Monty Python: The 4 Yorkshiremen sketch

Last night my brother and I described this sketch to his children and their partners. 

It is a wonderful parody of the tendency of the rich and the powerful to wallow in nostalgia about the circumstances of their upbringing.

Monty Python Four Yorkshire Men Sketch

Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort.

Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?

Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.

Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?

MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

GC: A cup ' COLD tea.

EI: Without milk or sugar.

TG: OR tea!

MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.

EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."

EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!

MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.

EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.

GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!

TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

MP: Cardboard box?

TG: Aye.

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..

"Karl Marx is warming up": Monty Python on political philosophy

The funniest man of all time: Spike Milligan- comedian,actor, write and poet

Spike Milligan, who I reckon was perhaps the funniest man of all time, was also a published poet. Yesterday I bought 2 "hard to find" collections of all his writings, including his poetry, from a second hand book shop. Here are a couple of his children's poems. I enjoy his wicked and weird sense of the ridiculous.

A Silly Poem
Said Hamlet to Ophelia
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use
2B or not 2B?

On the Ning Nang Nong

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Tress go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

The Bedside Milligan 1969

An Ear passed me
the other day
And silently
went on its way
I wonder who
that ear can be
And has it ever
heard of me?

Said the mother Tern
to her baby tern
Would you like a brother?

Said baby Tern
to mother Tern
Yes
One good Tern deserves another

copyright Spike Milligan

Classic comedies: Ripping Yarns, The Eric Olthwaite gang and "Golden Gordon"

Oh happy days.

Thursday this week I managed to purchase a new DVD copy of Ripping Yarns, the TV program written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones of Monty Python fame which ran on the ABC here in Australian in the late 1970's. Michael Palin plays the lead charater in each of the 9 episodes.

Ripping Yarns is one of my all time favourite TV comedies. It parodies aspects of British culture using the theme of schoolboy adventure tales. Considered a cult classic, there is now a Facebook page for fans.

My favourite episode is The Testing of Eric Olthwaite, the story of a man with a deep love of shovels, black pudding, weather and rain gauges. A man so boring that his family speak French so they don't have to talk to him. Eric forms a gang- the Eric Olthwaite Gang- that proceeds to rob banks and steals weather records. Eric becomes famous for his exploits and is elected mayor of the town.

The genius of Monty Python

Of late I have been wading through the documentary Monty Python: Almost The Truth: The Lawyers Cut. It is a blockbuster- three DVD's and 7.5 hours worth of the the history of the Pythons, from their comedic origins through to the present day. It is a reminder of the comic brilliance of the Python crew.

For me Life of Brian is their cinematic masterpiece and the Piranha Brothers, about the fictional gangland brothers Doug and Dinsdale Piranha, one of their funniest sketches.

Who can forget the exchange between the Interviewer and Stig O'Tracey.

Presenter	Another man who had his head nailed to the floor was Stig O' Tracey.
	Cut to another younger more cheerful man on sofa.
Interviewer	Stig, I've been told Dinsdale Piranha nailed your head to the floor.
Stig	No, no. Never, never. He was a smashing bloke. He used to give 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	Oh yeah, well - he did that, yeah.
Interviewer	Why?
Stig	Well he had to, didn't he? I mean, be fair, there was nothing else he could do. I mean, I had transgressed the unwritten law.
Interviewer	What had you done?
Stig	Er... Well he never told 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. There's nothing Dinsdale wouldn't do for you.
Interviewer	And you don't bear him any 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 right Mrs O' Tracey?
	Camera pans to show woman with coffee table nailed to head.
Mrs O' Tracey	Oh, no. No. No.
Stig	Yeah, well, he did do that. Yeah, yeah. He was a cruel man, 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 apologize 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 about it. I mean one Sunday when my parents were coming round for tea, I asked him if he'd mind very much not nailing my head to the floor that week and he agreed and just screwed my pelvis to a cake stand.
	Cut to man affixed to a coffee table and a standard lamp.
Man	He was the only friend I ever had.

Hard but Fair- Doug Piranhna

I was talking to a friend today who reminded me of my great love of a wonderful Monty Python Flying Circus sketch about the Piranha Brothers- Doug and Dinsdale- a pair of crazy criminal brothers (loosely based on the infamous Kray Brothers) who formed a Gang, aptly called "the Gang". The sketch first appeared in the second series of Monty Pythons Flying Circus.

The line in the sketch I can remember is the interview with one of the associates of Doug Piranha ( I think it was Michael Palin playing the associate) who said that Doug was a hard man but he was a fair man and he used the example of how Doug used to nail his head to a coffee table- but it was all right because he deserved it!!

For those not familiar with the sketch here is a summary taken from Wikipedia

The Piranha Brothers were born in the slums of London in 1929, on probation, two weeks apart (with Dinsdale born again a week later). They were found too mentally unbalanced even for National Service, and became extortionists, running a protection racket after several false starts. Having acquired enough money, the Piranha Brothers formed a gang which they called "The Gang". They proceeded to take over night clubs, billiard halls, gaming casinos and race tracks, failing only to acquire the MCC. It is said that Dinsdale was a gentleman; he bought his mother flowers and that he knew how to treat a female impersonator. He also enjoyed nailing people's heads to the floor and to coffee tables, and screwing people's pelvises to cake stands. The local chief constable was in his employ, and would help him threaten others with a thermonuclear device. Dinsdale also possessed a tank. Known associates of the Piranhas included American musical stars, aristocrats, a man named Kierkegaard who bit the heads off whippets and other gang leaders.

Dinsdale was deeply afraid of Spiny Norman, an (apparently) imaginary hedgehog who, he believed, lived in a hangar at Luton Airport and who "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." Spiny Norman (created by animator Terry Gilliam) appeared in this sketch growling "Dinsdale" while towering over London landmarks such as Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square; the giant hedgehog made brief reappearances in two later episodes.

Doug was the more feared of the two brothers. Luigi Vercotti, a pimp, claims to have seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than speak to Doug – indeed, even Dinsdale feared Doug. This was largely due to his merciless use of sarcasm, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire. Many of those menaced by the Piranha Brothers denied any ill will toward them, terrified into compliance with a code of silence.

The Piranhas operated their extortion racket for years, brazenly and without fear of reprisal. However, Dinsdale's fear of Spiny Norman proved to be their undoing, as he decided to solve the problem once and for all by detonating his nuclear device at Luton Airport in February 1966. After this, even the Police sat up and took notice of them.

The brothers were finally captured by Superintendent Harry 'Snapper' Organs (played by Terry Jones) of Q Division, who pursued them in a series of disguises including Blind Pew from Treasure Island, the Earl of Gloucester from King Lear, Sancho Panza from Don Quixote, and Ratty from Toad of Toad Hall. However, the Piranha Brothers later escaped, and presumably returned to their life of absurd crime.

A link to the script is here.