by Monty Python
Customer: Good morning.
Shopkeeper: Good morning, sir. Can I help you?
Customer: Help me? Yeah, I'll say you can help me.
Shopkeeper: Yes, sir?
Customer: I come about your advert - 'Small white pussy cat for sale. Excellent condition'.
Shopkeeper: Ah. You wish to buy it?
Customer: That's fight. Just for the hour. Only I aint gonna pay more'n a fiver cos it aint worth it.
Shopkeeper: Well it's come from a very good home - it's house trained.
Customer: (long think, goes to door, looks at ads again) Chest of drawers? Chest. Drawers. I'd like some chest of drawers please.
Shopkeeper: Yes, sir.
Customer: Does it go?
Shopkeeper: Er, it's over there in the corner. (indicates a wooden chest of drawers)
Customer: Oh. (goes to door, runs his finger down the list of adverts) Pram for sale. Any offers. I'd like a bit of pram please.
Shopkeeper: Ah yes, sir. That's in good condition.
Customer: Oh good, I like them in good condition, eh? Eh?
Shopkeeper: Yes, here it is you see. (picks up pram)
Customer: (looks, pauses, goes back to the door, runs finger again) Babysitter. No, it's a babysitter. Babysitter?
Shopkeeper: Babysitter.
Customer: Babysitter - I don't want a babysitter. Be a blood donor - that's it. I'd like to give some blood please, argh! (shopkeeper shakes head) Oh spit. Which one is it? (shopkeeper slips him a card from out of his pocket) Blond prostitute will indulge in any sexual activity for four quid a week. What does that mean?
* * *
Return to the sketches index
The Ministry of Silly Walks
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 14
* * *
About the Sketch:
Not only did the sketch appear in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 14, it also performed live in the Movie - 'Live at the Hollywood Bowl'.
* * *
The cast:
MINISTER
John Cleese
SHOPKEEPER
Terry Jones
MR PUDEY
Eric Idle
* * *
The sketch:
(A man dressed in suit complete with bowler hat comes into shop. He has a silly walk and keeps doing little jumps and then three long paces without moving the top of his body. He buys a paper, then we follow him as he leaves the shop.)
Minister: 'Times' please.
Shopkeeper: Oh yes sir, here you are.
Minister: Thank you.
Shopkeeper: Cheers.
(The Minister leaves the shop, from which we see a line of gas men stretching back up the road to Mrs Pinnet,s house (as featured in the New Gas Cooker Sketch), and walks off in an indescribably silly manner. Cut to him proceeding along Whitehall, and into a building labelled 'Ministry of Silly Walks '.
Inside the building he passes three other men, each walking in their own eccentric way. Cut to an office; a man is sitting waiting. The minister enters eccentrically.)
Minister: Good morning. I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, but I'm afraid my walk has become rather sillier recently, and so it takes me rather longer to get to work. (sits at desk) Now then, what was it again?
Mr Pudey: Well sir, I have a silly walk and I'd like to obtain a Government grant to help me develop it.
Minister: I see. May I see your silly walk?
Mr Pudey: Yes, certainly, yes.
(He gets up and does a few steps, lifting the bottom part of his left leg sharply at every alternate pace. He stops.)
Minister: That's it, is it?
Mr Pudey: Yes, that's it, yes.
Minister: lt's not particularly silly, is it? I mean, the right leg isn't silly at all and the left leg merely does a forward aerial half turn every alternate step.
Mr Pudey: Yes, but I think that with Government backing I could make it very silly.
Minister: (rising) Mr Pudey, (he walks about behind the desk in a very silly fashion) the very real problem is one of money. I'm afraid that the Ministry of Silly Walks is no longer getting the kind of support it needs. You see there's Defence, Social Security, Health, Housing, Education, Silly Walks ... they're all supposed to get the same. But last year, the Government spent less on the Ministry of Silly Walks than it did on National Defence! Now we get £348,000,000 a year, which is supposed to be spent on all our available products. (he sits down) Coffee?
Mr Pudey: Yes please.
Minister: (pressing intercom) Now Mrs Two-Lumps, would you bring us in two coffees please?
Intercom Voice: Yes, Mr Teabag.
Minister: ... Out of her mind. Now the Japanese have a man who can bend his leg back over his head and back again with every single step. While the Israelis... here's the coffee.
(Enter secretary with tray with two cups on it. She has a particularly jerky silly walk which means that by the time she reaches the minister there is no coffee left in the cups. The minister has a quick look in the cups, and smiles understandingly.)
Minister: Thank you - lovely. (she exits still carrying tray and cups) You're really interested in silly walks, aren't you?
Mr Pudey: Oh rather. Yes.
Minister: Well take a look at this, then.
(He products a projector from beneath his desk already spooled up and plugged in. He flicks a switch and it beams onto the opposite wall. The film shows a sequence of six old-fashioned silly walkers. The film is old silent-movie type, scratchy, jerky and 8mm quality. All the participants wear 1900's type costume. One has huge shoes with soles a foot thick, one is a woman, one has. very long 'Little Tich' shoes. Cut back to office. The minister hurls the projector away. Along with papers and everything else on his desk. He leans forward.)
Minister: Now Mr Pudey. I'm not going to mince words with you. I'm going to offer you a Research Fellowship on the Anglo-French
Mr Pudey: La Marche Futile?
(Cut to two Frenchmen, wearing striped jerseys and berets, standing in a field with a third man who is entirely covered by a sheet.)
First Frenchman: Bonjour ... et maintenant ... comme d'habitude, au sujet du Le Marché Commun. Et maintenant, je vous presente, encore une fois, mon ami, le pouf célèbre, Jean-Brian Zatapathique. (he removes his moustache and sticks it onto the other Frenchman)
Second Frenchman: Merci, mon petit chou-chou Brian Trubshawe. Et maintenant avec les pieds à droite, et les pieds au gauche, et maintenant l'Anglais-Française Marche Futile, et voilà
(They unveil the third man and walk off He is facing to camera left and appears to be dressed as a city gent; then he turns about face and we see on his fight half he is dressed au style francais. He moves off into the distance in eccentric speeded-up motion.)
* * *
Return to the sketches index
The Piranha Brothers
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 14
* * *
About the Sketch:
This sketch not only appeared in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 14, it was also performed on their Album - Another Monty Python Record'.
The cast:
VOICE OVER
Eric Idle
PRESENTER
John Cleese
MRS. SIMMEL
Michael Palin
INTERVIEWER
Eric Idle
HARRY 'SNAPPER' ORGANS
Terry Jones
VINCE SNETTERTON-LEWIS
Graham Chapman
STIG O'TRACEY
Eric Idle
MRS. O'TRACEY
Graham Chapman
GLORIA
John Cleese
CRIMINOLOGIST
Graham Chapman
LUIGI VERCOTTI
Michael Palin
SECOND INTERVIEWER
Terry Jones
POLICEMAN
Graham Chapman
* * *
The sketch:
Voic
e Over: And now a choice of viewing on BBC Television. Just started on BBC2, the semi final of Episode 3 of 'Kierkegaard's Journals', staring Richard Chamberlain, Peggy Mount and Billy Bremer, and on BBC1, 'Ethel the Frog'
Introduction sort of music with Caption 'ETHEL THE FROG' Cut to Presenter sitting behind desk)
Presenter: Good evening. On 'Ethel the Frog' tonight we look at violence The violence of British Gangland. Last Tuesday a reign of terror was ended when the notorious Piranha brothers, Doug and Dinsdale, after one of the most extraordinary trials in British legal history, were sentenced to 400 years imprisonment for crimes of violence. We examined the rise to power of the Piranhas, the methods they used to subjugate rival gangs and their subsequent tracking down and capture by the brilliant Superintendent Harry 'Snapper' Organs of Q Division. Doug and Dinsdale Piranha were born, on probation, in a small house in Kipling Road, Southwark, the eldest sons in a family of sixteen. Their father Arthur Piranha, a scrap metal dealer and TV quizmaster, was well known to the police, and a devout Catholic. In 1928 he had married Kitty Malone, an up-and-coming East End boxer. Doug was born in February 1929 and Dinsdale two weeks later; and again a week after that. Someone who remembers them well was their next door neighbour, Mrs April Simnel.
Mrs Simmel: Oh yes Kipling Road was a typical 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 no......yes. Cheerful and violent. I remember Doug was keen on boxing, but when he learned to walk he took up putting the boot in the groin. He was very interested in that. His mother had a terrible job getting him to come in for tea. Putting his little boot in he'd be, bless him. All the kids were like that then, they didn't have their heads stuffed with all this Cartesian dualism.
Presenter: At the age of fifteen Doug and Dinsdale started attending the Ernest Pythagoras Primary School in Clerkenwell. When the Piranhas left school they were called up but were found by an Army Board to be too unstable even for National Service. Denied the opportunity to use their talents in the service of their country, they began to operate what they called 'The Operation'... They would select a victim and then threaten to beat him up if he paid the so-called protection money. Four months later they started another operation which the called 'The Other Operation'. In this racket they selected another victim and threatened not to beat him up if he didn't pay them. One month later they hit upon 'The Other Other Operation'. In this the victim was threatened that if he didn't pay them, they would beat him up. This for the Piranha brothers was the turning point.
(Cut to Superintendent Organs - Subtitle: Harry "Snapper" Organs)
Organs: Doug and Dinsdale Piranha now formed a gang, which the called 'The Gang' and used terror to take over night clubs, billiard halls, gaming casinos and race tracks. When they tried to take over the MCC they were for the only time in their lives, slit up a treat. As their empire spread however, Q Division were keeping tabs on their every move by reading the colour supplements.
Presenter: One small-time operator who fell foul of Dinsdale Piranha was Vince Snetterton-Lewis.
Vince: "Well one day I was at home threatening the kids when I looks out through the hole in the wall and sees this tank pull up and out gets one of Dinsdale's boys, so he comes in nice and friendly and says Dinsdale wants to have a word with me, so he chains me to the back of the tank and takes me for a scrape round to Dinsdale's place and Dinsdale's there in the conversation pit with Doug and Charles Paisley, the baby crusher, and two film producers and a man they called 'Kierkegaard', who just sat there biting the heads of whippets and Dinsdale says 'I hear you've been a naughty boy Clement' and he splits me nostrils open and 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 me head to the floor."
Interviewer: He nailed your head to the floor?
Vince: At first yeah
Presenter: Another man who had his head nailed to the floor was Stig O' Tracy.
Interviewer: I've been told Dinsdale Piranha nailed your head to the floor.
Stig: No. Never. He was a smashing bloke. He used to buy his mother flowers and that. He was like a brother to me.
Interviewer: But the police have film of Dinsdale actually nailing your head to the floor.
Stig: (pause) Oh yeah, he did that.
Interviewer: Why?
Stig: Well he had to, didn't he? I mean there was nothing else he could do, be fair. I had transgressed the unwritten law.
Interviewer: What had you done?
Stig: Er... well he didn't tell me that, but he gave me his word that it was the case, and that's good enough for me with old Dinsy. I mean, he didn't *want* to nail my head to the floor. I had to insist. He wanted to let me off. He'd do anything for you, Dinsdale would.
Interviewer: And you don't bear him a grudge?
Stig: A grudge! Old Dinsy. He was a real darling.
Interviewer: I understand he also nailed your wife's head to a coffee table. Isn't that true Mrs O' Tracy?
Mrs O' Tracy: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Stig: Well he did do that, yeah. He was a hard man. Vicious but fair
(Cut back to vince)
Interviewer: Vince, after he nailed your head to the floor, did you ever see him again
Vince: Yeah.....after that I used to go round his flat every Sunday lunchtime to apologise and we'd shake hands and then he'd nail my head to the floor
Interviewer: Every Sunday?
Vince: Yeah but he was very reasonable. Once, one Sunday I told him my parents were coming round to tea and would he mind very much not nailing my head that week and he agreed and just screwed my pelvis to a cake stand.
Presenter:Clearly Dinsdale inspired tremendous fear among his business associates. But what was he really like?
Gloria:I walked out with Dinsdale on many occasions and found him a charming and erudite companion. He was wont to introduce one to eminent celebrities, celebrated American singers, members of the aristocracy and other gang leaders,
Interviewer (off screen): How had he met them?
Gloria:Through his work for charities. He took a warm interest in Boys' Clubs, Sailors' Homes, Choristers' Associations and the Grenadier Guards.
Interviewer:Was there anything unusual about him?
Gloria:t him. I should say not. Except, that Dinsdale was convinced that he was being watched by a giant hedgehog whom he referred to as 'Spiny Norman'.
Interviewer: How big was Norman supposed to be?
Gloria:Normally Spiny Norman was wont to be about twelve feet from snout to tail, but when Dinsdale was depressed Norman could be anything up to eight hundred yards long. When Norman was about Dinsdale would go very quiet and start wobbling and his nose would swell up and his teeth would move about and he'd get very violent and claim that he'd laid Stanley Baldwin."
Interviewer: "Did it worry you that he, for example, stitched people's legs together?"
Gloria: "Well it's better than bottling it up isn't it. He was a gentleman, Dinsdale, and what's more he knew how to treat a female impersonator."
Presenter:But what do the criminologists think? We asked The Amazing Kargol and Janet:
Ciminologist:It is easy for us to judge Dinsdale Piranha too harshly. After all he only did what many of us simply dream of doing... I'm sorry. After all we should remember that a murderer is only an extroverted suicide. Dinsdale was a looney, but he was a happy looney. Lucky bugger."
Presenter:Most of the strange tales concern Dinsdale, but what about Doug? One man who met him was Luigi Vercotti.
Vercotti: I had been running a successful escort agency -- high class, no really, high class girls -- we didn't have any of *that* -- that was right out. And I decided (phone rings) Excuse me (he answers phone) Hello......no, not now......shtoom...shtoom....right......yes, we'll have the watch ready for you at midnight.......the watch.....
the Chinese watch....yes, right-oh, bye-bye.....mother (he hangs up phone) Anyway I decided to open a high class night club for the gentry at Biggleswade withInternational cuisine and cooking and top line acts, and not a cheap clip joint for picking up tarts -- that was right out, I deny that completely --, and one evening in walks Dinsdale with a couple of big lads, one of whom was carrying a tactical nuclear missile. They said I had bought one of their fruit machines and would I pay for it
2nd Interviewer: How much did they want?
Vercotti: They wanted three quarters of a million pounds.
2nd Interviewer: Why didn't you call the police?
Vercotti: Well I had noticed that the lad with the thermonuclear device was the chief constable for the area. So a week later they called again and told me the cheque had bounced and said... I had to see... Doug.
2nd Interviewer: Doug?
Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) Well, I was terrified. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.
2nd Interviewer: What did he do?
Vercotti: He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious.
Presenter:By a combination of violence and sarcasm, the Piranha brothers by February 1966 controlled London and the Southeast of England. It was in February, though, that Dinsdale made a big mistake.
Gloria:Latterly Dinsdale had become increasingly worried about Spiny Norman. He had come to the conclusion that Norman slept in an aeroplane hangar at Luton Airport.
Presenter:And so on Feb 22nd 1966, Dinsdale blew up Luton. (shot of a H-Bomb exploding) Even the police began to sit up and take notice.
