ARE. YOU. ARSEING WELL. HAPPY. YOU DISMAL, MOANING, FRENCH TWAT!

Laurie stares at Fry

Fry: You do a job... that half of mankind would KILL to be able to do, and you can have sex... with the other half, as often as you like. I just need to know if this makes you HAPPY!

Laurie: ...We had a lot of problems-

Fry punches Laurie

Episode 7

[Religianto]

We worship you, O God or Gods,

Whoever you may be.

We realise that you operate

Supernaturally.

We thank you for the birds and bees,

For creatures live or dead,

But if you actually don’t exist,

Then ignore what we’ve just said.

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