Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974) was a British sketch comedy television show.
Recurring lines
[edit]- Hermit, before the opening titles: 'It's...
- Announcer: And now for something completely different.
Series 1
[edit]Whither Canada? [1.01]
[edit]Whizzo Butter
[edit]- Pepperpot 1: I can't tell the difference between Whizzo butter and this dead crab.
- Interviewer: Yes, we find that 9 out of 10 British housewives can't tell the difference between Whizzo Butter and a dead crab.
- Various Pepperpots: It's true...We can't...No.
- Pepperpot 2: Here. Here! You're on television, aren't you?
- Interviewer: [humbly] Yes, yes...
- Pepperpot 2: He does the thing with one of those silly women who can't tell Whizzo Butter from a dead crab.
- Various Pepperpots: Yeah, yeah.
- Pepperpot 3: You try that around here, young man, and we'll slit your face.
- Pepperpot 4: [quietly] Yeah, with a razor.
It's the Arts
[edit]- Interviewer: Get your own arts programme, you fairy!
The Funniest Joke in the World
[edit]- Reporter: This morning, shortly after 11:00, comedy struck this little house on Dibley Road. Sudden...violent...comedy.
- The Joke: "Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!"
- Voiceover: It was a fantastic success. Over 60,000 times as powerful as Britain's great pre-war joke [cut to stock footage of Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich and holding up the Munich Agreement, the "this is peace in our time"-bit.], and one which Hitler just couldn't match.
- [Cut to stock footage of Hitler giving a speech]
- Hitler: [subtitle] My dog's got no nose!
- Soldiers: [subtitle] How does he smell?
- Hitler: [subtitle] Awful!
- Narrator: In 1945, peace broke out. It was the end of the Joke. Joke warfare was banned at a special session of the Geneva Convention, and in 1950 the last remaining copy of the joke was laid to rest here in the Berkshire countryside, never to be told again.
- Voiceover: And here is the final score: Pigs - 9; British Bipeds - 4. The Pigs go on to meet Vicky Carr in the final.
Sex and Violence [1.02]
[edit]Marriage Guidance Counsellor
[edit]- [Cut to a man holding up cards saying 'Marriage Counsellor'. The counsellor sits behind a desk. He puts down the card as he hears the knock on the door]
- Counsellor: Next?
- [A little man named Arthur Pewtey enters, with his beautiful blond buxom young woman named Dierdre]
- Arthur Pewtey: Are you the marriage guidance counsellor?
- Counsellor: Yes. Good morning
- Arthur Pewtey: Good morning, sir
- Counsellor: [stares at Dierdre, fascinated] And good morning to you madam [pauses, shrugs himself out of it] Name?
- Arthur Pewtey: Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Pewtey, Pewtey.
- Counsellor: [writes without looking down, just stares at Dierdre] And what is the name of your ravishing wife? [holds up his hand] Wait. Don't tell me - it's something to do with moonlight - it goes with her eyes - it's soft and gentle, warm and yeilding, deeply lyrical and yet tender and frightened like a tiny whit rabbit.
- Arthur Pewtey: It's Deirdre.
- Counsellor: Deirdre. What a beautiful name. What a beautiful, beautiful name [leans across and lightly brushes his hand across Dierdre's cheek] And what seems to be the trouble with your marriage Mr. Pewtey?
- Arthur Pewtey: Well, it all started about five years ago when we started going on holiday to Brighton together. Deirdre, that's my wife, has always been a jolly good companion to me and I never particularly anticipated any marital strife - indeed the very idea of consulting a professional marital adviser has always been of the greatest repugnance to me although far be it from me to impugn the nature of your trade or profession.
- [The counsellor and Dierdre are not listening, fascinated by each other]
- Counsellor: [realizing Pewtey has stopped] Do go on.
- Arthur Pewtey: Well, as I say, we've always been good friends, sharing the interests, the gardening and so on, the model aeroplanes, the sixpenny bottle for the holiday money, and indeed twice a month settling down in the evenings doing the accounts, something which, er, Deirdre, Deirdre that's my wife, er, particularly looked forward to on account of her feet, [the counsellor has his face fantastically close to Dierdre's, as close that they could get without kissing] I should probably have said at the outset that I'm noted for having something of a sense of humour, although I have kept myself very much to myself over the last two years notwithstanding, as it were, and it's only as comparatively recently that I began to realize - well, er perhaps realize is not the correct word, er, imagine, imagine, that I was not the only thing in her life.
- Counsellor: [who is practically in a clinch with her] You suspected your wife?
- Arthur Pewtey: Well yes - at first, frankly yes [the counsellor points Dierdre to a screen; she goes behind it] Her behaviour did seem at the time to me, who after all was there to see, to be a little odd.
- Counsellor: Odd?
- Arthur Pewtey: Yes well, I mean to a certain extent yes. I'm not by nature a suspicious person - far from it - though in fact I have something of a reputation as an after-dinner speaker, if you take my meaning....
- [A piece of Dierdre's clothing comes over the top of the screen]
- Counsellor: Yes, I certainly do
- [Dierdre's bra and panties come over the screen]
- Arthur Pewtey: Anyway in the area where I'm known people in fact know me extremely well....
- Counsellor: [taking his jacket off] Oh, yes. Would you hold this?
- Arthur Pewtey: Certainly yes [helps him with it; the counsellor continues to undress] Anyway, as I said, I decided to face up to the facts and stop beating about the bush or I'd never look myself in the bathroom mirror again.
- Counsellor: [down to his shorts] Er, look would you mind running along for ten minutes? Make it half an hour.
- Arthur Pewtey: No, no, right-ho, fine. Yes I'll wait outside shall I?... [the counsellor has already gone behind the screen] Yes, well that's p'raps the best things. Yes. You've certainly put my mind at rest on one or two points, there. [exits through door. He is stopped by a Southerner]
- Southerner: [in his Southern American accent] Now wait there, stranger. A man can run and run for year after year until he realizes that what he's running from...is hisself.
- Arthur Pewtey: [surprised] Gosh.
- Southerner: A man's got to do what a man's got to do, and there ain't no sense in runnin'. Now you gotta turn, and you gotta fight, and you gotta hold your head up high.
- Arthur Pewtey: [with confidence] Yes!
- Southerner: Now you go back in there my son and be a man. Walk tall. [exits]
- Arthur Pewtey: Yes, I will! I will! I've been pushed around long enough! THIS IS IT! This is your moment, Arthur Pewtey. This is it, Arthur Pewtey! At last you're a man! [opens the door very determinedly, and goes to the screen where he hears Dierdre giggling] All right, Dierdre! Come out of there!
- Counsellor: [from behind the screen] Go away!
- Arthur Pewtey: [back to being a coward] Right. Right.
- [He is hit on the head with a chicken by a man in a suit of armour]
- [CAPTION: 'SO MUCH FOR PATHOS']
- Voice Over: So much for pathos.
Working-Class Playwright
[edit]- [Cut to sitting room straight out of D. H. Lawrence. Mum is cooking some dinner, while Dad is reading the newspaper. They're the Northern couple. There was a knock on the door, and Mum rushes to open it. It was a young man in a suit]
- Mum: [thrilled] Oh dad...look who's come to see us...it's our Ken!
- Dad: [without looking up] Aye, and about bloody time if you ask me.
- Ken: Aren't you pleased to see me, father?
- Mum: [squeezing his arm reassuringly] Of course he's pleased to see you, Ken, he...
- Dad: All right, woman, all right I've got a tongue in my head - I'll do 'talkin'. [looks at Ken distastefully] Aye...I like yer fancy suit. Is that what they're wearing up in Yorkshire now?
- Ken: It's just an ordinary suit, father...it's all I've got apart from the overalls.
- [Dad turns away with an expression of scornful disgust]
- Mum: How are you liking it down the mine, Ken?
- Ken: Oh it's not too bad, mum. We're using some new tungsten carbide drills for the preliminary coal-face scouring operations.
- Mum: Oh that sounds nice, dear...
- Dad: Tungsten carbide drills?! What the bloody hell's tungsten carbide drills?!
- Ken: It's something they use in coal-mining, father.
- Dad: [mimicking] "It's something they use in coal-mining, father". You're all bloody fancy talk since you left London!
- Ken: Oh, not that again.
- Mum: He's had a hard day dear. His new play opens at the National Theatre tomorrow.
- Ken: Oh, that's good.
- Dad: Good?! Good?! What do you know about it? What do you know about getting up at five o'clock in the morning to fly to Paris...back at the Old Vic for drinks at twelve, sweating the day through press interviews, television interviews and getting back here at ten to wrestle with the problem of a homosexual nymphomaniac drug-addict involved in the ritual murder of a well known Scottish footballer. That's a full working day, lad, and don't you forget it!
- Mum: Oh, don't shout at the boy, father.
- Dad: Aye, 'ampstead wasn't good enough for you, was it? You had to go poncing off to Barnsley, you and yer coal-mining friends. [spits]
- Ken: Coal-mining is a wonderful thing father, but it's something you'll never understand. [stands up] Just look at you!
- Mum: Oh Ken! Be careful! You know what he's like after a few novels.
- Dad: Oh come on lad! Come on, out wi' it! What's wrong wi' me?...Yet tit!
- Ken: I'll tell you what's wrong with you. Your head's addled with novels and poems, you come home every evening reeling of Chateau La Tour!
- Mum: Oh don't, don't.
- Ken: And look what you've done to mother! She's worn out with meeting film stars, attending premieres and giving gala luncheons!
- Dad: THERE'S NOWT WRONG WI' GALA LUNCHEONS, LAD! I've had more gala luncheons than you've had hot dinners!
- Mum: Oh, please!
- Dad: AAAAAAAGH! [clutches hands and sinks to knees]
- Mum: Oh, no!
- Ken: What is it?
- Mum Oh, it's his writer's cramp!
- Ken You never told me about this.
- Mum: No, we didn't like to, Kenny.
- Dad: [snaps] I'm all right! I'm all right, woman! Just get him out of here!
- Mum: Oh Ken. You'd better go.
- Ken: All right. I'm going.
- Dad: After all we've done for him...
- Ken: [at the door] One day you'll realize there's more to life than culture... There's dirt, and smoke, and good honest sweat! [exits]
- Dad Get out! Get out! GET OUT! YOU...LABOURER! [shocked silence; goes to table] Hey, you know, mother, I think there's a play there. Get the agent on the phone.
- Mum: Aye I think you're right, Frank, it could express, it could express a vital theme of our age...
- Dad: Aye.
- [In the room beneath a man is standing on a chair banging on the ceiling with a broom]
- Man Oh, shut up! [bang bang] Shut up! [they stop talking upstairs] Oh, that's better. [climbs down and looks at the camera] And now for something completely different; a man with three buttocks...
- Mum and Dad: [from upstairs] We've done that!
- Man: [looks up, slightly disconcerted] Oh, all right. All right! A man with nine legs.
- Other Man: [offscreen] He ran away.
- Man: Oh, bloody hell! Er...a Scotsman on a horse!
- [Cut to film of a Scotsman riding up on a horse as the bagpipes play in the background. He looks around, puzzled. Cut to stock film of Women's Institute audience applauding]
- Announcer: And here is the result of the Epilogue: God exists by two falls to a submission.
How to Recognise Different Types of Trees From Quite a Long Way Away [1.03]
[edit]How to Recognise Different Types of Trees From Quite a Long Way Away
[edit]- [The projector clicks to a slide showing a tree]
- The Announcer: No. 1: The Larch. The Larch. The Larch.
Bicycle Repair Man
[edit]- Superman One: Oh look...is it a stockbroker?
- Superman Two: Is it a quantity Surveyor?
- Superman Three: Is it a church warden?
- All Supermen: NO! It's Bicycle Repair Man!
Nudge, Nudge
[edit]- Arthur Nudge: Eh? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge! Know what I mean? Say no more! A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, say no more, say no more!
- Man: Look, are you insinuating something?
- Arthur Nudge: Oh, no no no no...yes.
- Man: Well?
- Arthur Nudge: Well, you're a man of the world, squire...you've been there, you've been around.
- Man: What do you mean?
- Arthur Nudge: Well, I mean, you've done it...you've slept...with a lady.
- Man: Yes.
- Arthur Nudge: What's it like?
Owl Stretching Time [1.04]
[edit]Self-Defense Against Fresh Fruit
[edit]- Teacher: [sarcastically to the student] So, we want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Feeling all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough, eh? Oh, oh, oh. [shouting] Well, let me tell you something, my lad! When you're walking home tonight, and some homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me!
- Terry Gilliam: [dressed in a viking costume] This is my only line.
Man's Crisis of Identity in the Latter Half of the Twentieth Century [1.05]
[edit]- Encyclopedia Salesman: Burglar! [rings again] Burglar!
- Woman: [appears at the side of the door] Yes?
- Encyclopedia Salesman: Burglar, madam.
- Woman: What do you want?
- Encyclopedia Salesman: I want to come in and steal a few things, madam.
- Woman: Are you an encyclopaedia salesman?
- Encyclopedia Salesman: No madam, I'm a burglar, I burgle people.
- Woman: I think you're an encyclopaedia salesman.
- Encyclopedia Salesman: Oh I'm not, open the door, let me in please.
- Woman: If I let you in, you'll sell me encyclopedias.
- Encyclopedia Salesman: I won't, madam. I just want to come in and ransack the flat. Honestly.
- Woman: Promise? No encyclopedias?
- Encyclopedia Salesman: None at all.
- Woman: All right. [opens door] You'd better come in then.
- Encyclopedia Salesman: Mind you, I don't know whether you've really considered the advantages of owning a really fine set of modern encyclopedias... You know, they can really do you wonders.
- Policeman: I must warn you, sir, that outside I have police dog Josephine, who is not only armed and trained to sniff out certain substances but is also a junkie.
It's the Arts [1.06]
[edit]- Mr. Figgis: Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Panties...I'm sorry...Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Bach. Names that will live for ever. But there is one composer whose name is never included with the greats, why is it the world never remembered the name of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dangle-dongle-dungle-burstein-Von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kurstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-ein-nürnburger-bratwurstle-gerspurten-mit-zwei-macheluber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shoenendanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?
Crunchy Frog sketch
[edit]- Superintendant Praline: Next we have number four - "Crunchy Frog". Am I right in thinking there's a real frog in here?
- Mr. Milton: Yes, a little one.
- Superintendant Praline: What sort of frog?
- Mr. Milton: A dead frog.
- Superintendant Praline: Is it cooked?
- Mr. Milton: No.
- Superintendant Praline: What, a raw frog?!
- Mr. Milton: We use only the finest baby frogs, dew picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.
- Superintendant Praline: That's as may be, it's still a frog.
- Mr. Milton: Well, what else?
- Superintendant Praline: Don't you even take the bones out?
- Mr. Milton: If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy, would it?
20th Century Vole
[edit]- [Mr. Salzburg has just fired two of his writers for his new film, and is closing in on another one]
- Mr. Salzburg: You!
- Writer 4: Ah, well, I...I think it's an excellent idea!
- Mr. Salzburg: Are you a yes man?
- Writer 4: No! I mean, I have a few things against it!
- Mr. Salzburg: So you think it's lousy!
- Writer 4: No, no! I mean, it takes time!
- Mr. Salzburg: ARE YOU BEING INDECISIVE?
- Writer 4: Yo! Nes! Perhaps! [runs out the door]
You're No Fun Anymore [1.07]
[edit]- Police officer: A blancmange, eh?
- Woman: That's right. I was just playing a game of doubles with Sandra, Jocasta, Alec and David, when...
- Police Officer: Hold on. That's five. Five people! How'd you play doubles with five people? Sounds a bit funny if you ask me, playing doubles with five people!
- Woman: Well, we often play like that. Jocasta plays on the side, receiving service. It helps to speed the game up and make it a lot faster, and Jocasta isn't left out.
- Police Officer: Look, are you asking me to believe that the five of you was playing doubles, while on the very next court there was a blancmange playing by itself?
- Woman: That's right.
- Police Officer: Well, answer me this, then: Why didn't Jocasta play the blancmange at singles, while you and Sandra and Alec and David played a proper game of doubles with four people?
- Woman: Because Jocasta always plays with us! She's a friend of ours!
- Police Officer: Call that friendship? Messing up a perfectly good game of doubles?
- Woman: It's not messing it up, officer! We like to play with five!
- Police Officer: Look, it's your affair if you want to play with five people, but don't go calling it doubles! At Wimbledon, if Fred Stolle and Tony Roche played Charlie Passarell and Cliff Drysdale and Peaches Bartkowicz, they wouldn't go calling it doubles!
- Woman: Well, what about the blancmange?
- Police Officer: That could play Ann Haydon-Jones and her husband, Pip!
- [To a man whose wife has been eaten alive by a blancmange]
- Detective Inspector: I think what's happened is terribly, terribly funny...er, tragic!
Full Frontal Nudity [1.08]
[edit]- Colonel: Watkins, why did you join the army?
- Watkins: For the water-skiing and the travel, sir. Not for the killing, sir. I asked them to put it on my form, sir: "no killing".
- Colonel: Watkins, are you a pacifist?
- Watkins: No, sir. I'm not a pacifist, sir: I'm a coward.
- Colonel: [disgusted] That's a very silly line. Sit down!
- The Colonel: Now, I've noticed a tendency for this program to get rather silly. Now I do my best to keep things moving along, but I'm not having things getting silly. Those last two sketches I did got very silly indeed; And the last ones about the beds was even sillier! Now, nobody likes a good laugh more than I do...except perhaps my wife...and some of her friends. Oh yes, and Captain Johnson. Come to think of it, most people like a good laugh more than I do, but that's beside the point.
Dead Parrot Sketch
[edit]- Mr. Praline: It's not pining, it's passed on! This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies! It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This is an ex-parrot!
- Mr. Praline: I'm not prepared to pursue my line of inquiry any longer as I think this is getting too silly!
- The Colonel: Quite agree, quite agree. Silly, silly, silly. Right! Get on with it!
The Ant, an Introduction [1.09]
[edit]Mt. Kilimanjaro sketch
[edit]- Arthur Wilson: Does anyone speak Swahili?
- George Head: Oh, I think most of them do down there.
- Arthur Wilson: Does anyone in our party speak Swahili, sir?
- George Head: Well, the matron's got a smattering.
- Arthur Wilson: Apart from the two matrons.
- George Head: Good God! I forgot about that.
- Arthur Wilson: Apart from them, who else is coming?
- George Head: Well, we've got the Arthur Brown twins, two botanists called Maychen, the William Johnston brothers-
- Arthur Wilson: Two of them?
- George Head: No, four of them; pair of identical twins. And a couple of the Ken Zobana quads; the other four pulled out. And of course, you two.
- Woman: Well, I object to all this sex on the television. I mean, I keep falling off.
- Kenny Lust: Now, every so often here in the Refreshment Room it is my honor, my privilege, to welcome some the truly great international artists. And tonight we have one such artist. Ladies and gentlemen, someone who've I've always personally admired. More deeply, more strongly, more abjectly than anyone before. A man, no, more than a man, a god! A great god whose personality is so totally and utterly wonderful, that my feeble words of welcome sound wretchedly and pathetically inadequate. Someone whose boots I would gladly lick clean, until holes wore through my tongue! A man who is so totally and utterly wonderful, that I would rather be sealed in a pit of my filth than dare tread on the same stage with him. Ladies and gentlemen, the incomparably superior human being, Harry Fink!
- [Crowd applauds]
- Stage-hand: He can't come!
- Kenny Lust: Never mind. He's not all that's cracked up to be.
- Kenny Lust: Ken Buddha. A smile, two bangs, and a religion.
- Spanish TV Host: "Pero las llamas son peligrosas. Si usted ve una llama donde hay gente nadando, usted gritar: ¡Cuidado! ¡Llamas!" ["Llamas are dangerous, so if you see one where people are swimming, you shout: Look out, there are Llamas!"]
The Lumberjack Song
[edit]- Bevis: [explaining his fear of cutting hair to his customer] When I was a kid I used to hate the sight of hair being cut. My mother said I was a fool. She said the only way to cure it was to become a barber. So I spent five ghastly years at the Hairdressers' Training Centre at Totnes. Can you imagine what it's like; cutting the same hair for five years?! I didn't want to be a barber anyway. I wanted to be a lumberjack. Yes, a lumberjack! Leaping from tree to tree as I float down the shores of British Columbia! The larch, the giant redwood! The smell of fresh-cut timber, the crash of mighty trees, with my best girl by my side, we'd sing, sing, sing! [singing]
- I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay,
- I sleep all night and I work all day.
- Mounties Choir: [singing]
- He's a lumberjack and he's okay,
- He sleeps all night and he works all day.
- Bevis: [singing]
- I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, I go to the lavatory.
- On Wednesdays I'll go shopping, and have buttered scones for tea.
- Mounties Choir: [singing]
- He cuts down trees, he eats his lunch, he goes to the lavatory.
- On Wednesdays, he goes shopping, and has buttered scones for tea.
- He's a lumberjack and he's okay,
- He sleeps all night and he works all day.
- Bevis: [singing]
- I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wildflowers.
- I put own womens' clothing, and hang around in bars.
- Mounties Choir: [singing]
- He cuts down trees, he skips and jumps, he likes to press wildflowers.
- He puts on womens' clothing, and hangs around [starts to show signs of disgust] in bars?
- [Perk back up]
- He's a lumberjack, and he's OK, he sleeps all night and he works all day.
- Bevis: [singing]
- I cut down trees, I wear high heels, suspenders, and a bra.
- [His girlfriend starts to cry]
- I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear Mama!
- Mountie Choir: [singing] He cuts down trees, he wears - high heels, suspenders and a bra? [choir storms out in revulsion]
- Bevis: [singing] I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear Mama!
- Bevis's Best Girlie: [crying] Oh, Bevis. And I thought you were so rugged! [runs off crying]
- Man: [letter read aloud] Dear Sir, I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the song which had just broadcast about the lumberjack who wears women's clothes. Many of my best friends are lumberjacks and only a few of them are transvestites. Yours faithfully, Brigadier Sir Charles Arthur Strong (Ms.). P.S. I have never kissed the editor of the Radio Times.
- Bevis: [to the customer while smoking] I always preferred the outdoor life...hunting...shooting…fishing...getting out there with a gun and slaughtering a few of God’s creatures.
The Visitors
[edit]- Victor: [to his girlfriend Iris] I think I'm beginning to fall in love with you. It's silly isn't it?
- Iris: No, not at all, sweet Victor.
- Victor: No, I didn't mean that. I meant the fact we've spent time close together for so many months in the soft toy department, yet never truly daring to-
- Iris: [bemused] Oh, Victor.
- Victor: Oh, Iris.
- Arthur Name: [at the door, greeting Victor] Hello! Remember me? In the pub; the tall thin one, with the moustache, about three years ago?
- Victor: Well, uh-
- Arthur Name: Ay, it's dark in here. [turns on the lights] That's better; you told me we must have a drink together sometime, so I decided to take you up on it, as the phone society meeting was cancelled. [turns towards Iris] 'Ello! I'm Arthur, Arthur Name. Name by name, but not by nature. I always say that, don't I Vicky boy? Is she your wife?
- Victor: Not really, but-
- Arthur Name: Oh, I get the picture. Don't mind me; I know all about one-night stands.
- Victor: [insulted] I beg your pardon?!
- Arthur Name: Here's a joke I heard down in the pub: what's brown, and sounds like a bell? Dung!
- Mr. L'Equator: [introducing himself to Victor] Good evening. I'm L'Equator; Mr. L'Equator. Like 'round the middle of the Earth, only with an L. [Audrey laughs hysterically] And this is my wife, Audrey. She smells a bit, but she has a heart of gold.
- Victor: There must be some kind of mistake, because this isn't-
- Mr. L'Equator: [of Iris] Who's she? Who's the bird?
- Victor: I-
- Mr. L'Equator: You've got a nice pair there, haven't you, love? [fondles Iris by the breasts and kisses her; Iris screams her objection] Shut up, you silly bitch. It's only a bit of fun.
- Audrey: [as Arthur Name is getting drinks for everyone] Three cans of beans for me.
- Mr. L'Equator: I told you to lay off the beans, you whore!
- Audrey: I only want three cans!
- Mr. L'Equator: BUTTON YOUR LIP, YOU RATBAG!! [both burst into hysterical laughter] That was rather witty, wasn't it?
- Goatkeeper: [coughing as he carries in a goat by the leash] I had to bring the goat; he's not well. I only hope he don't go on the carpet.
- [Later]
- Goatkeeper: The goat's done a bundle!
- Victor: Get out! All of you; get out!!
- Mr. L'Equator: I beg your pardon?
- Victor: I'm throwing you all out! I'm not going to have my house filled with filthy perverts. Now, I'm giving you half a minute to leave or I'm calling the police!
- Mr. L'Equator: I don't much like the tone of your voice. [shoots Victor dead]
Untitled [1.10]
[edit]Vocational Guidance Counselor Sketch
[edit]- Mr. Anchovy: I've been a chartered accountant for 20 years. I want a new job. Something exciting that will let me live!
- Counselor: Well, chartered accoutancy is a rather exciting job, isn't it?
- Mr. Anchovy: Exciting?! No, it's not! It's dull! Dull, dull, my God it's dull! It's so dull and tedious and stuffy and boring and desperately dull!
- Counselor: Well, er, yes Mr. Anchovy, but you see your report here says that you are an extremely dull person. You see, our experts describe you as an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. And whereas in most professions these would be considerable drawbacks, in chartered accountancy, they're a positive boon.
The First Man to Jump The Channel
[edit]- Interviewer: Ron, now let's just get this quite clear - you're intending to jump across the English Channel?
- Ron Obvious: Oh yes, that is correct, yes.
- Interviewer: And, er, just how far is that?
- Ron Obvious: Oh, well it's 26 miles from here to Calais.
- Interviewer: And that's to the beach of Calais?
- Ron Obvious: Well, no, no, provided I get a good lift off and maybe a gust of breeze over the French coast, I shall be jumping into the centre of Calais itself. [Shows brief clip of some Frenchmen in Calais standing under a sign that says "Fin de Cross Channel Jump"]
- Interviewer: Ron are you using any special techniques to jump this great distance?
- Ron Obvious: Oh no, no. I shall be using an ordinary two-footed jump, er, straight up in the air and across the Channel.
- Interviewer: I see. Er, Ron, what is the furthest distance that you've jumped, er, so far?
- Ron Obvious: Er, oh, eleven foot six inches at Motspur Park on July 22nd. Er, but I have done nearly twelve feet unofficially.
- Interviewer: Mr. Vercotti, what is your chief task as Ron's manager?
- Luigi Vercotti: Well my main task is, er, to fix a sponsor for the big jump.
- Interviewer: And who is the sponsor?
- Luigi Vercotti: The Chippenham Brick Company. Ah, they, er, pay all the bills, er, in return for which Ron will be carrying half a hundredweight of their bricks. [Ron is having his passport checked by a customs officer]
- Interviewer: I see. Well, er, it looks as if Ron is ready now. He's got the bricks. He's had his passport checked and he's all set to go. And he's off on the first ever cross-Channel jump. [Ron runs down the beach and jumps. He lands about four feet into the water] Will Ron be trying the cross Channel jump again soon?
- Luigi Vercotti: No. No. I'm taking him off the jumps, Er, because I've got something lined up for Ron next week that I think is very much more up his street.
- Interviewer: And what is that?
- Luigi Vercotti: Uh, Ron is going to eat Chichester Cathedral.
- [Cuts to Ron approaching Chichester Cathedral, brushing his teeth]
- Interviewer: Well, there he goes, Ron Obvious of Neepsend, in an attempt which could make him the first man ever to eat an entire Anglican Cathedral. [Ron finishes brushing his teeth, puts on a bib, and flexes his jaws before biting into the corner of a buttress and breaking his jaw]
- [The interviewer and Vercotti are walking alongside a railroad track]
- Interviewer: Mr. Vercotti, what do you say to people who accuse you of exploiting Ron for your own purposes?
- Luigi Vercotti: Well, it's totally untrue, David. Ever since I left Sicily I've been trying to do the best for Ron. I know what Ron wants to do, I believe in him and I'm just trying to create the opportunities for Ron to do the kind of things he wants to do.
- Interviewer: And what's he going to do today?
- Luigi Vercotti: He's going to split a railway carriage with his nose. [a scream is heard off screen. The interviewer is seen standing with him beneath a ramp with a banner that says "Running to Mercury"] The only difficult bit for Ron is getting out of the Earth's atmosphere, but once he's in orbit he'll be able to run straight to Mercury.
- [Wrapped from head to toe in bandages from his previous exploits, Ron hobbles onto the ramp, and as he goes off the edge of the ramp, the scene freeze-frames in mid-jump and another scream is heard. We cut to his gravestone at the cemetery]
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Goes to the Bathroom [1.11]
[edit]The Agatha Christie sketch
[edit]- Inspector Tiger: This house is surrounded. I'm afraid I must not ask anyone to leave the room. No, I must ask nobody...no, I must ask everybody to... I must not ask anyone to leave the room. No one must be asked by me to leave the room. No, no one must ask the room to leave. I...I...ask the room shall by someone be left. Not. Ask nobody the room somebody leave shall I. Shall I leave the room? Everyone must leave the room...as it is...with them in it. Phew. Understand?
- Colonel Pickering: You don't want anybody to leave the room.
- Inspector Tiger: [clicking fingers to indicate Colonel Pickering has hit the nail on the head] Now, alduce me to introlow myslef. I'm sorry. Alself me to myduce introlow myslef. Introme-to-lose mlow alself. Alme to you introself mylowduce. Excuse me a moment. [bangs himself on the side of the head] Allow me to introduce myself. I'm afraid I must ask that no one leave the room. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Inspector Tiger.
- Everybody: Tiger?
- Inspector Tiger: [whirling around] WHERE?! WHERE?!
- Chief Constable There'samanbehindyou: Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Chief Constable There'samanbehindyou.
- Everybody: There's a man behind you?
- Chief Constable There'samanbehindyou: No, you're not going to fool me with that one.
The Naked Ant [1.12]
[edit]- Mr. Bimmler: Pleased to meet you, squire. I also am not of Minehead but I in Peterborough Lincolnshire's house was given birth to. But am staying in Peterborough Lincolnshire house all time during vor, due to nasty running sores, and vos unable to go in the streets and play football or go to Nuremburg. ah. Am retired vindow cleaner and pacifist, who's not doing war crimes. Oh...and am glad England vin Vorld Cup. Bobby Charlton. Martin Peters. And eating lots of chips and fish and hole in the toads and Dundee cakes on Piccadilly Line, don't you know old chap, And I vos head of Gestapo for 10 years. [Mr. Hilter elbows him in the ribs] Five years! [Hilter elbows him again, harder] No! No! Nein! Vos not head of Gestapo at ALL! I make joke!
- Announcer: This man, he doesn't know when he's beaten! He doesn't know when he's winning, either. He has no...sort of...sensory apparatus…
Intermission [1.13]
[edit]- Head Waiter: This is a vegetarian restaurant, we serve no meat of any kind. We're not only proud of that, we're smug about it.
- Husband: Once I was married to a woman who was beautiful and young, and gay and free. Whatever happened to her?
- Wife: You divorced her and married me.
- Surgeon: Mr. Notlob, there's nothing wrong with you that an expensive operation can't prolong.
Series 2
[edit]Face the Press [2.01]
[edit]- Interviewer: Minister, I'll put the first question to you. In your plan, "A Better Britain For Us", you promised to build 88 thousand million billion houses a year in the greater London area alone. In fact, you've built only three in the last 15 years. Are you a bit disappointed in this result?
- Minister: No, no. I'd like to answer this question, if I may, in two ways: Firstly, in my normal voice; and then in a kind of silly, high-pitched whine.
The Piranha Brothers
[edit]- Mrs Simmel: Kipling Road was a typical sort of East End street, people were in and out of each other's houses with each other's property all day. They were a cheery lot.
- Interviewer: Was it a terribly violent area?
- Mrs Simmel: Oh ho, yes. Cheerful and violent. I remember Doug was very keen on boxing, until he learned to walk, then he took up putting the boot in the groin. Oh, he was very interested in that. His mother had such trouble getting him to come in for his tea. He'd be out there putting his little boot in, you know, bless him. You know kids were very different then. They didn't have their heads filled with all this Cartesian dualism.
- Vince: One day, I was sitting at home, threatening the kids, when this tank drives up. One of Dinsdale's boys gets out all nice and friendly like, and says Dinsdale wants to have a talk with me. So, he chains me to the back of the tank, and takes me for a scrape 'round to Dinsdale's place. Dinsdale's there in the conversation pit with Doug, Charles Paisley the Baby Crusher, a couple of film producers and a man they called Kierkegaard, who just sat there biting the heads off whippets. And Dinsdale says 'I hear you've been a naughty boy, Clement', and he splits me nostrils open, saws me leg off and pulls me liver out. And I tell him 'My name's not Clement', and then he loses his temper and nails my head to the floor.
- Interviewer: Was there anything unusual about Dinsdale?
- Gloria: Certainly not! He was perfectly normal in every way! Except inasmuch as he thought he was being followed by a giant hedgehog named Spiny Norman.
- Interviewer: How big was Norman supposed to be?
- Gloria: Normally he was wont to be about twelve feet from nose to tail, but when Dinsdale was very depressed Norman could be anything up to eight hundred yards long. When Norman was about, Dinsdale would go very quiet and his nose would swell up and his teeth would start moving about and he'd become very violent and claim that he'd laid Stanley Baldwin. Dinsdale was a gentleman. And what's more he knew how to treat a female impersonator.
- Spiny Norman: Dinsdale?
The Spanish Inquisition [2.02]
[edit]
- Reg: I don't know! Mr. Wentworth just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at the mill, that's all! I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition!
- [Three men in red uniforms burst through the door]
- Cardinal Ximinez: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
- "It's" Man: I would tax Raquel Welch. I have a feeling she'd tax me.
- Judge Kilbraken: [referring to his death sentence for contempt of court] Blimey! I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
- [The whole court expectantly looks towards the door. Cut to the Inquisition running out of a house in suburbia and leaping onto a bus]
- Ximinez: Two, er, three to the Old Bailey please.
- [Credits start]
- Biggles: Look, they've started the credits.
- Ximinez: Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.
- Biggles: Come on, hurry. Hurry!
- Ximinez: There's the lighting credit, only five left. Hell, it's the producer, quick! [the Inquistion leaps off the bus and bursts through into the courtroom] Nobody expects the Spa- [smash cut to a frame saying "The End"] Oh bugger!
Déjà Vu [2.03]
[edit]- Doctor: [emerging from under a Scotsman's kilt] Look, would you please go away? I'm trying to examine this man! It's all right, I'm a doctor...actually I'm a gynecologist, but this is my lunch hour.
- Psychiatrist Milkman: Mrs. Ratbag, if you don't mind me saying so, you're badly in need of an expensive course of psychiatric treatment. Now, I'm not going to say that a trip to our dairy will cure you, but it will give hundreds of lower-paid workers a good laugh.
- Doctor: I'm afraid our regular psychiatrist hasn't come round this morning, and I've got an ego block, which is turn making my wife over-assertive and getting us both into a state of depressive neurosis.
- Psychiatrist Milkman: I see, sir. Who's your regular?
- Doctor: Jersey Cream Psychiatrists.
- Psychiatrist Milkman: Oh, yes, I know them. Right, well, what's your job, then?
- Doctor: I'm a doctor.
- Psychiatrist Milkman: Didn't I see you just now under a Scotsman?
- Doctor: Yes, but I am a doctor. Actually, I'm a gynecologist, but that was my lunch hour.
- Psychiatrist Milkman: [holding up an ink blot] What does this remind you of?
- Doctor: Two pints of cream?
- Psychiatrist Milkman: Right. I should definitely say you're suffering from a severe personality disorder, sir, sublimating itself in a lactic obsession that could get worse, depending on how much money you've got.
- Doctor: Yes, I see. And a pot of yoghurt, please.
The Buzz Aldrin Show [2.04]
[edit]- Man at Less Naughty Chemist's: I'd like some aftershave.
- Less Naughty Chemist: Certainly sir, walk this way please...
- Man at Less Naughty Chemist's: If I could walk that way I wouldn't need aftershave.
Architects sketch
[edit]- Mr. Wiggin: This is a 12-story block combining classical neo-Georgian features with the efficiency of modern techniques. The tenants arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these...
- Client 1: Excuse me.
- Mr. Wiggin: Yes?
- Client 1: Did you say 'knives'?
- Mr. Wiggin: Rotating knives, yes.
- Client 2: Do I take it that you are proposing to slaughter our tenants?
- Mr. Wiggin: ...Does that not fit in with your plans?
- Client 1: Not really. We asked for a simple block of flats.
- Mr Wiggin: Oh. I hadn't fully divined your attitude towards the tenants. You see I mainly design slaughter houses.
- Client 1: Ah.
- Mr Wiggin: Pity.
- Client 2: Yes.
- Mr Wiggin: Mind you, this is a real beaut. None of your blood caked on the walls and flesh flying out of the windows incommoding the passers-by with this one. My life has been leading up to this.
- Client 2: Yes, and well done, but we wanted an apartment block.
- Mr Wiggin: May I ask you to reconsider? You wouldn't regret this - think of the tourist trade.
- Client 1: I'm sorry. We want a block of flats, not an abattoir.
- Mr Wiggin: I see. Well, of course, this is just the sort blinkered philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. [getting angry] You sit there on your loathsome spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker's cuss for the struggling artist. [now shouting] You excrement! You whining hypocritical toadies with your colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your bleeding Masonic secret handshakes! You wouldn't let me join, would you, you blackballing bastards! Well I wouldn't become a Freemason now if you went down on your lousy, stinking knees and begged me!
Live from the Grill-o-Mat [2.05]
[edit]Blackmail
[edit]- Presenter: And now a letter, a hotel registration book, and a series of photographs which could add up to divorce, premature retirement, and possible criminal proceedings for a company director in Bromsgrove. He's a Freemason, and prospective Tory MP, that's Mr S. of Bromsgrove. £3,000 to stop us from revealing your name, the name of the three other people involved, the youth organisation to which they belong, and the shop where you bought the equipment.
- Padre: Sorry I'm late, head master. I've been wrestling with Plato.
- Head Master: What you do in your own time, padre, is written on the wall in the vestry!
- Man: Good morning, I'd care to purchase a chicken, please.
- Vendor: Don't come here with that posh talk, you nasty, stuck-up twit!
- Man: I beg your pardon?
- Vendor: A chicken, sir? Certainly. Here we are.
- Man: Thank you. And how much does that come to per pound, my good fellow?
- Vendor: Per pound, you slimy trollop? What kind of a man are you?
- Man: I'm sorry?
- Vendor: Four and six a pound, sir. Nice and ready for roasting.
- Man: I see. And I'd care to purchase some stuffing in addition, please.
- Vendor: Use your own, you great poofy poll-nagger!
- Man: What?
- Vendor: Certainly, sir, some stuffing.
- Man: Oh, thank you.
- Vendor: Oh, "thank you", says the great queen, like a la-di-da pooftah!
- Man: I beg your pardon?
- Vendor: That's alright, sir, call again!
- Man: Excuse me...
- Vendor: What is it now, you great pillock?!
- Man: I can't help but notice that you insult me, and then you're polite to me, alternately.
- Vendor: Oh, I'm terribly sorry to hear that, sir!
- Man: Oh, that's all right. It doesn't really matter.
- Vendor: Tough titty if it did, you nasty, spotted prancer!
Presenter on a Bus
[edit]- Presenter: Oh, uh, there you are. And you've got the note. Jolly good. Well, um, that's all the items that we have for you this week. And, uh, what a jolly lot of items, too, eh? Um... Well, the same team will be back with you again next week with another menu full of items. Um, I don't know if I shall be introducing the show next week. As I understand, my bits in this show have not been received quite as well as they might. But, uh, never mind. The damage is done. No use crying over spilled milk. I've had my chance. And I've mucked it. Anyway, there we are. I'm not really awfully good with words, you see. I'm more of a visual performer. I have a very funny... If I may say so myself... A very funny, funny walk. I wish I'd been in that show. I'd have done rather well. But anyway, there we are. Show's over, and, uh... We'll all be... They'll all be back with you in the end next week. [He tries not to cry] Sorry. I do beg your pardon, I don't like these... blatant displays of emotion. I wish it would say "The End". [End title card comes up]
It's A Living [2.06]
[edit]- Announcer #1: Well, it's five past nine and nearly time for six past nine. On BBC 2 now, it'll shortly be six and a half minutes past nine. Later on this evening, it'll be ten o'clock and at 10:30 we'll be joining BBC 2 in time for 10:33, and don't forget tomorrow when it'll be 9:20. Those of you who missed 8:45 on Friday will be able to see it again this Friday at a quarter to nine. Now, here is a time check. It's six and a half minutes to the big green thing.
- Announcer #2: You're a looney.
- Announcer #1: I get so bored. I get so bloody bored.
- Announcer: And we move to Bristol where they have a special, Very Silly candidate...
- Election Official: Malcolm Peter-Brian-Telescope-Adrian-Umbrella Stand-Jasper-Wednesday-[pop]-Stoat Gobbler-John-Raw Vegetable-[bark]-Arthur-Norman-Michael-[honk]-Featherstone-Smith-[whistle]-Northgot-Edwards-Harris-[bang]-WOOOOOO-Mason-chuffchuffchuffchuff-Frampton-Jones-Fruit Bat-Gilbert-we'll keep a welcome in the-[bang bang bang]-Williams-If I could Walk That Way-Jenkin-[vvvt vvt vvvt vvvvewwww]-Tiger Drawers-Pratt-Thompson-Raindrops keep falling on my head-Darcy-Carter-[honk]-Pussycat-Don't sleep in the subway-Barton-Mannering-[squeek]-mmmmm-Smith...
- Announcer: Very Silly Party.
- Election Official: Two votes.
The Attila the Hun Show [2.07]
[edit]- Cyril: In the debate, a spokesman accused the government of being silly and doing not at all good things. The member accepted this in the spirit of healthy criticism, but denied that he had ever been naughty with a choir boy. Angry shouts of 'What about the watermelon then?' were ordered then by the speaker to be stricken from the record and put into a brown paper bag in the lavvy. Any further interruptions would be cut up and distributed amongst the poor. For the Government, a front-bench spokesman said the Agricultural Tariff would have to be raised, and he fancied a bit. Furthermore, he argued, this would give a large boost to farmers, and a great deal of fun to him, his friends, and Miss Moist of Knightsbridge. From the back benches there were opposition shouts of 'Postcards for sale' and a healthy cry of 'Who likes a sailor then?' from the Minister Without Portfolio. Replying, the Shadow Minister said he could no longer deny the rumors, but he and the Dachshund were very happy. And in any case, he argued, rhubarb was cheap, and what was the harm in a sauna bath?
- Mr. Brando: Yes, we have quite a number of idiots banking here.
- Interviewer: What kind of money is there in idioting?
- Mr. Brando: Well, nowadays the really blithering idiot can make anything up to 10,000 pounds a year if he's the head of some big industrial combine. But of course the more old fashion idiot still refuses to take money. He takes bits of string, wood, dead budgerigars, sparrows, anything. But it does make the cashier's job very difficult.
Archaeology Today [2.08]
[edit]- Hank Spim: Well, I've been a hunter all my life. I love animals, that's why I like to kill 'em. Never met an animal I didn't like.
- Reverend Arthur Belling: You know, there are many people in the country today who, through no fault of their own, are sane. Some of them were born sane. Some of them became sane later in their lives. It is up to people like you and me, who are out of our tiny little minds, to help these people overcome their sanity. You can start in small ways, with ping pong ball eyes and a funny voice. And then you can paint half of your body red and their other half green. And then you can jump and down in a bowl of treacle going "SQWAK SQWAK SQWAK!" And then you can go "NAH, NAH, NAH!" And then you can roll around on the floor going "P'ting, p'ting! P'ting, p'ting!"
- Announcer: The Reverend Arthur Belling is vicar of St. Loony Up the Cream Bun and Jam.
How to Recognise Different Parts of the Body [2.09]
[edit]Bruce sketch
[edit]- Hegelian Bruce: Ah, here comes the boss fella now!
- Boss Bruce: [enters with Michael, an Englishman] Ah! G'day, Bruce, hello, Bruce, how are you, Bruce? Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce a chap from Pommyland who'll be joining us this year here in the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolloomooloo.
- All: G'day!
- Boss Bruce: Michael Baldwin, this is Bruce; Michael Baldwin, this is Bruce; Michael Baldwin, this is Bruce.
- Classical Bruce: Is your name not Bruce, then?
- Michael: No, it's Michael.
- Hegelian Bruce: That's going to cause a little confusion.
- Neopositivist Bruce: Mind if we call you "Bruce" to keep it clear?
- Boss Bruce: Well, gentlemen, I think we'd better start the meeting. Before we start, though, I'll ask the padre for a prayer.
- Classical Bruce: [puts on a priest's collar as others bow their heads] Oh Lord, we beseech thee, have mercy on our faculty, Amen.
- Boss Bruce: Amen! Crack the tubes! Right. [Neopositivist Bruce opens beer cans] Er, Bruce, I now call upon you to welcome Mr. Baldwin to the Philosophy Department.
- Hegelian Bruce: I'd like to welcome the pommy bastard to God's own earth, and I'd like to remind him that we don't like stuck-up sticky-beaks here.
- All: Hear, hear! Well spoken, Bruce!
- Boss Bruce: Now, Bruce teaches classical philosophy, Bruce teaches Hegelian philosophy, and Bruce here teaches logical positivism, and is also in charge of the sheep dip.
- Neopositivist Bruce: What does new Bruce teach?
- Boss Bruce: New Bruce will be teaching political science - Machiavelli, Bentham, Locke, Hobbes, Sutcliffe, Bradman, Lindwall, Miller, Hassett, and Benaud.
- Hegelian Bruce: Those are cricketers, Bruce.
- Boss Bruce: Oh, spit.
- Neopositivist Bruce: Howls! Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce!
- Boss Bruce: Ha-ha! In addition, as he's going to be teaching politics, I've told him he's welcome to teach any of the great socialist thinkers, provided he makes it clear that they were wrong.
- All: [stand up suddenly] Australia! Australia! Australia! Australia! We love you! Amen!
- Boss Bruce: Rule 1 — no pooftahs. Rule 2 — no member of the faculty is to maltreat the abos in any way whatsoever...if there's anyone watching. Rule 3! No pooftahs. Rule 4 — I don't want to catch any of you not drinking after lights out. Rule 5 — no pooftahs. Rule 6 — there is NO Rule 6. Rule 7 — no pooftahs!
Exploding Penguin sketch
[edit]- Radio Announcer: That was Episode Two of "The Death of Mary Queen of Scots", adapted for the radio by Bernard Hollowood and Brian London. And now, Radio Four will explode. [interval music plays until the radio suddenly combusts]
- Pepperpot 1: We'll have to watch the telly then.
- Pepperpot 2: Yes.
- Pepperpot 1: Well, what's on the television then?
- Pepperpot 2: Looks like a penguin.
- Pepperpot 1: No, no, no, no! I didn't mean 'what's on the television set?' I meant 'what program?'
- Pepperpot 2: Oh.
- Pepperpot 2: Funny that penguin being there, innit? What's it doing there?
- Pepperpot 1: Standing.
- Pepperpot 2: I can see that!
- Pepperpot 1: If it lays an egg, it'll fall down the back of the television set.
- Pepperpot 2: We'll have to watch that. Unless it's a male.
- Pepperpot 1: Ooh, I hadn't thought of that.
- Pepperpot 2: Yes. Looks fairly butch.
- Pepperpot 1: Perhaps it comes from next door.
- Pepperpot 2: Penguins don't come from next door; they come from the Antarctic!
- Pepperpot 1: BURMA!
- Pepperpot 2: Why'd you say 'Burma'?
- Pepperpot 1: I panicked.
- Pepperpot 2: Perhaps it's from the zoo.
- Pepperpot 1: Which zoo?
- Pepperpot 2: How should I know which zoo? I'm not Dr. Bloody Bronowski!
- Pepperpot 1: How does Dr. Bronowski know which zoo it came from?
- Pepperpot 2: He knows everything.
- Pepperpot 1: Ooh, I wouldn't like that. It'd take the mystery out of life. Anyway, if it came from the zoo, it'd have 'Property of the Zoo' stamped on it.
- Pepperpot 2: No it wouldn't. They don't stamp animals 'Property of the Zoo'! You couldn't stamp a huge lion!
- Pepperpot 1: They stamp them when they're small.
- Pepperpot 2: What happens when they moult?
- Pepperpot 1: Lions don't moult!
- Pepperpot 2: No, but penguins do. There! I've run rings around you, logically.
- Pepperpot 1: Oh, intercourse the penguin!
- TV Announcer: It's just gone eight o'clock and time for the penguin on top of your television set to explode.
- [The penguin explodes]
- Pepperpot 1: How did he know that was going to happen?
- TV Announcer: It was an inspired guess. And now...
Scott of the Antarctic [2.10]
[edit]- Vanilla Hoare: Look, you crumb bum, I'm a star. Star, star, star! I don't get a million dollars to act out of a trench. I played Mrs. St John the Baptist in a trench, and I played Mrs. Napoleon Bonaparte in a trench, and I played Mrs. Alexander Fleming in a furrow, so if you want this scene played out of a trench, well you just get yourself a goddamn stuntman! I played Mrs. Galileo in a groove and I played Mrs. Jesus Christ in a geological syncline!
- Mr. Last: You've got a pet halibut?
- Mr. Praline: Yes. I chose him out of a thousand. I didn't like the others; they were all too flat.
- Mr. Last: You're a loony!
- Mr. Praline: I AM NOT A LOONY! Why should I be tarred with the epithet "loony" merely because I have a pet halibut? I've heard tell that Sir Gerald Nabarro has a pet prawn called Simon, and you wouldn't call Sir Gerald a loony, would you? Furthermore, Dawn Pelforth, the lady show jumper, had a clam called Sir Stefford after the late Chancellor, Allen Bullock has two pikes, both called Norman, and the late, great Marcel Proust had a haddock! If you're calling the author of À la recherche du temps perdu a loony, I shall have to ask you to step outside!
How Not To Be Seen [2.11]
[edit]City Gents Vox Pops
[edit]- Fourth City Gent: Well, I've been in the city for 30 years and I've never once regretted being a nasty, greedy, cold-hearted, avaricious money-grubber... er, Conservative!
Crackpot Religions Ltd
[edit]- Arthur Crackpot: This is an example of the sort of abuse we get all the time from ignorant people. I inherited this religion from my father, an ex-used-car salesman and part-time window-box. And I am very proud to be in charge of the first religion with free gifts. You get this luxury tea-trolley with every new enrollment. In addition to this you can win a three-piece lounge suite, this luxury caravan, a weekend for two with Peter Bonetti and tonight's star prize, the entire Norwich City Council.
- Priest: You asked for the coffee machine, so let's see what you've won. You chose Hymn no. 437. [removes a card labelled '437' off the hymn board and reads what's on its back] Oh, Mrs. Collins, you had eyes on the coffee machine. Well you have won tonight's star prize, the entire Norwich City Council!
- Mrs. Collins: I've got one already.
- Archbishop Gumby: BASICALLY! I BELIEVE IN PEACE! AND...BASHING TWO BRICKS TOGETHER!
- Silly Reverend: We at the Church of the Divine Loony believe in the power of prayer to turn the face purple!
How Not To Be Seen
[edit]- Announcer: This is Mr. E.R. Bradshaw, Napier Court, Black Lion Road, SE5. He cannot be seen. Now I'm going to ask him to stand up. Mr. Bradshaw, will you stand up please? [in the distance, Bradshaw, stands up. After a pause, a gunshot rings out and Bradshaw then falls to the ground] This demonstrates the value of not being seen.
Spam [2.12]
[edit]Hungarian Phrasebook
[edit]- Narrator: In 1970 the British Empire lay in ruins, foreign nationals frequented the streets, many of them Hungarians (not the streets—the foreign nationals). Anyway, many of these Hungarians went into tobacconists shops to buy cigarettes...
- [The Hungarian gentleman enters with phrase book and meets the tobacconist]
- Hungarian: [reading his phrase book] I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
- Tobacconist: [confused] Sorry?
- Hungarian: I will not buy this record, it is scratched.
- Tobacconist: No, no, no. This is tobacconist's.
- Hungarian: Ah! I will not buy this tobacconist's, it is scratched.
- Tobacconist: No, no, no...tobacco...er, cigarettes?
- Hungarian: Yes, cigarettes. My hovercraft is full of eels.
- Tobacconist: [more confused] What?
- Hungarian: [miming matches] My hovercraft is full of eels.
- Tobacconist: Matches, matches? [showing some]
- Hungarian: Yah, yah. [taking cigarettes and matches and pulls out loose change; he consults his book] Er, do you want...do you want to come back to my place, bouncy bouncy?
- Tobacconist: I don't think you're using that right.
- Hungarian: You great pouf.
- Tobacconist: That'll be six and six, please.
- Hungarian: If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? I am no longer infected.
- Tobacconist: [miming that he wants to see the book; he takes the book] It costs six and six... [mumbling as he searches] Costs six and six...Here we are...Yandelvayasna grldenwi stravenka.
- [The Hungarian hits the tobacconist between the eyes. The policeman, walking along the street, suddenly stops and puts his hand to his ear. He starts running down the street, round corner and down another street, round yet another corner and down another street into the shop]
- Policeman: What's going on here?
- Hungarian: [to the policeman] You have wonderful thighs.
- Policeman: [shocked and confused] What?!
- Tobacconist: [points to the Hungarian] He hit me!
- Hungarian: Drop your panties, Sir William! I cannot wait til' lunchtime!
- Policeman: Right! [drags the Hungarian away]
- Hungarian: Ah! My nipples explode with delight!
- Mrs Bun: Have you got anything without Spam in it?
- Waitress: Well, Spam, egg, sausage, and Spam; that's not got much Spam in it.
- Mrs Bun: I don't want any Spam!
- Mr Bun: Why can't she have egg, bacon, Spam, and sausage?
- Mrs Bun: That's got Spam in it!
- Mr Bun: Not as much as Spam, egg, sausage, and Spam.
- Mrs. Bun: Look, could I have egg, bacon, Spam and sausage without the Spam?
- Waitress: Bleurgh!
- Mrs. Bun: What do you mean "Ugh?" I don't like Spam!
- Vikings: [singing] Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam... Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!
- Waitress: [banging spoon on pot] SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! You can't have egg, bacon, Spam and sausage without the Spam.
- Mrs. Bun: Why not?!
- Waitress: WELL, it wouldn't be egg, bacon, Spam and sausage, would it?
- Mrs. Bun: I DON'T LIKE SPAM!
- Mr. Bun: Now don't make a fuss, dear; I'll have your Spam. I love it! I'm having Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, baked beans, Spam, Spam and Spam!
- Waitress: Baked beans are off.
- Mr. Bun: In that case, can I have Spam instead?
- Waitress: You mean Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, and Spam?
- Mr. Bun: Yes!
- Waitress: Bleurgh!
Flower Arranging sketch
[edit]- Mr. Gumby: GOOD EVENING! FIRST TAKE A BUNCH OF FLOWERS! [grabs flowers from the table] PRETTY BEGONIAS, IRISES, FREESIAS AND CRY-MANTHESUMS! THEN! ARRANGE THEM! NICELY! IN A VASE! [thrusts the flowers head downwards into the vase and stuffs them in wildly; he bangs them with a mallet in an attempt to get them all in] OH GET IN! GET IN!
Royal Episode 13 (or The Queen Will Be Watching) [2.13]
[edit]Lifeboat Sketch
[edit]- Sailor 1: Still no sign of land. How long is it?
- Sailor 2: That's a rather personal question, sir.
- Sailor 1: You stupid git! I meant 'how long have we been in the lifeboat?' You've spoiled the atmosphere!
- Sailor 2: Sorry, sir.
- Sailor 1: Shut up! We'll have to start again. Still no sign of land. How long is it?
- Sailor 2: 33 days, sir.
- Sailor 3: 33 days?
- Sailor 2: I don't think we can hold out much longer. I don't think I did spoil the atmosphere that time.
- Sailor 1: Shut up!
- Sailor 2: Well, I don't think I did!
- Sailor 1: Of course you did!
- Sailor 1: Do you think I spoiled the atmosphere?
- Sailor 3: Yes, I think you did.
- Sailor 1: Look, shut up! Shut up! Still no sign of land. How long is it?
- Sailor 2: 33 days, sir.
- Sailor 4: Have we started again?
Undertaker Sketch
[edit]- Man: Excuse me, are you suggesting eating my mother?
- Undertaker: Well, yeah. Not raw, cooked!
- Man: What?
- Undertaker: Roasted, few french fries, broccoli, horseradish sauce. [licks lips]
- Man: Well... I do feel a bit peckish.
- Undertaker: Great!
- Man: Can we have some parsnips?
- Undertaker: [calls out behind the desk] Get some parsnips!
- Man: I really don't think I should...
- Undertaker: Look, we'll eat her, and if you're feeling a bit guilty about it afterwards, we'll dig a grave and you can throw up in it!
Series 3
[edit]Whicker's World [3.01]
[edit]Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion Visit Jean-Paul Sartre
[edit]- Mrs. Conclusion: Hello, Mrs Premise.
- Mrs. Premise: Hello, Mrs Conclusion.
- Mrs. Conclusion: Busy day?
- Mrs. Premise: Busy! I've just spent four hours burying the cat.
- Mrs. Conclusion: Four hours to bury a cat?
- Mrs. Premise: Yes, it wouldn't keep still. Wriggling about, howling its head off.
- Mrs. Conclusion: Oh - it wasn't dead then?
- Mrs. Premise: Well, no, no, but it's not at all a well cat. So, as we were going away for a fortnight's holiday, I thought I'd better bury it just to be on the safe side.
- Mrs. Conclusion: Quite right. You don't want to come back from Sorrento to a dead cat. It'd be so anticlimactic. Yes, kill it now, that's what I say.
- Mrs. Premise: Yes.
- Mrs. Conclusion: We're going to have our budgie put down.
- Mrs. Premise: Really? Is it very old?
- Mrs. Conclusion: No. We just don't like it.
- Mrs. Premise: [knocks on Jean-Paul Sartre's room's door] Coo-ee! Jean-Paul? Jean-Paul! It's only us. Oh, pardon...c'est même nous.
- Jean-Paul: [opens door] Oui.
- Mrs. Premise: Jean-Paul. Your famous trilogy Rues à Liberté: is it an allegory of man's search for commitment?
- Jean-Paul: Oui.
- Mrs. Premise: I told you so.
- Mrs. Conclusion: Oh, coitus.
Whicker Island
[edit]- Third Whicker: Father Pierre, why did you stay on in this colonial Campari-land where the clink of glasses mingles with the murmur of a million mosquitoes, where waterfalls of whisky wash away the worries of a world-weary Whicker, where gin and tonic jingle in a gyroscopic jubilee of something beginning with J? Father Pierre, why did you stay on here?
- Father Pierre: [putting on a pair of Whicker-style glasses] Well, mainly for the interviews.
Mr. & Mrs. Brian Norris' Ford Popular [3.02]
[edit]- Mrs. Shazam: Mrs. Nigger-Baiter's exploded!
- Mrs. Shazam's son: Good thing, too.
- Mrs. Shazam: She was my best friend!
- Mrs. Shazam's son: Oh, don't be so sentimental, mother. Things explode everyday.
- Host: Tchaikovsky: Was he the tortured soul who poured out his immortal longings into dignified passages of stately music, or was he just an old poof who wrote tunes?
- Newsreader: The BBC wishes to deny rumors that it is going into liquidation. Mrs. Kelly, who owns the flat where they live, has said that they can stay on till the end of the month... [is handed a piece of paper] and we've just heard that Huw Wheldon's watch has been accepted by the London Electricity Board and transmissions for this evening can be continued as planned. [coughs and pulls the blanket tighter round his shoulders] That's all from me so...goodnight.
- [Banging is heard at the door]
- Mr. Kelly: Are you going to be in there all night?
- Newsreader: It's just a bulletin, Mr. Kelly...and now back to the story.
- Mr. Kelly: Commence!
- Newsreader: All right!
The Money Programme [3.03]
[edit]- Woman: Well there's rat cake...rat sorbet...rat pudding...or strawberry tart.
- Man: Strawberry tart?!
- Woman: Well it's got some rat in it.
- Man: How much?
- Woman: Three, rather a lot really.
- Man: ...Well, I'll have a slice without so much rat in it.
The Argument Clinic
[edit]- Mr. Barnard: What do you want?
- Man: Well I was told outside...
- Mr. Barnard: Don't give me that you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
- Man: What?
- Mr. Barnard: Shut your festering gob you tit! Your type makes me puke! You vacuous toffee-nosed malodorous pervert!
- Man: Look, I came here for an argument!
- Mr. Barnard: [apologetic] Oh, I'm sorry. This is abuse. No, you want room 12A next door.
- Man: I see, sorry!
- Mr. Barnard: Not at all. [the man exits] Stupid git.
- Mr. Vibrating: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
- Man: Yes, but that's not just saying "No it isn't."
- Mr. Vibrating: Yes it is!
- Man: No it isn't!
- Mr. Vibrating: I'm very sorry, but I'm not allowed to argue unless you've paid.
- Man: Aha! If I didn't pay, then why are you arguing? Got you!
- Mr. Vibrating: No you haven't.
- Man: Yes I have. If you're still arguing, I must have paid.
- Mr. Vibrating: Not necessarily. I could be arguing in my spare time.
- Man: Oh, I've had enough of this!
- Mr. Vibrating: No, you haven't.
- Man: Oh, shut up!
- Inspector Fox: You are hereby charged where you did willfully take part in a strange sketch. That is a skit, spoof, or humorous vignette of an unconventional nature, with intent to cause grievous mental confusion to the Great British public.
Blood, Devastation, Death, War and Horror [3.04]
[edit]- Merchant Banker: Ah, Mr. Victim, I'm glad to say we've got the go-ahead to lend you the money you required. We will, of course, need for security the deed to your house, the deed to your aunt's house, of your wife's parents' house, and of your granny's bungalow. And we will in addition need a controlling interest in the stock of your new company, unrestricted access to your private bank accounts, the deposit of your three children in our vaults as hostages, and a full legal indemnity in case of any embezzlement carried out against you by members of our staff during the normal course of their duties. No, I'm afraid we couldn't accept your dog instead of your youngest child, but we would like to suggest a brand new scheme of ours in which 51 percent of your wife and your dog pass to us in the event of your suffering a serious accident.
- "Life and Death Struggles" Narrator: Here you see some English comic actors engaged in a life or death struggle with a rather weak ending. This is typical of the zany madcap world of the irresistible kooky funsters. The English pantomime horse wins and so is assured of a place in British history, and a steady job at a Merchant Bank. Unfortunately, before his pension rights are assured, he catches bronchitis and dies. Another victim of the need to finish these shows on time.
The All-England Summarize Proust Competition [3.05]
[edit]- Arthur Mee: Well, ladies and gentlemen, I don't think any of our contestants tonight succeeded in encapsulating the intricacies of Proust's masterwork. So, I'm going to give the award to the girl with the biggest tits.
- Narrator: Mount Everest. Forbidding. Aloof. Terrifying. The mountain with the biggest tits in the world.
- [Gong goes off]
- Voiceover: Start again!
The War Against Pornography [3.06]
[edit]Gumby Brain Specialist sketch
[edit]- Mr. Gumby: ARE YOU THE BRAIN SPECIALIST?
- Dr. Gumby: HELLO!
- Mr. Gumby: ARE YOU THE BRAIN SPECIALIST?
- Dr. Gumby: NO! NO I AM NOT THE BRAIN SPECIALIST. NO, NO I AM NOT...YES, YES I AM!
- Mr. Gumby: MY BRAIN HURTS!
- Dr. Gumby: WELL LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT IT, MR GUMBY! [starts to open trousers]
- Mr. Gumby: NO NO, THE BRAIN IN MY HEAD!
- Dr. Gumby: AHH! [hits Mr. Gumby's head a few times] IT WILL HAVE TO COME OUT!
- Mr. Gumby: OUT? OF MY HEAD?
- Dr. Gumby: YES! ALL THE BITS OF IT. NURSE! NUUURRSE! NUUUURSE! [nurse appears] NUUUURSE! NUUUURSE! [spots her and starts] NURSE, TAKE MR GUMBY TO A BRAIN SURGEON!
- Nurse: Yes, doctor.
- Dr. Gumby: WHERE'S THE LANCET? WHERE'S THE BLOODY LANCET! [rubs his head] MY BRAIN HURTS TOO!
- Documentary Presenter: The gastropod is a randy little fellow whose tiny brain scarcely strays from the subject of you-know-what. The randiest of the gastropods is the limpet; this hot-blooded little beast, with its tent-like shell, is always on the job. Its extramarital activities are something startling. Frankly, I don't know how the female limpet finds the time to adhere to the rock face! How am I doing?
- Gladys: Disgusting!
- George: But more interesting!
- Documentary Presenter: Another loose-living gastropod is the periwinkle. This shameless little libertine with its characteristic ventral locomotion is not the marrying kind! "Anywhere, anytime" is its motto, off with the shell and they're at it!
- Gladys: What about the lemmelebrates?
- Documentary Presenter: I'm coming to them. The Great Scallop: This tacky, scrofulous old rapist is second in depravity only to the common clam. This latter is a right whore! A harlot! A cynical, bed-hopping, firm-breasted, Rabelaisian bit of seafood that makes Fanny Hill look like a dead pope! And finally, among the lemmelebrate bivalves, that most depraved of the whole subspecies, the whelk. The whelk is nothing but a homosexual of the worst kind! This gay boy of the gastropods, this queer crustacean, this mincing mollusk, this screaming, prancing, limp-wristed queen of the deep makes me sick!
- Announcer: We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this programme. It was never our intention to imply that politicians are weak-kneed, political time-servers who are more concerned with their personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government. Nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well-being of the people they supposedly represent. Nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today. Nor indeed do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby, ulcerous, little self-seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addiction to alcohol and certain explicit sexual practices which some people might find offensive. We are sorry if this impression has come across.
Salad Days [3.07]
[edit]- Various characters: Lemon curry?!
- Announcer #1: The BBC would like to apologize to everyone in the world for that last item. It was disgusting and bad and thoroughly disobedient, and please don't bother to phone up because we know it was very tasteless, but they didn't really mean it and they all come from broken homes and have very unhappy personal lives, especially Eric. Anyway, they're all really nice people underneath, and very warm in the traditional show business way. And please don't write in either because the BBC is going through an unhappy phase at the moment, what with its father dying, and the mortgage, and BBC2 going out with men.
- Announcer #2: The BBC would like to deny the last apology. It is very happy at home, and BBC2 is bound to go through this phase, so from all of us here, good night, sleep well, and have an absolutely super day tomorrow, kiss kiss.
The Cycling Tour [3.08]
[edit]- Mr. Pither: You are Rear Admiral Sir Dudley Compton?
- Chinaman: No. He die. He have heart attack and fell out of window onto exploding bomb, and was killed in shooting accident.
- Chinaman: [toasting] Buttocks up!
- Communist: Oh, my lack of God! It's Trotsky!
The Nude Man [3.09]
[edit]- Badger: There's a bomb onboard this plane, and I'll tell you where it is for a thousand pounds.
- Second Pilot: I don't believe you.
- Badger: If you don't tell me where the bomb is...If I don't give you the money...Unless you give me the bomb...
- Stewardess: The money.
- Badger: The bomb, thank you pretty lady; the bomb will explode, killing everybody.
- Second Pilot: Including you.
- Badger: [pause] I'll tell you where it is for a pound.
- Second Pilot: Here's a pound.
- Badger: I don't want Scottish money. They've got the numbers. It can be traced.
- Second Pilot: One English pound. Now where's the bomb?
- Badger: I can't remember.
- Second Pilot: You've forgotten.
- Badger: Aye, you'd better have your pound back. Oh... [rubs it] fingerprints.
- First Pilot: Now where's the bomb?
- Badger: Ah, wait a tic, wait a tic. Er, my first is in Glasgow but not in Spain, my second is in steamer but not in train, my whole is in the luggage compartment on the plane...I'll tell you where the bomb is for a pound.
- Second Pilot: It's in the luggage compartment.
- Badger: Right. Here's your pound.
- Narrator: This is the planet Algon, fifth world in the system of Aldebaran, the Red Giant in the constellation of Sagittarius. Here an ordinary cup of drinking chocolate costs four million pounds, an immersion heater for the hot-water tank costs over six billion pounds, and a pair of split-crotch panties would be almost unobtainable.
- Narrator: I think we're getting pictures now from Algon itself, and it looks as though, YES, the satellite has found a bird - the probe has struck crumpet. And she looks pretty good, too.
E. Henry Thripshaw's Disease [3.10]
[edit]- Roger Last: Good evening. Tonight on 'Is There' we examine the question, 'Is there a life after death?' And here to discuss it are three dead people.
- Second Assistant: There's a 'Bridget - Queen of the Whip'.
- Porn Shop Customer: Yes...
- Second Assistant: Or 'Naughty Nora'...or there's this one: 'Doug, Bob and Gordon Visit the Ark Royal'. Or there's 'Sister Teresa: The Spanking Nun'.
- Porn Shop Customer: Mmmm, I see. You don't have anything specially about Devon and Cornwall?
- Second Assistant: No, I'm afraid not, sir.
- Porn Shop Customer: The one I was really after was Arthur Hotchkiss' 'Devonshire Country Churches'.
- Second Assistant: Well how about this, sir: 'Bum Biters'?
- Porn Shop Customer: No, not really. I don't suppose you have any general surveys of English church architecture?
- Second Assistant: No, it's not really our line, sir.
- Porn Shop Customer: No, I see. Well, never mind. I'll just take the 'Lord Lieutenant in Nylons' then, and trade in these two copies of 'Piggie Parade'. Thank you.
Dennis Moore [3.11]
[edit]- Mrs. O: [reading her horoscope] You have green, scaly skin, and a soft yellow underbelly with a series of fin-like ridges running down your spine and tail. Although lizard-like in shape, you can grow anything up to thirty feet in length with huge teeth that can bite off great rocks and trees. You inhabit arid subtropical zones, and you wear spectacles.
- Mrs. Trepidatious: It's very good about the spectacles.
- Mrs. O: It's amazing!
- "Prejudice" Host: Well now, the result of last week's competition when we asked you to find a derogatory term for the Belgians. Well, the response was enormous and we took quite a long time sorting out the winners. There were some very clever entries. Mrs. Hatred of Leicester said 'let's not call them anything, let's just ignore them'. And a Mr. St John of Huntingdon said he couldn't think of anything more derogatory than 'Belgians'. But in the end we settled on three choices: number three...'The Sprouts', sent in by Mrs. Vicious of Hastings...very nice; number two...'The Phlegms', from Mrs Childmolester of Worthing; but the winner was undoubtedly from Mrs. No-Supper-For-You from Norwood in Lancashire...'Miserable Fat Belgian Bastards'!
A Book at Bedtime [3.12]
[edit]- Presenter: Penguins, yes, penguins. What relevance do penguins have to the furtherance of medical science? Well, strangely enough quite a lot, a major breakthrough, maybe. It was from such an unlikely beginning as an unwanted fungus accidentally growing on a sterile plate that Sir Alexander Fleming gave the world penicillin. James Watt watched an ordinary household kettle boiling and conceived the potentiality of steam power. Would Albert Einstein ever have hit upon the theory of relativity if he hadn't been clever? All these tremendous leaps forward have been taken in the dark. Would Rutherford ever have split the atom if he hadn't tried? Could Marconi have invented the radio if he hadn't by pure chance spent years working at the problem? Are these amazing breakthroughs ever achieved except by years and years of unremitting study? Of course not. What I said earlier about accidental discoveries must have been wrong. Nevertheless scientists believe that these penguins, these comic flightless web-footed little bastards may finally unwittingly help man to fathom the uncharted depths of the human mind.
- Scientist: If we increase the size of the penguin until it is the same height as the man and then compare the relative brain size, we now find that the penguin's brain is still smaller. But, and this is the point, it is larger than it was!
The British Showbiz Awards [3.13]
[edit]- Dickie Attenborough: There can be no finer honor tonight than to welcome into our midst tonight a guest who has not only done more than not anyone for our society, but nonetheless has only done more.
The Dirty Vicar Sketch
[edit]- Vicar: I like TITS!!! [attacks noblewoman]
- First Lady: Oh vicar! Vicar!
- Vicar: [composing himself] Oh my goodness, I do beg your pardon! How dreadful! The first day in my new parish, I completely...so sorry!
- First Lady: Yes. Never mind, never mind. Chivers, send Mary in with a new gown, will you?
- Chivers: Certainly, m'lady.
- Vicar: I do beg your pardon...I must sit down.
- First Lady: As I was saying, how do you find the new vicarage?
- Vicar: Oh yes, certainly, yes indeed, I find the grounds delightful, and the servants most attentive. Particularly the little serving maid with GREAT BIG KNOCKERS! [attacks again]
Series 4
[edit]The Golden Age of Ballooning [4.01]
[edit]- Antoinette: Oh, Joseph! All you think about is balloons. All you talk about is balloons. Your beautiful house is full of bits and pieces of balloons. Your books are all about balloons, every time you sing a song, it is in some way obliquely connected with balloons...Everything you eat has to have "balloon" incorporated in the title. Your dogs are all called Balloono. You tie balloons to your ankles in the evenings!
- Joseph Montgolfier: I don't do that!
- Antoinette: Well, no, you don't do that. But you do duck down and shout, "Hey! Balloons!" when there are none about. Your whole life is becoming obsessively balloonic, you know...Oh-h-h! Why do I have to hang from this bloody gas bag all day?
- Joseph Montgolfier: [bursts out of his bath, wearing only a towel, to confront the fake Louis XIV] Just a moment! That man is not Louis XIV!
- Jacques Montgolfier: Joseph, are you out of your mind?
- Joseph Montgolfier: I've been looking it up in my bath. Louis XIV died in 1717; it's now 1783! Answer me that!
- Louis XIV imposter: Did I say Louis XIV? I'm sorry, I meant Louis XV.
- Joseph Montgolfier: He died in 1774!
- Louis XIV imposter: [menacingly] All right, I'm Louis XVI! Listen to me, smart-ass, when you're the King of France, you've got better things to do than go around all day remembering your bloody number!
- Announcer: That was episode three of The Golden Age of Ballooning. May I remind you that there’s still time to get your Golden Age of Ballooning suppositories direct from the BBC, price 4.50 or 19 pound for a set of six. Well, in a moment the BBC will be closing down for the night. But first here is a party political broadcast on behalf of the Norwegian Party.
- Norwegian Spokesman: Good evening. You may think its strange that we should be asking you to vote Norwegian at the next election. But consider the advantages. In Norway, we have one of the highest per capita income rates in Europe. We have an industrial re-investment rate of 14 percent. And girls with massive knockers. Honestly, they’ll do anything for you. They'll go through the card. You name it, they know it. There’s one in Trondheim, who can put-
- Announcer: Highlights of that broadcast will be discussed later by Lord George-Brown, ex-Foreign Secretary, Mr. Sven Olafson, the ex-Norwegian Minister of Finance, Sir Charles Ollendorff, ex-Chairman of the Norwegian Trades Council, Mr. Hamish McLavell, the Mayor of Wick, the nearest large town to Norway, Mrs. Betty Norday, whose name sounds remarkably like Norway, Mr. Brian Waynor, whose name is an anagram of Norway, Mr. and Mrs. Ford, whose name sounds like Fiord, of which there are a lot in Norway, Ron and Christine Boslo.
Michael Ellis [4.02]
[edit]- Second Store Assistant: So, sir, that is, if I may say so, 184 pounds 1 and 1/2p, sir.
- Chris: Oh, will you take a check?
- Second Store Assistant: Ah yes sir, if you don't mind leaving a blood sample, and uh, a piece of skin off the back of the scalp, just here sir. Sorry, it's just for identification, you know, can't be too careful.
- Chris: I think I'll put it on account.
- Second Store Assistant: I should think so, much less painful.
- Mother: What have you got now?
- Chris: I bought an ant, mother.
- Mother: What d'you want one of them for! I'm not going to clean it out. You said you'd clean the tiger out, but do you? No, I suppose you've lost interest in it now. Now it'll be ant ant ant for a couple of days, then all of a sudden, 'oh, mum, I've bought a sloth' or some other odd-toed ungulate like a tapir.
- Chris: It's really different this time, mum. I'm really going to look after this ant.
- Mother: That's what you said about the sperm whale...now your papa's having to use it as a garage.
- Chris: Well, you didn't feed it properly.
- Mother: Where are we going to get 44 tons of plankton from every morning? Your dad was dead vexed about that. They thought he was mad in the deli.
- Chris: Well at least he's got a free garage.
- Mother: That's no good to him...his Hillman smells all fishy. [growl from the tiger] Oh blimey, that's the tiger. He'll want his mandies.
- Chris: Are you giving that tiger drugs?
- Mother: 'Course I'm giving it drugs!
- Chris: It's illegal.
- Mother: You try telling that to the tiger.
- Chris: I think it's dangerous.
- Mother: Listen, before he started fixing, he used to get through four Jehovah's witnesses a day. And he used to eat all of them, except the pamphlets.
- Chris: Well, he's not dim.
- Complaints manager: Take a seat. I'm sorry, it's on fire....
The Light Entertainment War [4.03]
[edit]- Private Shirley: Sir!
- General Shirley: Yes?
- Private Shirley: News from the Western Front, sir!
- General Shirley: Yes, what is it?
- Private Shirley: The enemy attacked at dawn, sir.
- General Shirley: Yes, how was it?
- Private Shirley: Well...the enemy were all wearing little silver halos, sir. And they had fairy wands with big stars on the end, and...
- General Shirley: They what?!
- Private Shirley: They had spiders in matchboxes, sir!
- General Shirley: Good God! How did our chaps react?
- Private Shirley: Well, they...they were jolly interested, sir! Some of them, I think it was the Fourth Armoured Brigade, they...
- General Shirley: Yes?
- Private Shirley: Well, they went and had a look at the spiders, sir!
- Peter Woods: We interrupt show jumping to bring you a news flash. The Second World War has now entered a sentimental stage. The morning on the Ardennes Front, the Germans started spooning at dawn, and the British Fifth Army responded by gazing deep in their eyes, and the Germans are reported to have gone 'all coy'.
Hamlet [4.04]
[edit]- Hamlet: [on a psychiatrist's couch] It's just that anywhere I go it's the same old thing. All anyone wants me to say is "to be or not to be".
- First Psychiatrist: That is the question, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer slings and arrows...
- Hamlet: Yes. It's either that or "Oh, this too too solid flesh"...
- First Psychiatrist: O, that this too too solid flesh would melt/Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!/All the everlasting have not fixed his canon on self-slaughter!
- Hamlet: Yes, all that sort of thing, and I'm just really...
- First Psychiatrist: Do the bit about "Alas poor Yorick"!
- Hamlet: No, I'm sick of it! I want to get away from all that. I want to make something of my life.
- First Psychiatrist: No, I don't know that bit.
- Mr. Gabriello: Wasn't he great, my boy?
- Eric: He was great, Mr. Gabriello.
- Mr. Gabriello: The way he kept fighting after his head came off!
- Eric: He was better when the head came off, Mr. Gabriello. He was really dodging the guy.
- Mr. Gabriello: Yeah, I reckon that if he could've lasted till the end of that first minute, he would've had the Killer worried.
- Eric: Sure, Mr. Gabriello.
- Mr. Gabriello: Oh he was great. Did you see his left arm?
- Eric: No.
- Mr. Gabriello: Okay, we'll look around the hall after everybody's gone.
Mr. Neutron [4.05]
[edit]- Trappre: [pointing to the dogs] The one on the end, on the right. That's Salad.
- Captain Carpenter: That's a dog.
- Trappre: No, only bits of him.
- Captain Carpenter: What do you mean?
- Trappre: Listen, Teddy Salad's the most brilliant agent the CIA ever had, alright? That's how he made his name, disguise.
- Captain Carpenter: That's incredible!
- Trappre: Yeah. He had to slim-down to one and a half pounds to get into that costume. Eighteen inches off each arm, and over three feet off each leg. The most brilliant surgeon in Europe stuck that tail on.
- Captain Carpenter: What about the head?
- Trappre: All of the head was removed, apart from the eyes and the brain, in order to fit into the costume.
- Mr. Neutron: I want you to be my helpmate. As Tarzan had his Jane, as Napoleon had his Josephine, as Frankie Laine had whoever he had. I want you to help me in my plan to dominate the world!
- Mrs. Scum: Oh, Mr. N! That I should be so lucky!
- Mr. Neutron: You're not Jewish, are you?
Party Political Broadcast [4.06]
[edit]- Vendor: A strong hive of bees contains approximately 75,000 bees. Each honey bee must make 154 trips to collect one teaspoon of honey. Hello, sir.
- Dad: What do you want?
- Vendor: Would you like to buy some of our honey, sir?
- Mother: What you doing in here?
- Vendor: Which would you like, the Californian Orange Blossom, the Mexican, the New Zealand, or the Scottish Heather?
- Mother: He can't eat honey. It makes him go plop plops.
- Vendor: Come on, please try some.
- Dad: All right, I'll have some Icelandic Honey.
- Vendor: No, there is no such thing.
- Dad: You mean you don't make any honey at all?
- Vendor: No, no, we must import it all. Every bally drop. We are a gloomy people. It's so crikey cold and dark up there, and only fish to eat. Fish and imported honey. Oh strewth!
- Mother: Well, why do you have a week?
- Vendor: Listen buster! In Reykjavik it is dark for eight months of the year, and it's cold enough to freeze your wrists off and there's only golly fish to eat. Administrative errors are bound to occur in enormous quantities. Look at this; it's all a mistake. It's a real pain in the sphincter! Icelandic Honey Week? My life!
- Mother: Well why do you come in here trying to flog the stuff, then?
- Vendor: Listen cowboy, I got a job to do. IT'S A STUPID, POINTLESS JOB, BUT AT LEAST IT KEEPS ME AWAY FROM ICELAND, ALL RIGHT? The leg of the worker bee has...
- [They slam the door on him]
- Mr. Vernon: Hello, madam.
- Mrs. Smith: Yes, you must have come about the...
- Mr. Vernon: ...Finishing the sentences, yes.
- Mrs. Smith: Well, perhaps you'd like to...
- Mr. Vernon: ...Come through this way, certainly. Oh, nice place you've got here.
- Mrs. Smith: Yes, well, we...
- Mr. Vernon: ...Like it?
- Mrs. Smith: Yes, we certainly...
- Mr. Vernon: ...Do. Good. Now, when did you first start...
- Mrs. Smith: ...finding it difficult...
- Mr. Vernon: ...To finish sentences, yes.
- Mrs. Smith: Well, it's not me, it's my...
- Mr. Vernon: ...Husband?
- Mrs. Smith: Yes, he...
- Mr. Vernon: ...Never lets you finish what you've started?
- Mrs. Smith: Quite. I'm beginning to feel...
- Mr. Vernon: ...You'll never finish a sentence again as long as you live?
- Mrs. Smith: Exact...
- Mr. Vernon: ...ly. It must be awful.
Quotes about Monty Python's Flying Circus
[edit]- The BBC were constantly replacing us with such important things as show jumping. They didn't like us very much at all.
- Graham Chapman, in an interview with David Letterman on Late Night with David Letterman, 20 April 1982 (season 1, episode 46).[1][2]
- Five [episodes] are definitely cringe-worthy … on balance, and I suppose another five or so [are] a little below par, and about a third of the rest are pretty good. And the rest: really, really, quite good.
- Graham Chapman, from "A Critical Look at Python", an interview excerpt included on the posthumously released comedy album Looks Like Another Brown Trouser Job (Rykodisc, 2006).
Main cast
[edit]- All performers played multiple roles.
References
[edit]- ↑ Chapman, Graham. Interview with David Letterman. Late Night with David Letterman. NBC, New York. 1982-04-20.
- ↑ Late Night with David Letterman Episode #1.46 (TV Episode 1982). IMDb. Retrieved on 2023-06-12.
