Home > Monty Python's Flying Circus

The War Against Pornography

NARRATOR: In the modern Britain, united under a great leader,

it's the housewives of Britain who are getting things moving.

Here, a coach load of lovely ladies are on their way

to speed up production in a car factory.

And here we are, boys, it's the no-hurry brigade,

hanging around for endless overtime.

And just watch these gallant girls go into action.

Not working fast enough?

Well, there's an answer for that.

Yes, this is certainly the way to speed up production.

This is the recipe for increased productivity,

to meet the threat of those nasty foreigners

when Britain takes her natural place

at the head of the British common market.

And how's this for a way to beat strikers?

[ALL WHOOPING]

Those spotty continental boys

will soon have to look out for Mrs. Britain.

And talking of windmills,

these girls aren't afraid to tilt at the permissive society.

Business is booming in the so-called arts,

but two can play at that game, chum.

And it's not just the modern so-called plastic arts

that get the clean-up treatment.

-Desdemona. -Come on, dear. Don't let that fool...

[ALL SHOUTING]

And those continentals had better watch out

for their dirty foreign literature.

Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Genet won't know what's hit them.

Never mind the foulness of their language,

come '73 they'll all have to write in British.

You can keep your fastidious continental bidets, Mrs. Foreigner,

Mrs. Britain knows how to keep her feet clean.

But she'll battle like bingo boys

when it comes to keeping the TV screen clean.

Better watch out for those nasty continental shows

on the sneaky second channel.

But apart from attacking that prurient hotbed

of left-wing continentalism at Shepherd's Bush,

what else do these ordinary mums think?

-Do they accept Hegelianism? -No.

Do they prefer Leibnitz to Wittgenstein?

No. No.

And where do they stand on young people?

Just here, dearie.

Their power is growing daily,

and when these girls roll their sleeves up,

it's arms all the way.

Yes, this is the way to fight

the constant war against pornography.

[PLAYING ORGAN]

-And now... -It's...

[♪♪♪]

ANNOUNCER: Monty Python's Flying Circuses.

[♪♪♪]

[SOFT KNOCKING]

[LOUDER KNOCKING]

[POUNDING ON DOOR]

Doctor!

Doctor!

Doctor!

Doctor!

-Doctor! -[DINGING]

Doctor!

Doctor!

Doctor!

Doctor! Where is the doctor?

Hello.

Are you the brain specialist?

Hello.

Are you the brain specialist?!

No!

No, I am not the brain specialist.

No. No, I am not.

Yes! Yes, I am.

My brain hurts.

Well, let's take a look at it, Mr. Gumby.

No, no, no, my brain in my head.

Ohhh! Huh.

It will have to come out.

-Out of my head? -Yes.

All the bits of it.

Nurse!

Nurse!

Nurse!

Nurse!

Nurse, take Mr. Gumby to a.... brain surgeon.

Yes, doctor.

-Where's the lancet? -NURSE: He's brilliant, you know.

Where's the bloody lancet?

My brain hurts, too.

[SIREN WAILING]

[♪♪♪]

Gloves.

Glasses.

Moustache.

Handkerchief.

I'm going to operate.

ALL: Operate.

Going to operate.

Get better, brain.

ALL: Get better, brain. Get better, brain.

Hello!

Ooh! We forgot the anesthetic.

-Anesthetic. -ALL: Anesthetic.

Anesthetic.

ALL: Anesthetic.

ALL: Anesthetic. Anesthetic.

I've come to anesthetize you.

[METAL CLANGING]

-[FOOTSTEPS] -[CLEARS THROAT]

Good evening. Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about--

Oh, oh, uh...excuse me, this is all wrong.

One moment.

[CLATTERING]

[METAL CLANGING]

Hello, again.

As I was saying...

Oh, wait, this is, uh, still not quite right.

Sorry.

[CREAKING, CLATTERING]

No, no. Sorry? No. No, not right.

[FOOTSTEPS]

[METAL CLANGING, CRASHING]

[WATER SPLASHING]

[BUZZER RINGING]

Ah. This is better. [CLEARS THROAT]

Now, tonight I want to look at the meaning of life--

No. Oh, ah, oh, ow.

[CLATTERING]

-[GIGGLING] -[STAMMERS]

[CLATTERING]

[SQUABBLING, GRUNTING]

[CLATTERING]

[METAL CLANGING]

[COW MOOS]

[FOOTSTEPS]

[EXPLOSION, METAL CLANGING]

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

Hmm. Oh, well. This will do nicely.

[CLEARS THROAT] Good evening.

Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about the meaning of life in the context of--

[SCREAMS]

The Nine O'clock News, which was to have followed,

has been cancelled tonight,

so that we can bring you the quarterfinals

of the All-Essex Badminton Championship.

Your commentator, as usual, is Edna O'Brien.

O'BRIEN: Hello, fans. Begorra, and to be sure

there's some fine badminton down here in Essex this afternoon.

We really--

[DOORBELL RINGS]

-Hmm... George? -Yes, Gladys?

There's a man at the door with a moustache.

Tell him I already got one.

All right, all right, all right. What's he want then?

He says do we want a documentary on mollusks.

-Mollusks? -Yes.

-What's he mean, "mollusks"? -Mollusks!

Gastropods, lamellibranches, cephalopods.

Oh, mollusks, I thought you said "bacon".

All right, all right, all right.

-What's he charge then? -It's free.

Oh, where does he want us to sit?

He says yes.

Good evening. Tonight, mollusks.

The mollusk is a soft-bodied, unsegmented, invertebrate animal, usually protected by a large shell.

One of the most numerous groups of invertebrates, it is exceeded in number of species only by the arthropods, viz.

Not very interesting, is it?

-What? -I was talking to him.

Oh. Anyway, the typical mollusk, viz., a snail, consists of a prominent muscular portion, the head-foot, a visceral mass, and a shell, which is secreted by the free edge of the mantle.

-Dreadful, isn't it? -What?

I was talking to him.

Oh. Well, anyway, in some mollusks, however, viz., slugs, the shell is absent or rudimentary.

Switch him off.

Whereas in others, viz., cephalopods the head-foot is greatly modified, and forms tentacles, viz., the squid.

-What are you doing? -Switching you off.

-What? Don't you like it? -Oh, it's dreadful.

-Embarrassing. -Is it?

Yes, it's perfectly awful.

Disgraceful. I don't know how they got the nerve to put it on.

It's so boring.

Well, it's not much of a subject, is it? Be fair.

What do you think, George?

Oh, give him another 20 seconds.

-All right. -Oh, um, anyway, the majority of mollusks are included in three large groups:

The gastropods, the lamellibranches and the cephalopods.

We know that.

However, what is more interesting is the, uh, mollusks', uh, s-sex life.

Ooh.

Yes, the mollusk is a randy little fellow, whose primitive brain scarcely strays from the subject of you-know-what.

-Disgusting. -Ought not to be allowed.

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? -Disgusting.

-But more interesting. -Oh, yes.

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.

Up with the shell and they're at it.

What about the lamellibranches?

I'm coming to them.

The great scallop.

Pwah! This tatty, scrofulous old rapist is second in depravity only to the common clam.

This latter is a right whore.

A harlot. A trollop.

A cynical, bed-hopping, firm-breasted,

Rabelaisian bit of seafood, that makes Fanny Hill look like a dead pope.

And finally, among the lamellibranch 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.

-Have you got one? -Here.

-Let's kill it. -Yeah.

Disgusting!

There, yeah, that'll teach it.

Well, thank you for a very interesting program.

Oh, not at all. Thank you.

-Yes, that was very nice. -Thank you.

-Oh, thank you. -And good night.

And now a word from the man in the--

-Street. -Anyway.

[BABY TALK]

[BABY TALK]

Hello. Oh, and dear little fellow. Hey, hey. Look at him.

Oh, aye, little twinkle in his eye.

[BABY TALK]

Oh, he is a little dear, isn't he?

But you shouldn't let him suck on a dummy, my dear.

Oh, my God. No! Don't touch it.

[SUCTIONING]

[ALL SCREAMING]

[WHEELS CREAKING]

[MUMBLING INDISTINCTLY]

The minister for not listening to people toured Batley today to investigate allegations of victimization in home-loan improvement grants made last week by the shadow minister for judging people at first sight to be marginally worse than they actually are.

At the Home Office, the minister for inserting himself in between chairs and walls in men's clubs was at his desk after a short illness.

He spent the morning dealing with the Irish situation, and later in the day, had long discussions with the minister for running up stairs two at a time, flinging the door open, saying: "Ha, ha, caught you, Mildred."

In the Commons, there was another day of heated debate on the third reading of the Trade Practices Bill.

Mr. Roland Penrose, the undersecretary for making deep growling noises...

[GROWLS]

...launched a bitter personal attack on the ex-minister for delving deep into a black satin bag and producing a tube of Euthymol toothpaste.

Later in the debate, the junior minister for being frightened by any kind of farm machinery, challenged the undersecretary of state for hiding from Terence Rattigan to produce the current year's trading figures, as supplied by the Department of Stealing Packets of Bandages

From the Self-Service at Timothy White's, and Selling Them Again at a Considerable Profit.

Parliament rose at 11:30, and, crawling along a dark passageway into the old rectory, broke down the door to the serving hatch, painted the spare room, and next weekend, they'll be able to make a start on the boy's bedroom, while Amy and Roger, up in London for two days, go to see the mysterious Mr. Grenville.

He in turn has been revealed by D'Arcy as less than an honest man.

Sybil feels once again a resurgence of her old affection, and she and Boileau return to a little house in Clermont-Ferrand.

The kind of two-up, two-down house that most French workers, and, indeed, most workers throughout the European community, are living in today.

PRESENTER: The ease of construction, using on-site prefabrication facilities, makes cheap housing a reality.

The walls of these houses are lined with pre-stressed asbestos, which keeps the house warm and snugly, and ever so safe from the big bad rabbit, who can scratch and scratch for all he's worth, but he just can't get into Porky's house.

Where is Porky?

Here he is.

What a funny little chap.

But Porky's one of the lucky ones.

He survived the urban upheaval of the '30s and '40s.

For him, Jarrow is still just a memory.

The hunger marches, the East End riots,

the collapse of the Labour government in 1931.

Dim reminders of the days before

a newfound affluence swept the land,

making it clean and tidy,

and making all the shops full of nice things,

lovely choo-choo trains and toys,

and shiny cars that go vroom, vroom, vroom.

And everybody was happy and singing all the day long, and nobody saw the big bad rabbit ever again.

But of course, it's all very easy to blame the big, bad rabbit when by-elections are going against the government.

But how often do you think we should be blaming ourselves?

Because, you know, that's where we ought to start looking.

[♪♪♪]

MAN READS:

Hello. All the activity you can see here in progress, is part of the intricate-- Ah.

--preparations for the British naval expedition to Lake Pahoe.

The leader of the expedition is Sir Jane Russell.

What is the main purpose of your expedition?

Well, this is a completely uncharted lake, with like hitherto unclassified marine life, man, so the whole scene's wide open for scientific exploration.

One can see the immense amount of preparation involved.

Have there been difficulties in setting up this venture?

Well, the real hang-up was with the bread, man, but when the top-brass pigs came through, we got it together in a couple of moons.

Commodore Betty Grable, who's a real sub-aqua head, has got it together diving-wise, and, like, the whole gig's

-been a real gas, man. -Thank you.

Lieutenant Commander Dorothy Lamour.

Pieces of eight.

Dorothy, you're in charge of the security and liaison for this operation.

Right on.

You've kept this all very hush-hush so far, shipmate.

Yeah, it's been, uh, really heavy, man, with all these freaks from the fascist press trying to blow the whole scene.

There's no doubt about it, this expedition does have some rather unusual aspects, Jim lad.

For starters, why do the senior personnel all bear the names of Hollywood film stars of the '40s, and female ones at that? Shiver me timbers, 'tis the black spot.

And secondly-- I be not afraid of thee, Blind Pew.

--why do they talk this rather strange, stilted, underground jargon--?

Belay the main brace, Squire Trelawney.

This be my ship now. Ha, ha.

Ah. A tranquillizing dart fired by the cowardly BBC health-department dogs.

They've done filled me full of chlorpromazine. Damn.

[SCREAMS]

I'm sorry about my colleague's unconventional behavior.

The navy's out of sight. Come together with the RN.

It really is something other than else.

[♪♪♪]

Can you dig it, man?

Hello. I'm sorry about my colleague's rather unconventional behavior just now, but, uh, things haven't been too easy for him recently.

Trouble at home. Rather confidential, so I can't give you all the details, interesting though they are.

[MUMBLING] Three bottles of rum with a Weetabix and so forth.

Anyway-- Apparently, the girl wasn't even, uh--

Anyway, the activity you see behind me--

It's the mother I feel sorry for.

I-I'll start again.

The activity you see is part of the preparations for the new naval expedition to Lake Pahoe.

The man in charge of this expedition is Vice Admiral Sir John Cunningham.

-Sir John, hello there. Hello. -Oh, hello.

Well, first of all, I'd like to apologize for the behavior of certain of my colleagues you may have seen earlier.

But they are from broken homes, circus families and so on.

And they are in no way representative of the new, modern, improved British navy.

There is a small, vociferous minority.

And may I take this opportunity of emphasizing that there is no cannibalism in the British navy.

Absolutely none.

And when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount, more than I'm prepared to admit.

But all new ratings are warned that if they wake up in the morning, and find any tooth marks at all, anywhere on their bodies, they're to tell me immediately, so that I can immediately take every measure to hush the whole thing up.

And finally, necrophilia is right out.

Now, this expedition is primarily to investigate reports of cannibalism and necrophilia in--

This expedition is primarily to investigate reports of unusual marine life in the as yet uncharted Lake Pahoe.

And, uh, where exactly is the lake?

Uh, 22-A Runcorn Avenue, I think.

-Yes, that's right, 22-A. -Runcorn Avenue?

Yes, i-it's just by Blenheim Crescent. Do you know it?

You mean it's in, uh, an ordinary street?

Of course it's not ordinary, it's got a lake in it.

Yes, but I--

Look, how many streets do you know that have got lakes in them?

You mean--? Is it very large?

Of course it's not large.

You couldn't get a large lake in Runcorn Avenue.

You'd have to knock down the tobacconist's.

Jenkins, no!

[♪♪♪]

I'm now standing in Runcorn Avenue.

Sir John, where exactly is the lake?

Now, let's see, that's 18, that's 20, so this must be the one.

Um, excuse me, um--

-Yes, this is the one all right. -But it's an ordinary house.

Look, I'm getting irritated with this line of questioning.

But it doesn't even look like a lake.

Your whole approach since this interview started has been to mock the navy.

When I think that it was for the likes of you

I had both my legs blown off--

You haven't had both your legs blown off.

I was talking metaphorically, you fool.

Jenkins, put that down.

Right, is the equipment ready?

Diving equipment all ready, man.

Right. Now, quite simply, the approach to Lake Pahoe is up the steps, and then we come to the shores of the lake.

Now, I'm going to press the bell just to see if there's anyone in.

[DOORBELL RINGS]

Hello.

Good morning. I'm looking for a Lake Pahoe.

There's a Mr. Padgett.

No, no, a lake.

There's no lake here, mate. This is Runcorn Avenue.

What's that camera doing?

Camera? What's he want?

Oh, are we on the telly?

He's looking for a lake.

Lake Pahoe.

Oh, you want downstairs, 22-A. The basement.

Ah. Thank you very much. Good morning.

Come on men, downstairs.

-Were you successful, Sir John? -It's in the basement.

In the basement?

Pieces of eight.

-[GROANS] -[BIRD THUDS]

Hello?

Ooh, I think it's someone about the damp.

Hello?

Tell them about the bleeding rats too.

I know. Yes?

SIR JOHN: Good morning.

Is this Lake Pahoe?

Well, I don't know about that, but it's bleeding damp.

Are you from the council?

SIR JOHN: No. We are the official British naval expedition to this lake.

May we come in?

Hang on.

[SCREAMS]

-Bloody sharks. -Get back in.

-Get in. -Get in.

Well, that would appear to be the end of the expedition.

Magna Carta, was it a document signed at Runnymede in 1215 by King John, pledging independence to the English barons, or was it a piece of chewing gum on a bedspread in Dorset?

The latter idea is the brainchild of a man new to the field of historical research.

Mr. Badger, why-- why are you on this program?

Uh, well, I think I can answer this question more successfully in mime.

But why Dorset?

Uh, well, I have for a long time been suffering from a species of brain injury, which I incurred during the rigors of childbirth.

And I'd like to conclude by putting my finger up my nose.

Mr. Badger, I think you're the silliest person we've ever had on this program, and so I'm gonna ask you to have dinner with me.

My wife, Maureen, ran off with a bottle of Bell's whisky during the Aberdeen versus Raith Rovers match, which ended in a goalless draw.

Robson, particularly in goal, had a magnificent first half.

His fine positional sense preventing the build-up of any severe pressure on the suspect Aberdeen defense.

McLoughlan missed an easy chance to clinch the game towards the final whistle, but Raith must be well-satisfied with their point.

Do, please, go on.

This is the least fascinating conversation I've ever had.

Would you like to order, sir?

Ah, yes, Mr. Badger, what would you like to start with?

Uh... I'll have a whisky to start with.

-For first course, sir? -Aye.

And for main course, sir?

Uh, I'll have a whisky for main course, and I'll follow that with a whisky for pudding.

Yes, sir. And what would you like with it, sir?

-A whisky? -No, a bottle of wine.

"Fine, sir," he said between clenched teeth, knowing full well it was the most unrewarding part.

This is the silliest sketch I've ever been in.

Shall we stop it?

Yeah, all right.

[♪♪♪]