Chapman's behaviour just *before* he puts a bag over his head is priceless! The mattress skit was actually a Monty Python experiment where they tested the theory that no matter how insane people behave, it needs consistency.
Well, reality shows that insanity does tend to have some kind of logic to it. There's a weird pattern to it, whether it's excessive impulsivity, repetitive behavior, obsessions, excessive impulsivity, repetitive behavior, obsessions, excessive impulsivity, repetitive behavior, obsessions, excessive impulsivity, repetitive behavior, obsessions, excessive impulsivity, repetitive behavior, obsessions.
My mom that the great thing about Monty Python is that things start out normal and get sillier and sillier as the sketch progresses, and this is a perfect example.
"And now for something completely different" is their modus operandi. They start out acting straight, and then start throwing curve balls at the audience. This sketch, the Architect's Sketch. The Argument Clinic, Dead Parrot, it is an evergreen strategy. Too bad so many comedians these days can't figure that out.
I was introduced to Monty Python via a cassette tape my dad owned, and this was one of my favorite bits. Though on the cassette they changed a couple lines to better fit the audio-only format: for one, instead of a bag, Mr. Lambert puts a metal bucket on his head, and instead of a tea chest it's a fish tank, so you hear sloshing water noises before he starts singing.
This is the sketch that hooked me. Summer of 1975. One of my older brothers had told me to keep an eye out for Monty Python's Flying Circus. He didn't say anything else. I was expecting airplanes! It wasn't just how hilarious it was, but how unlike anything I'd ever seen before, as well. It changed my life, it really did.
In my opinion, one of the best Monty Python sketches ever -- it never fails to make me laugh (and it's been far too long since I had a really good laugh).
To this day I cannot take the Jerusalem hymn seriously in any way. Thanks to the genius of the Pythons I now associate that song with Eric Idle and John Cleese singing in a tea chest.
To this day, whenever I hear someone talking about buying a bed, I want to start singing "Jerusalem" even though I know they wouldn't understand what I was doing!
I worked on a BBC transmitter in 1969, and I got home after evening shift just in time to see the first ever episode of MPFC, broadcast in some late night slot on BBC2. My mate, who shared a flat with me, was on night shift, and missed it. So I told him all about it next day. The following week he worked evenings and I had nights, so he had to watch and tell me the sketches. And so we went on week after week, taking it in turns to memorise whole chunks of dialogue for each other. Happy days.
An appreciation for something I never noticed before in this: at 2:47 Eric tries to step into the tea chest but trips and nearly falls over. He doesn't even flinch or let it throw him off in the least. It looked like it was an accident and not planned, but it was so smoothly done that I'm not even sure about that.
Yes, well the complaints department is over in room 12D. But really, this sketch is in violation of Section 21 of the Strange Sketch Act and has committed an offense against the Getting Out of Sketches Without Using a Proper Punchline Act.
(Cut to the Brigadier) Brigadier: Now, I've noticed a tendency for this show to get rather silly. The last two sketches were very silly indeed, and the one about the bed was even sillier. Now then, nobody likes a good laugh more than I do... Except for my wife and some of her friends... Oh yes, and Captain Johnson. Come to think of it, most everyone likes a good laugh more than I do... But that's beside the point!
How did they discover that Jerusalem was the song that would cure him? They must have gone through a lot of patriotic songs before that. I vow to thee my country, land of hope and glory, god save the queen....
These guys could make amazingly fun any thing! Gosh I miss them...and I shall do it forever because nobody could at least get to a very tiny part of their clever humor!
Lesser comedians would have resorted to the bawdy _Carol Cleveland on a mattress_ theme and garnered a few cheap laughs. In the Python universe, however, the viewer is being offered an education: As progressively unpredictable and off-the-rails as this skit may seem, the order behind the chaos will become unmistakeably clear if only you're willing to watch and listen and forget your preconceptions for a while. The rewarding experience might be compared to suddenly discovering the beauty of avantgarde jazz and subsequently becoming a lifelong aficionado, like with these brilliant Brits (plus one Yank).
I had to dig this up to show my wife why "stand in the tea chest" is family shorthand for performing any sort of silly list of operations needed for unclear reasons to get various tech to work.
You contridicted yourself there... "I love Monty Python" and yet "what movie is this from?" It's from their television show Flying Circus--better than any of the movies they've made!
"But it's my only line!" One of the best one-liners ever! Except for her incredibly shrill wailing right afterwards. Although that wouldn't TECHNICALLY be a one-liner, as she didn't say it, she shrieked it. I love Monty Python!
IIRC, "But it's my only line" becomes part of the link to the next sketch. And that's the problem with clipping the sketches from the TV show. You lose that context, and she's just shrieking into nothing.
