Monty Python's Flying Circus: The Sketches
Page 88
Fawcett
No, alas not, sir ... this was Cole Porter who wrote `Anything Goes'. Sir, I shall seek to prove that the man before this court ...
Presiding General
That's the same one! (he sings) `In olden days a glimpse of stocking ...'
Fawcett
I beg your pardon, sir?
Presiding General
(singing) `In olden days a glimpse of stocking, was looked on as something shocking, now heaven knows, anything goes ...'
Fawcett
No, this one's different, sir.
Presiding General
How does it go?
Fawcett
What, sir?
Presiding General
How does your `Anything Goes' go?
Walters
Can I go home now?
Presiding General
Shut up! (to Fawcett) Come on!
Fawcett
Sir, really, this is rather ...
Presiding General
Come on, how does your `Anything Goes' go?
Fawcett
(clearing his throat and going into an extraordinary tuneless and very loud song)
Anything goes in.
Anything goes out!
Fish, bananas, old pyjamas,
Mutton! Beef! and Trout!
Anything goes in ...
Presiding General
No, that's not it ... carry on.
Fawcett
With respect sir, I shall seek to prove that the man before you in the dock being in the possession of the following: one pair of army boots, value three pounds seven and six, one pair of serge trousers, value two pounds three and six, one pair of gaiters value sixty-eight pounds ten shillings, one ...
Presiding General
Sixty-eight pounds ten shillings for a pair of gaiters?
Fawcett
(dismissively) They were special gaiters, sir.
Presiding General
Special gaiters?
Fawcett
Yes, sir, they were made in France. One beret costing fourteen shillings, one pair of ...
Presiding General
What was special about them?
Fawcett
Oh ... (as if he can hardly be bothered to reply) they were made of a special fabric, sir. The buckles were made of empire silver instead of brass. The total value of the uniform was there ...
Presiding General
Why was the accused wearing special gaiters?
Fawcett
(irritably) They were a presentation pair, from the regiment. The total value of the uniform ...
Presiding General
Why did they present him with a special pair of gaiters?
Fawcett
Sir, it seems to me totally irrelevant to the case whether the gaiters were presented to him or not, sir.
Presiding General
I think the court will be able to judge that for themselves. I want to know why the regiment presented the accused with a special pair of gaiters.
Fawcett
(stifling his impatience) He ... used to do things for them. The total value ...
Presiding General
What things?
Fawcett
(exasperated) He .. he used to oblige them, sir. The total value ...
Presiding General
Oblige them?
Fawcett
Yes, sir. The total value of the uniform ...
Presiding General
How did he oblige them?
Fawcett
What sir?
Presiding General
How did he oblige them?
Fawcett
(more and more irritated) He ... um ... used to make them happy in little ways, sir. The total value of the uniform could therefore not have been less than ...
Presiding General
Did he touch them at all?
Fawcett
Sir! I submit that this is totally irrelevant.
Presiding General
I want to know how he made them happy.
Fawcett
(losing his temper) He used to ram things up their ...
Presiding General
(quickly) All right! All right! No need to spell it out! What er ... what has the accused to say?
Walters
(taken off guard) What, me?
Presiding General
Yes. What have you got to say?
Walters
What can I say? I mean, how can I encapsulate in mere words my scorn for any military solution? The fultility of modern warfare? And the hypocrisy by which contemporary government applies one standard to violence within the community and another to violence perpetrated by one community upon another?
Defence Counsel (Terry G.)
I'm sorry, but my client has become pretentious. I will say in his defence that he has suffered ...
Fawcett
Sir! We haven't finished the prosecution!
Presiding General
Shut up! I'm in charge of this court. (to the court) Stand up! (everyone stands up) Sit down! (everyone sits down) Go moo! (everyone goes moo; the presiding general turns to Fawcett) See? Right, now, on with the pixie hats! (everyone puts on pixie hats with large pointed ears) And order in the skating vicar. (a skating vicar and everyone bursts into song)
Everyone (?)
Anything goes in. Anything goes out!
Fish, bananas, old bananas,
Mutton! Beef! and Trout!
Anything goes in. Anything goes out. etc.
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Film Trailer
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 42
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The sketch:
Cut to the coast of Norway. Night. Tense music. Shots of big coastal guns, cliff-top fortifications.
CAPTION: Drama!
CAPTION: Action!
Build up for abut ten seconds. Cut to a cliff top looking out to sea. A grappling hook comes over and sticks in, then another, and another. Whispered voices, music, the tension rises as the rope is tightened. Then over the top comes a German, head blackened and camouflaged. Then others climb over; they are wearing haloes, pink tutus, jackboots, wands. They charge over. Stock film of guns blazing.
Voice Over (Michael)
Yes! Coming to this cinema soon! (cut to stock film of a destroyer in the midst of a pitched sea-battle; victory-at-sea music) The tender compassionate story of one man's love for another man in drag. (cut to a sailor on a ship in rough sea; he calls to the captain who is in an evening gown) THRILL! to the excitement of a night emission over Germany.
CAPTION: Thrill!
Cut to stock shots of bombers on a night raid. Cut to interior of a bomber. Various shots of pilot and navigator. There is flak outside and explosions occasionally light up the cabin
Voice Over
When the pilot, Jennifer (shot of the pilot) has to choose between his secret love for Louis, (shot of the navigator) the hot-bloodedly bi-sexual navigator and Andy, (shot of the rear gunner) the rear gunner, who, though quite assertive with girls, tends to take the submissive role in his relationships with men. (cut to close up of gritty pipe-smoking RAF top brass) And sensational Mexican starlet, Rosetta Nixon, plays the head of bomber command, (insert of WAAF) whose passion for sea-birds ends in tragedy. (cut to montage of war footage, explosions, guns firing, etc.) With Ginger, as the half-man, half-woman, parrot whose unnatural instincts brought forbidden love in the aviary. And Roger as Pip, the half-parrot, half-man, half-woman, three-quarter badger, ex-bigamist negro preacher, for whom banjo-playing was very difficult, and he never mastered it although he took several courses and went to banjo college ... er ... and everything ... don't miss it!
During this last lot are superimposed in quick succession the following captions: `Drama' `Suspense' `Thrills' `Marquetry' `Adventures' `Don't miss it' `Coming to your cinema soon'
Voice Over
Coming to your cinema soon! (cut to an Indian restaurant) Only five minutes from this restaurant! But now! (Cut to the nude organist and `It's' man )
It's Man (Michael)
It's ...
Opening titles
At the end of the title cut to tramps exactly as at the beginning of the show.
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The public are idiots
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 42
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The sketch:
Then cut to two twin-set-and-pearls ladies, Mrs Elizabeth III and Mrs Mock Tudor. They are in a sitting room with vulgar furnishings. By the TV, which they are watching, stands a small Arab boy. He has electrodes fixed to him and wires stretching from a control box held by Mrs Elizabeth III. They are watching the tramps.
Mrs Mock Tudor (Graham)
Bloody repeats!
She presses the switch. The arab boy flinches with pain and turns and switches of the TV set.
Mrs Elizabeth III (Terry J.)
Yes, repeats or war films. It really makes you want to micturate.
Mrs Mock Tudor
People on television treat the general public like idiots.
Mrs Elizabeth III
Well we are idiots.
Mrs Mock Tudor
Oh no we are not!
Mrs Elizabeth III
Well I am.
Mrs Mock Tudor
How do you know you're an idiot?
Mrs Elizabeth III
Oh, I can show you!
Mrs Mock Tudor
How?
Mrs Elizabeth III
Look!
Cut to Mrs Elizabeth III coming out of the front door in a fairly well-to-do mock Tudor detached house in its own grounds. She runs headlong into a tree opposite the front door. Repeat a few times. Then she rushes into a field, digs a hole three feet deep and stands in it. Cut to her standing beside a letter box. She straps on a long false nose and pokes it through the letter box. She drinks a delicate cup of tea at a posh café and eats the whole cup. Cut to her nailing something to a lorry. The lorry starts off to reveal that she had been nailing herself to the lorry. She is dragged away. Cut to TV planners at a window, watching Mrs Elizabeth III doing silly things in a car park below them. She has a cream bun hanging from a long stick which comes out of her hat. She walks along strangely.
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Programme Titles Conference
As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 42
* * *
The sketch:
Chief Executive (Terry J.)
You see the public are idiots ... (he has a conference tag on his lapel which reads `Chief TV Planner'; he turns from the window to a conference table, piled with drinks) Yes ... you might just as well show them the last five miles of the M2 ... they'd watch it, eh?
Cut to Mrs Mock Tudor and Mrs Elizabeth III watching TV. There is a film of the motorway on it, filmed from the bank beside a bridge.
Mrs Mock Tudor (Graham)
At last they done been put on something interesting.
Mrs Elizabeth III (Terry J.)
Oh, most interesting.
Cut back to the programme planners' conference.
First Planner (Eric)
(reading figures) ... and our figures show that the motorways are extremely popular. I mean, last time we showed a repeat of the Leicester bypass our ratings gave us 97,300,912, and ITV nought. So I do feel we ought to give B roads their own series.
Chief Executive
I'm sorry ... we just can't give you a bigger budget.
Second Planner (Michael)
Budgie?
First Planner
(to the second planner) No, he's left I think. (to the senior executive) Why not?
Chief Executive
We're not the only slice of the cake, you know.
Third Planner (Graham)
Wouldn't mind a slice of cake. Nice chocolate cake ... delicious ...
Second Planner
I had a budgie once you know, amusing little chap, used to stick his head in a bell ... what was his name, now ... Joey? ... Xerxes? ...
First Planner
We could repeat them ...
Third Planner
Re-heat them?
First Planner
No, repeat them ...
Third Planner
You don't re-heat cakes. Not chocolate cakes.
Chief Executive
What, repeat the cakes?
Second Planner
Mr Heath, that was the name of the budgie.
Chief Executive
(looking at his watch) Good Lord, the bar's open! (they all scramble madly to their feet) Oh no it isn't, I was looking at the little hand that goes round very fast ...
First Planner, Second Planner and Third Planner
Damn. Blast.
They sit down again reluctantly. There is a short pause.
First Planner
I've got it. We can retitle the repeats.
Second Planner
What ... give them different names?
Chief Executive
Wouldn't that mean retitling them?
Third Planner
Brilliant!
Chief Executive
Right -- all we need is new titles. And they must be damned new!
Second Planner
How about `Dad's Navy'?
Chief Executive
Mm, good, good.
First Planner
`Up Your Mother Next Door.'
Chief Executive
Even better ...
Third Planner
`Doctor At Bee'!
Chief Executive, First Planner and Second Planner
What?
There is a knock at the door.
First Planner
Someone's knocking at the door.
Chief Executive
Quite like it -- bit long, though, I think.
Third Planner
Far too long.
Second Planner
`I Married Lucy.'
Chief Executive
Hasn't that been done?
Second Planner
Oh, yes, a long time ago, though, they'd never remember it.
Third Planner
`Doctor at Three'!
Chief Executive
What?
There is a knock at the door.
First Planner
I think someone's knocking at the door.
Chief Executive
That's even longer!
Second Planner
`I Married A Tree.'
Chief Executive
`And Mother Makes Tree.'
Third Planner
`Doctor At Cake'!
Continuous knocking on the door.
First Planner
Look! I'm not absolutely certain, but, well I do rather get the impression that there is someone actually knocking on the door at this very moment.
Chief Executive
That's ridiculous. Half the programme gone. Stop lengthening it!
Third Planner
(desperate) `I Married A Cake'?
Second Planner
(over excited) `I Married Three Rabbit Jelly Moulds'!
Third Planner
Prefer a cake ... specially chocky cake ...
There is by now a constant hammering.
Security Man (Terry G.)
(yells from outside door) Open the sodding door!
Chief Executive
No, no. You can't say `sodding' on the television.
All shake their heads. The door is broken in. Enter a neo-fascist-looking security man in a wheelchair with an oriental sword through his head.
Chief Executive
You're supposed to knock!
Security Man<
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Sorry, sir, but there's trouble at studio five!
Second Planner
You're in security, aren't you?
Security Man
Yes, sir.
Second Planner
(triumphantly) Well, you're not allowed to suggest programme titles. (he smiles victoriously at others)
Security Man
Sir! It's the World War series in studio five -- they're not taking it seriously any more.
First Planner
You're not allowed to suggest programme titles!
Security Man
(switching on a TV set) Look!
They rush to the monitor. One of them brushes the oriental sword which is through his head.
Security Man