You are now in an alternate universe.
It's: Glenn Dibley's Cavalcade of Lies
From left to right: Steven Smith, Nigel Blaine, Cary Allen, Pete Weston, Ricky Noble. Not pictured: Steven Louenstryck.
Also visit our page about the Felix the Dog Band.
Glenn Dibley. The very name conjures up images of chicken jokes and singing hairdressers, of apple police and wacky bishops. When "Glenn Dibley's Cavalcade of Lies" premiered in 1969, who could have imagined that these six men from Britain (mostly) would still be making us laugh over thirty years later? In this transcript of an unaired, unshot, unanything special we'll be taking you back to where all the silliness began to examine the Dibley legend and see what these six unforgettable comedians aren't doing today. (a large pantomime rabbit is now sneaking up behind him. But perhaps they can start it off best themselves. This is a trip down memory lane, or rather .. Dibley Road?
DIBLEY ROAD
A Completely Fictional Chronicle by Garrett Gilchrist
Additional Inspiration by
David Ashe
Linus the Llama
David Brown
Justin Bielawa
Mark Wunsch
Erin Heparr
Candice Neilsen
Bonnie Rose
Laurie Stevens
And probably a few others I've not thought of
------------------------------------------------------
(FADE IN on the famous BBC Colour rotating globe logo, which does its little rotating thing as RICKY NOBLE speaks over it.)
RICKY V.O.: The BBC would like to announce that the following program was considered unsuitable for family viewing and has been censored for your protection. It contained scenes of graphic violence, including people getting their heads ripped off and their bellybuttons smashed in in slow-motion. (ripple of laughter from studio audience, which rises through the following.) There were also scenes of large-breasted women taking off their blouses. And at one point I swear the Chinese one's not wearing anything at all, though it could just be the way the donkey's smearing the whipped cream. Arnold down the street keeps saying there's a bit where you can see everything, but he's a dirty liar and anyway no one can really tell through all the trapeze-work and jello.
(CUT TO a FREAK [STEVEN SMITH] in fright wig and loin cloth, basically nude, who rings a large gong as an organ fanfare plays.)
(CUT TO NIGEL BLAINE in suit and tie sitting at a desk on a tennis court.)
NIGEL: I hope you're enjoying the show.
(CUT TO a pleasant-looking beach. A NEAR-DEAD OLD GHOST OF A MAN [PETE WESTON] staggers out of the water, dressed in the ragged remains of a presenter's suit and obviously in the terminal stages of fear and exhaustion, and flops pathetically down on the sand, gasping out ...)
PETE: And now ...
(CUT TO an ordinary suburban home. STEVEN SMITH is dressed in drag as CARY ALLEN enters. All these scenes look like 1970s British television and have a studio audience to laugh whenever something funny happens, so just take that bit as read.)
STEVE S.: 'Morning, deer.
CARY: 'Mornin', gazelle. What's for breakfast?
STEVE S.: I didn't make any, dear - we're fresh out.
CARY: No corn flakes?
STEVE S.: No, dear.
CARY: No waffles?
STEVE S.: No, dear.
CARY: No ham, sausage, bacon, and eggs, lightly crisped, seasoned, and served with a delicate orange sauce imported from the south of France, laid out in a pleasing fan shape and placed over a bed of crepes suzette?
STEVE S.: No, dear. Why don't you have an apple?
CARY: An apple?
STEVE S.: Yes, dear! An apple a day keeps the doctor away, you know.
CARY: But I don't LIKE apples!
(sirens blare, and the husband and wife look quite scared. PETE WESTON jumps in dramatically, dressed in a fascist red-and-black uniform with a prominent apple insignia on the helmet.)
PETE: DON'T LIKE APPLES?
STEVE S.: The apple police!
(dramatic chords)
(CUT TO a sylven glen. Idealized Canadian forest-type scene. a HAIRDRESSER [PETE WESTON] in a teal barber's coat and with a well-groomed hairdo, clutching a MALE LIFE-PARTNER [STEVEN LOUENSTRYCK], is singing.])
PETE: Oh, I'm a hairdresser, and I'm all right!
I snip all day and I'll dance all night!
(Show a small chorus of nightclubbers [including the Floyd Josefson singers, Ian MacNeill, Cary Allen and Nigel Blaine] in sequin-y masquerade costumes with feathers, some in outrageous drag.)
NIGHTCLUBBERS: He's a hairdresser, and he's all right!
He snips all day and he'll dance all night!
(CUT TO the register at a jokes and novelties shop. PETE WESTON is running the counter, and NIGEL is in front of it. He looks very cross and is rather a frightening sight at first. His hair is terribly slicked-back and he wears a hideous see-through pacamac raincoat. He is holding a book with a chicken icon on the cover.]
PETE: I think the problem is, it's too highbrow for you.
NIGEL: TOO HIGHBROW?? Look matey, I'll have you know that I'm as higbrow as you can get. I invented highbrow, I designed the specific arch of the brow that causes its self-placement in a raised position on the face and if I bloody well feel like it I'll uninvent it again so don't you try to pull the wool over my eyes! There's just no joke there!
(CUT TO BLACK and FADE BACK IN on a deserted-looking road. A reporter, WALLY WATT, is walking along it as reporters do.)
WALLY: Glenn Dibley. The very name conjures up images of chicken jokes and singing hairdressers, of apple police and wacky bishops. When "Glenn Dibley's Cavalcade of Lies" premiered in 1969, who could have imagined that (pictures of the cast roll over this) Cary Allen, Nigel Blaine, Steven Louenstryck, Ricky Noble, Steven Smith and Pete Weston (back to Wally) would still be making us laugh over thirty years later? Hello, I'm Wally Watt, filling in tonight for Sir Reginald Owen, who has been placed into a good Home to prevent him from harming himself and others. Tonight I'll be taking you back to where all the silliness began to examine the Dibley legend and see what these six unforgettable comedians aren't doing today. (a large pantomime rabbit is now sneaking up behind him. He looks over his shoulder and it disappears.) But perhaps they can start it off best themselves. This is a trip down memory lane, or rather DIBLEY ROAD.
(A sign appears marked DIBLEY ROAD, a bright and cheery Sousa march sets in, and we are in one of Steven Louenstryck's wonderful animations. Credits roll as it does, and we also see clips from various Dibley sketches. The cartoon ends with a Pope being squashed by a Renaissance-painting cat and with a "poot" sound we CUT OUT.)
(CUT IN on a very old, but still recognizable STEVEN SMITH sitting comfortably in a chair in a well-decorated studio. There is a vague African motif and also some Maxfield Parrish paintings strewn about. The camera is artily in close on him so that we can't see that except for a sports jacket and undies he is basically nude. WALLY WATT is just off-camera and his back is seen in many a shot.)
WALLY: Yyyeah, I think we'd better start now.
STEVE S: Yay!
WALLY: State your name.
STEVE S: (snapping to military attention) Steven Smith.
WALLY: Occupation?
STEVE S: Comedy writer ... I think.
WALLY: Very good, you get five points.
STEVE S: Double yay!
WALLY: So tell me, Stevie, the whole Glenn Dibley thing ... how did it all start?
STEVE S: It ... started?
WALLY: Er, yes. The Glenn Dibley's Cavalcade of Lies television show was a hit and a landmark in British comedy, and the team went on to great success with movies, books, and now a successful website.
STEVE S: Huh, really? I don't remember any of that.
(Various bizarre Dibley clips roll as Wally narrates.)
WALLY V.O.: What fans do remember is that unforgettable Dibley style. The Cavalcade of Lies premiered late at night in a time slot previously reserved for religious programming. In the tiny fraction of Britain where it was shown, old folks expecting to tune in to the gospel got instead a dose of Dibley.
(CLIP is of a knife-armed cook screaming and attacking a customer, with ineffective restraints from the head waiter, and the customer falls out of his chair and scrambles out the window, the knife following him.)
WALLY V.O.: Clearly this wasn't your grandfather's comedy hour.
(CUT TO an aged PETE WESTON, the "nice guy" of the Dibley crew, in a comfy outdoor setting, poolside with a drink.)
PETE: It's easy to forget today, I think, since we're old and our minds are going (laughs) ... no, we forget how lucky we were to really get away with all of that. We were on late at night and no one was really watching, or bothering us. There was a lot of freedom, in those early days.
WALLY: You learned a lot about freedom, working with Steven Smith.
PETE: Oh! (laughs) No, that was when he actually wore clothes. His formative years, he'd say.
(BACK WITH STEVEN S. in his studio. Shot is on Wally.)
WALLY: With Dibley, you and Pete Weston ... what are you wearing?
(CAMERA focuses on a wide shot of Smith, and his garb seems a bit ... informal. He looks a bit cockeyed and half-embarrassed.)
STEVE S.: Well, I thought I'd dress up for the interview.
(BACK to PETE.)
PETE: Yeah, being on television you kind of have to shed your inhibitions else you can never be spontaneous and funny like that, and the problem was that Steven never had any inhibitions to begin with. He'd go out in the most bizarre locations, in the most bizarre costumes, or half the time no costume at all, and he'd just do it!
(CLIP is of Smith's nude gong-ringer in yet another odd location.)
WALLY: The Nude Man.
PETE: That's exactly it, he got a reputation for that. ... Surely we're getting off the subject?
WALLY: Did you really think we wouldn't?
PETE: No. (sits blinking for a moment and then laughs)
(CLIP rolls. 'Tis a standard office-type scene with Pete and Cary Allen.)
CARY: Stay on the subject.
PETE: I can't!
CARY: You have to!
PETE: I won't!
CARY: Why not?
PETE: Because if I stay on the subject the sketch will get boring.
(both look out ever-so-briefly at the audience)
CARY: Very well. Carry on then.
PETE: (tatersack voice) So as I was saying, her husband's a communist, says he's a chiropractor but that's just what a commie would say, he's as red as a matador's cape, he is, and a Nazi too, his dog's a German shepherd ...
(CUT TO an aged NIGEL BLAINE, the tallest of the Dibley crew, who is on a comfy couch stroking a cat and looking very much retired.)
NIGEL: You've been talking with Pete and Steve Smith, haven't you? I can see it in your eyes. Did they say anything about me?
WALLY: Well ...
NIGEL: I knew it, spreading rumours about me again, what did they tell you?
WALLY: Tell me how the Dibley group got together.
NIGEL: What?
WALLY: Tell me how the Dibley group got together.
NIGEL: Oh! (looks oddly relieved, smiles) Well, Cary and I had been working together for a while and had gotten some recognition. There was the radio show "Oh Bugger, Can We Do Another Take of That?" which went on forever, a bunch of 1942 shows, and then all the work for Timmy Williams. Steven Smith had been hired for that, writing the odd filmed piece and Pete was in on that too. Actually, come to think of it Ricky Noble was there also, he'd been sending in jokes. We never met him, but he sent in jokes.
(CUT TO an older, not really wiser but older RICKY NOBLE, hair as long as ever, in an ugly Ford Prefect sweater vest in some sort of backstage area, perhaps the backstage area for the "Pirates of Penzance.")
RICKY: I'd been sending in jokes to the Timmy Williams shows, which were good shows, and I rather enjoyed that, but it wasn't pretty work because no one knew who I was!
(Very old black-and white film clips roll as Wally narrates.)
WALLY V.O.: Ricky Noble was born the son of a poor lavatory cleaner's apprentice in the tiny town of West Excrement. He was being groomed to follow in his father's footsteps, a smelly path indeed, but though young Richard Knowblowschtschetschney lived small, he thought big. Even as a child he was writing jokes, which no one laughed at, and dreamed of one day being funny. That break would come when in 1961 he left home, got very drunk, and vomited by accident upon the headmaster of Cambridge University. The headmaster, shocked but strangely intriuged, followed Noble on a night of binge-and-purge excitement, and when the hangover lifted Noble had been granted a full scholarship to the prestigious school.
(Back to Ricky.)
RICKY: I went to Cambridge, and found out later that I'd arrived the same day Cary Allen and Nigel Blaine, my future partners in Dibley of course, had left ... I never got to meet them.
(Back to Nigel.)
NIGEL: We met him, well we saw him from a distance, and we got out that same day because we couldn't stand the smell. Rather ironic really.
(Back to Ricky.)
RICKY: But I took a shower and got involved in the theatre department at the Footlights, didn't make much of a splash but I got my diploma ... after only six years ... and I now could say I was a Cambridge grad with comedy experience and there I was sending jokes by mail to the Timmy Williams show! I never actually got to visit the set ...
(Back to Nigel.)
NIGEL: We'd told Timmy what we remembered Ricky smelled like ...
(Back to Ricky.)
RICKY: ... but there I was!
WALLY: So the Timmy Williams show had Cary Allen and Nigel Blaine.
RICKY: Right.
WALLY: Steven Smith, Pete Weston, and you.
RICKY: Yep.
WALLY: And that was how Dibley began.
RICKY: (nods head "yes") ... No.
WALLY: No?
RICKY: No actually if anything got us all together it was the kids' show "Technical Difficulties." I met Reg Greene, who was running a small programming service there, and invited him out for a few drinks and next thing I knew I had my own show at 4:00 in the afternoon every day! I mean it was tough, they had the kids there in the audience and all I could do was sit there trying to think of something to say, and I couldn't, so the first few shows were just me, sitting there, blinking.
(CLIP OF THIS rolls.)
RICKY: Anyway eventually Pete and Steven saw this and remembered me, I'd written some of their best stuff, and they couldn't stand to see me sitting there like that, sweating and blinking, blinking and sweating, and so they dropped everything and ran over to the set and sat there with me.
(CLIP OF THIS rolls.)
RICKY: And the show was a hit!
(Back to Pete.)
PETE: That was fun. He smelled nice. Not at all like we'd heard.
(Back to Ricky.)
RICKY: We also had Ian Martini there, with Stacey Bedlam and the Felix the Dog Postcard Band, and they helped out too ...
(CLIP OF Ricky, Pete, Steve S., and the entire FtDP Band [with instruments] sitting there blinking rolls.)
RICKY: And then this American animator from Minnesota came in; he'd just come over on a plane fleeing some sort of snowslide and was confused and disoriented and we gave him some hot cocoa and a blanket and he sat there with us, and that was Steven Louenstryck.
(CLIP OF Ricky, Pete, Steve S., Steve L. [with blanket and cocoa] and the FtDP Band sitting there blinking rolls.)
RICKY: The reviews were smashing at that point but the ratings had begun to slip. The viewers were all saying that we'd gotten too big, we'd gotten away from the simplicity of those first few shows, and Reg came over and fired us all, everyone except Stacey Bedlam, who stayed on alone as the "hip new host."
(CLIP of Stacey Bedlam in full hippie gear looking quite hip and pleased sitting there blinking. He blinks rather a lot.)
RICKY: The show went on for a few seasons after that, but I didn't watch it, it was too hard.
WALLY: I heard Stacey Bedlam went insane.
RICKY: Yeah, too much blinking. Sad really. Anyway, Pete and Steve S. went back to Cary and Nigel with just glowing reviews for me and Steven L. and later that week Vivian Thomas called us up and asked us to do a show, and that became Dibley.
(CLIP of the Cavalcade of Lies opening sequence plays.)
NOTE: I have not been able to transcribe the rest of the show, as my mother taped over it to record an episode of "Suddenly Susan." Here is some more information on the Dibley team though, if you didn't know.
Johnson "Johnson" Johnson's new book "Not Nearly The First of 200 Identical Books About Glenn Dibley by Unoriginal Writers Who All Copy Off Each Other Even When the Other Book Got Some Bits Wrong and Didn't Say Nearly Enough About That One Great Solo Series Ricky Did" tells how Cary Allen, Nigel Blaine, Steven Louenstryck, Ricky Noble, Steven Smith and Pete Weston made their way from the depths of the Timmy Williams shows, to the heights of such as "Gwen Dibley's Beowulf," and back to the depths again, right up to the point where they get their own website. This includes such classic routines as the "Chicken Sketch," a marvelous Blaine/Weston talker in which the question "Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road" is taken to amazing humorous lengths, and songs like the "Hairdresser Song", the "Universe Song" ("The Universe is big, very very big, you won't believe how amazingly, mindbogglingly huge it is..."), "George Herman Itpa", "Life in General is Swell" ("So remember when life seems a cold, cruel living hell [whistle] that things are nice and that life in general is swell [whistle]"), the "Vatican Love Song," and Nigel's nasally bomb "There's Something Slimy Crawling Up My Leg," plus excerpts from the Dibleys' films "Wonderful World of Gravity" (their only bomb), "Beowulf," "Life of Christ" (which asserted, controversially, that Jesus Christ was a nice guy who'd have been fun at parties, drawing protests from atheists and pagans and more, encompassing interestingly 99.9% of the nation's populace), "Dibley Live From Inside a Very Deep Well" (criticized only for poor sound and picture quality), and finally "The Meaning of the word 'Life'" (criticized only because the main part of the film consisted of one dictionary definition and was only thirty seconds long, followed by bizarre, unrelated flashes of images for six hours). It also briefly on the Dibleys' friends and collaborators, including Jane Dewitt-Taylor (formerly Jane Dewitt-Taylor-Blaine and presently Jane Dewitt-Taylor-Blaine-Euphegel-Flindsmor-Jameson-Daws), who is sometimes credited with writing 10-99% of Nigel's work but mostly stood at the back, David Agnew, the world's most famous novelist, for one novel, who didn't stand much of anywhere at all, and Debbie Detroit, who stood everywhere, and often with little in the way of clothes on, hence her appeal, and also their musical friend Ian Martini.
WALLY WATT: So, Smithy-boy, what's your favorite sketch?
STEVE S.: that one where i am nude
WALLY WATT: Isn't that rather a lot of them?
WALLY WATT: David Agnew noted that your bottom is only slightly less well-known than your face
WALLY WATT: Has your life been just a whole big nude romp?
STEVE S.: yes, except for the time when i wore socks
WALLY WATT: A special occasion then?
WALLY WATT: :: checks notes ::
WALLY WATT: Yes, that was at your wedding
STEVE S.: no....my feet were just cold
WALLY WATT: Ah.
STEVE S.: my wedding i was wearing a bow tie
WALLY WATT: You had a lot of fights with Nigel Blaine onset, I've heard
STEVE S.: yes...one time i tried hitting him with a chair
WALLY WATT: ONly once?
STEVE S.: yes...the other times it was with a coffee table
WALLY WATT: :: egging him on :: If I were you I'd have deflated that big baloon for all I was worth
STEVE S.: if i were you i'd hit myself over the head with a coffe table
WALLY WATT: I did, didn't help
STEVE S.: well perhaps you should get a quality table from Harrod's.
WALLY WATT: Any interesting childhood memories?
STEVE S.: i ran around naked in my home town, and i have a town holiday named after me now. It's called "Stevie Naked Day"
WALLY WATT: Really? What day is that?
STEVE S.: they never made an actual date...it's just there....and that's all i care about...
WALLY WATT: Tell me about your work with Pete Weston
STEVE S.: we write skits...but i'm usually the only one naked
STEVE S.: we are very good friends now, and then, but i was always the only one naked
WALLY WATT: Can you form a complete sentence without using the word "naked?"
STEVE S.: yes naked
WALLY WATT: Mooooving on ... tell me about your work on The Dark Labyrinth.
STEVE S.: Dark Labryinth? oh you mean the maze of the naked puppets?!
WALLY WATT: Erm, was that a ... working title?
STEVE S.: working?
WALLY WATT: You know, the title used on the set, before a real title is found?
STEVE S.: oh....yes...i just never heard the word working before...is that a naughty term? I can probably use it somewhere
WALLY WATT: Mooooving on ... tell me a bit about Peter Rabbit and Friends.
WALLY WATT: Let me guess ... you gained friends slow, being naked.
STEVE S.: ....no -- i was wearing clothes for all of it, a first for me
WALLY WATT: But you were dressed as a duck, correct?
STEVE S.: yes....
WALLY WATT: Does that .... count?
STEVE S.: i was wearing a three piece suit under that
WALLY WATT: What size were the pieces?
STEVE S.: three by three
WALLY WATT: Works for me ...
WALLY WATT: Some said you weren't cut out for it ... what was it like directing the Dibley films?
STEVE S.: an....experience
WALLY WATT: You were high the whole time, weren't you?
STEVE S.: yes -- High on that wonderful drug called life!!!
WALLY WATT: Sure (snigger)
ANNOUNCER [RICKY]: Meanwhile, somewhere in America ...
(Another ordinary suburban home. Steven S. is dressed in drag as Cary enters.)
STEVE S.: 'Morning, deer.
CARY: 'Mornin', gazelle. What's for breakfast?
STEVE S.: I didn't make any, dear - we're fresh out.
CARY: No corn flakes?
STEVE S.: No, dear.
CARY: No waffles?
STEVE S.: No, dear.
CARY: No ham, sausage, bacon, and eggs, lightly crisped, seasoned, and served with a delicate orange sauce imported from the south of France, laid out in a pleasing fan shape and placed over a bed of crepes suzette?
STEVE S.: No, dear. Why don't you have an apple?
CARY: An apple?
STEVE S.: Yes, dear! An apple a day keeps the doctor away, you know.
CARY: But I don't LIKE apples!
(sirens blare, and the husband and wife look quite scared. Pete jumps in dramatically, dressed in a fascist red-and-black uniform with a prominent apple insignia on the helmet.)
PETE: DON'T LIKE APPLES?
STEVE S.: The apple police!
(dramatic chords)
PETE: Yes, the apple police! Surround the area, men, this one doesn't like apples!
(Two more burst in, one of which, Newton [Steven L.], is raring to go, and one, MacIntosh [Nigel], who is eating an apple and looking rather ill.)
STEVE L.: Hup hup hup hup hup hup hup...
PETE: Who are we? (goes into pose, all pose as they speak here)
STEVE L.: Newton!
NIGEL: MacIntosh!
PETE: Granny Smith! (look of embarassment) ... shut up. What do we do?
STEVE L.: Serve!
NIGEL: Promote!
PETE: And protect that most beautiful and delicate of fruits. (look of embarassment) ... shut up. (pops out of pose) So, filthy heathen, we hear you don't like apples!
CARY: Well, I ...
PETE: DON'T SPEAK! What's wrong with apples, you disgusting smelly little carton of day-old yak cheese?
CARY: I don't know; I just don't like the taste, that's all.
PETE: DON'T LIKE THE TASTE? Apples are the most perfect food in the world! They give you ten essential vitamins and minerals - make your teeth bright and your bones strong! An apple a day keeps the doctor away, you know! Have you ever seen a sick person eating an apple?
CARY: What about him? (indicates Nigel)
PETE: WHAT ABOUT HIM?
CARY: Well, he's sick, and he's eating an apple.
PETE: HE WAS SICK BEFORE HE ATE THE APPLE! He'll be back on his feet again in no time!
CARY: But I ...
PETE: DON'T SPEAK! Do you think that the great AmRickyan apple has gotten to be what it is today alone? As AmRickyan as Mom and apple pie, APPLE pie, it could be no other! We work all our lives for the cause! It's troublemakers like you that keep us awake at night.
STEVE L.: Every night.
CARY: Well, I...
PETE: CEASE AND DESIST! Newton... bring them forth.
STEVE L.: Yyyyes sir!
(He hops off and dramatically produces an orange and a banana. An evil grin crosses his face.)
PETE: So, apple-hater, do you know what THESE are?!
CARY: Um, well...
PETE: DO YOU?!
CARY: Yes, yes... Er, that's an orange, and that's a banana.
PETE: JUST AS I SUSPECTED! HE KNOWS OF THE OTHER FRUITS!
CARY: Excuse me?
PETE: How do you know of the other fruits? Who told you about them?!
CARY: Look, all I said was I didn't like apples!
(All scream)
NIGEL: He said it! He said it again!
PETE: That's it! We will tolerate no more! ...To hear you slander the name of our friend the noble apple .... (pause) ... well, it makes me sad. (cries)
NIGEL: Noble apples.. (sobs)
PETE: There, there, MacIntosh.
CARY: Is this a joke?
PETE: QUIET, FILTHY UGLY PIGEON-LEGGED NONBELIEVER!
NIGEL: Noble, noble apples.. (sobs)
CARY: I'm sorry, I..
PETE: SILENCE, FOUL AND BLASPHEMOUS NOO-NOO HEAD OF DEATH! So, you think you can get away with your evil anti-apple actions? Well, you think wrong, demonic disser of all things appline!
CARY: I have an apple computer..
PETE: FOR THE FINAL TIME, BE QUIET!
CARY: Are you going to cry again?
PETE: You might as well come out with it now ... you're working for THEM, aren't you?
CARY: Working for who?
PETE: DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME! Who are you? Who sent you? What do you know? You're working for CAEL, am I correct?
CARY: What?
PETE: THE COVERT APPLE ELIMINATION LEAGUE! Don't play the ninny, we know all about you ... you ... ech .. I'm sorry, I'm just not feeling it anymore.
CARY: Yes, it is a pretty silly sketch, isn't it?
STEVE S.: Mm-hm.
PETE: Do you want to stop it right here?
CARY: Oh, all right.
(and they all leave.)
STEVE L.: Hup hup hup hup hup...
(A sylven glen. Idealized Canadian forest-type scene. A lumberjack, Pete, in full gear with boots, cap, and a tartan shirt, swings an axe and chops at a large tree. But the axe hits wrong, and with a dull "clang" it slips from his fingers and he whines in an unheroic voice. Sucking his wounds he notices the small crowd looking at him.)
Lumberjack: Don't blame me! I was never cut out for this outdoor life.
Cary's Voice (from Back): What do you mean?
Lumberjack: Well, I didn't want to be a lumberjack anyway. I wanted to be... a BARBER!
(A visionary glow suffuses his face and he begins to walk slowly out of the darkened forest. With each breath his voice becomes more high-pitched and campy.)
Snipping carefully at each shining strand to shape them into a thing of beauty... The straight-back! The crew! The coiff! The mighty pompadour!
(He tears off his lumberjack's cap and shirt to reveal a teal barber's coat and well-groomed hairdo underneath. The singing of a choir begins to rise up in the background...)
Chatting away nineteen to the dozen with mincing, effeminate queens named Ricky and Edouard! Gossiping about other people's private lives! Making teenagers just the slightest bit uneasy!
(He darts out of the forest and in the next shot he is revealed in all his hairstyling glory, in what appears to be a nightclub with disco lights and odd decorations resembling hairstyling equipment.)
The smell of fresh-cut follicles! The hum of the razor! The feel of shampoo against the fingers!
(As he strides through, doing a bit of dancing, he takes the hand of a rather effeminate-looking little man, Steven L., dressed in a masquerade outfit. He clings to our hairdresser's side and looks adoringly into his eyes. The choir is loud now and there is music as well.)
With my best buddy by my side, we'd sing, SING...
(A fanfare is struck and he launches into song.)
Oh, I'm a hairdresser, and I'm all right!
I snip all day and I'll dance all night!
(Show a small chorus of nightclubbers [including the Floyd Josefson singers, Ian MacNeill, Cary and Nigel] in sequin-y masquerade costumes with feathers, some in outrageous drag.)
Nightclubbers: Oh, he's a hairdresser, and he's all right!
He snips all day and he'll dance all night!
Hairdresser: I cut folks' hair, I chat and laugh
With guys named Gei and Jyon.
On fridays I hit the nightclubs
And party 'til the dawn.
Nightclubbers: He cuts folks' hair, he chats and laughs
With guys named Gei and Jyon.
On fridays he hits the nightclubs
And parties 'til the dawn.
All: He's a hairdresser, and he's all right!
He snips all day and he'll dance all night!
Hairdresser: I cut folks' hair, I eat fried clams,
I touch up clasic cars.
I watch Sean Connery movies
And pick up chicks in bars.
Nightclubbers: He cuts folks' hair, he eats fried clams,
He touches up classic cars.
He watches Sean Connery movies
And picks up chicks in bars?!
(A brief, confused pause.)
All: ...He's a hairdresser, and he's all right!
He snips all day and he'll dance all night!
Hairdresser: I cut folks' hair, I mow the lawn,
I lust for Raquel Welch.
I drink while watching football,
And pause only to belch.
Nightclubbers: He cuts folks' hair, he mows... the lawn?
He lusts for... Raquel Welch?!
(The music and disco lights cut off as the crowd stops singing and begins instead to yell at the hairdresser.)
Watches football?!
...Hetero! Bloody hetero!
F*cking royal king of barbers, he is...
One Clubber (Steven S.): And to think I gave him my copy of "Funny Girl!"
(The hairdresser assumes a majestic pose but it is of little use. He looks worriedly back and forth.)
His Guy: Oh, Bevis! And I thought you were just a bit... RUGGED!!
(He runs off crying, and the crowd begins to pelt the hairdresser with tomatoes, booing. He wipes them off his face as best he can, but they keep coming. Eventually he shuffles dejectedly out of the scene.)
(Longish pause. The Nightclubbers, still in group formation, shake their heads. Then one of them looks up at the camera and points.)
Nightclubbers: (suddenly) He's a hairdresser, and he's all right!
He snips all day and he'll dance all night!
He's a hairdresser and he's all riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...
(This last note they hold for over half a minute)
Snips all day and he'll dance all night!
(Cut to a still letter, with a pencil finishing it. Nigel's voice overreads.)
Dear Sir,
I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the previous sequence about the hairdresser who is not a homosexual. Many of my best friends are hairdressers, and all of them are perfect mincing little poofs. In the future I would request that all heterosexual hairdressers be referred to in your program as "barbers" with all the proper disclaimers, lest there be any confusion.
(By now we see the scribbling hand, which is covered with sequins.)
Yours faithfully,
Brigadier Cristan Philips Strong (Mr.)
[Register at a jokes and novelties shop. Pete can be seen from behind, crouching down behind the counter pushing, among other things, a handgun and a bullet-riddled rubber chicken more firmly into the shelf area. We pan up to see Nigel rising up with us. He looks very cross and is rather a frightening sight at first. His hair is terribly slicked-back and he wears a hideous see-through pacamac raincoat. He is holding a book with a chicken icon on the cover.]
NIGEL: Excuse me ...
PETE: (basso, not even looking up) You're excused.
:: awkward pause ::
NIGEL: Excuse me, Mister ...
PETE: [female voice] WHO YOU CALLIN' MISTER?? (thinks) Oops, sorry. Yes, hello madam ... SIR! Sorry.
NIGEL: Yes, I'd like to register a complaint.
PETE: What about?
NIGEL: Well, it's about this joke, this "chicken joke" which I found in the annals of your "Book of a Thousand Laughs."
PETE: Oh, yes... well, uh... what's uh, what's wrong with it?
NIGEL: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, madam, it's not funny, that's what's wrong with it.
PETE: What do you mean? Everyone in their right mind laughs at the Chicken joke!
NIGEL: Well I must not be in my right mind then because I've looked it over your thousand times and have yet to laugh once. There's just no joke there! Look, let me read it to you ...
(deadpan)
"Why did the chicken cross the road?"
(dramatic pause)
"To get to the other side."
(very long pause)
PETE: Well, uh... well, look, the whole joke is that the answer is an obvious one!
NIGEL: An obvious one? The obvious answer to me would be something with the slightest hint of something vaguely amusing in it !!
PETE: Well, you see...
NIGEL: Yes ...
PETE: It's, uh ...
NIGEL: Sing it, sister.
PETE: Th-the point is that you would expect a complicated, unlogical reason for it to be crossing the road, so when it's naught but a simple logical reason, you laugh!
NIGEL: Right, so I ask you where you're going, and you say you're going to the store for a bag of groceries. Do I then fall off my bicycle laughing???
PETE: Lovely joke, it is. Beautiful use of irony.
NIGEL: WHERE'S THE IRONY IN A CHICKEN CROSSING THE ROAD TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE?
PETE: It's a statement, it is. It makes a statement about, erm, the inherent banality of life.
NIGEL: THE INHERENT BALANITY OF LIFE???!!
PETE: Yep. Funny joke, that. Lovely irony.
NIGEL: (basso) I'll iron you in a tic ...
PETE: I think the problem is, it's too highbrow for you.
NIGEL: TOO HIGHBROW?? Look matey, I'll have you know that I'm as higbrow as you can get. I invented highbrow, I designed the specific arch of the highvrow that causes its self-placement in a raised position on the face and if I bloody well feel like it I'll uninvent it again so don't you try to pull the wool over my eyes! There's just no joke there! What sort of laughter would be created from a simple damnable "To get to the other side??"
:: longish pause ::
PETE: (tentatively) Bwa-ha-ha?
NIGEL: Exactly.
PETE: N-now look, it's ironic, it is, it's a slice of life, a clever turnabout on the tired structure of the riddle, it is, it makes you think, it does.
NIGEL: Look laddie-boy ... (slams book down) this joke is quite definitely below-par. It's nonexistent, non-laughter-producing. If a person existed who would give out even the slightest chuckle or guffaw at the prodding of this non-joke we would have to confine 'im to a mental 'ospital because 'e would laugh at linoleum! It's gibberish, a meaningless conglomerate of thirteen random words with no sort of bearing, humorous or otherwise, on any human or barnyard event since the beginning of time! It should be snuffed out! Condemned, lest it frighten the children! Locked away in a deep cave where no one will ever have to pretend to enjoy it again! It's an opposite of joke, a-a koje, a sad blight on the face of all jokedom! THIS ... IS AN ANTI-JOKE!
:: awkward pause ::
I'll read it again.
"Why did the chicken cross the road?"
PETE: [under breath] ... lovely joke, never had any trouble with it ...
NIGEL: "to get to the other side."
:: awkward pause, again ::
Now, do you see me laug--- [stops short, looks thoughtful, laughs that hoarse laugh of Nigel's we so rarely hear] hahha oh, that's very good... I never thought of it like that.
PETE: You -- you --
NIGEL: Want to buy the book? Why yes, I'll buy it, along with a few dozen others for my friends.
[produces suddenly a large quantity of jokebooks, spreads them out, passes over the money, rings the register, and bags them all himself as Pete just stands there dumfounded.]
Thank you sir, and good day.
[Gives a quick salute as he exits. Pete looks pathetically at the camera. Much applause, which pauses, frightened, as Pete shoots himself and crumples up behind the counter, then rises up again stronger than ever .]
[back to interview set.]
NIGEL: We found out after the show that the gun was real. (laughs) Pete just missed, missed his own head. Good thing for him. Oh my. He had to take a little lie-down after that. For about a week. We cut the gun from the sketch after that, substituted a big hammer. He didn't mind beating his own brains in, but heaven help you if you put a gun in his hands, prop or otherwise. Maybe he really was a hairdresser at heart.
(A normal suburban home. The doorbell rings.)
STEVE S.: I'm comin', I'm comin'.
(But when he opens the door, there seems to be no one there. Confused, he closes the door.)
STEVE S.: Blasted kids.
(The bell rings again. He opens the door, and once again sees no one there. He gives a sigh, then is startled by an..)
EERIE VOICE (NIGEL): Yes, hello and good day to you, sir. I am Herbert Fitzroy of the American Association for the Advancement of the Invisible Man, or the corporally challenged as we prefer to call ourselves. My card. (Steve S. recieves an invisible business card, which he reads [?!] and then puts into his pocket. Steve S. then shakes hands.)
STEVE S.: Steve S. Artificial Flavoring. Would you care to come in?
NIGEL V.O.: Why, yes! Yes, thank you.
(Steve S.'s eyes follow the invisible visitor as he walks up the stairs. Steve S. then slams the door, which only closes halfway.)
SECOND VOICE (CARY): AAGGHH !! (Steve S. seems surprised.)
NIGEL V.O.: Oh, and that would be my assistant James.
(The door slowly slides open.)
STEVE S.: I-I'm terribly sorry..
CARY V.O.: Don't sweat it.
(Steve S.'s confused eyes follow "Cary" as he walks upstairs. Steve S. then follows.)
STEVE S.: Would you gentlemen care for some tea or coffee?
NIGEL V.O.: Just ice water for me, thanks.
(Steve S. walks off into the kitchen, as the invisible guests settle into their chairs. After a moment, Steve S. returns with the ice water.)
STEVE S.: And here you are.
NIGEL V.O.: Oh thank you. It's so rare that.. ("Nigel" makes an attempt to pick up the glass, but spills it all over the floor.) ..oh, I'm so sorry.
STEVE S.: Don't worry, I'll clean it up. (grabs a rag off the table and mops up the chair, but an invisible force seems to get tripped up by it.)
STEVE S.: (to chair) Are you all right ?!
NIGEL V.O.: I'm over here.
(Steve S. looks toward Nigel's voice and watches him get settled. As the invisible man begins his speech, Steve S. does the same.)
NIGEL V.O.: I'm sure you've noticed that my colleague and I are invisible men.
STEVE S.: Well, I..
NIGEL V.O.: No, no. We know how hard we are to miss, or rather, how easy. Yes, we are an overlooked few, the corporally challenged. Discouraged from voting, passed over by buses and taxicabs, forced to sit and watch as high-paying jobs are given to less qualified people just because they have heads and feet.
STEVE S.: I never would have guessed.
NIGEL V.O.: A lot of invisible people can't take it, and turn to lives of crime. Stealing socks, remote control devices... ("Nigel" has been leaning back in his chair, which tips over and topples to the ground. Steve S. jumps up to try and help.)
STEVE S.: (to chair) Are you all right ?!
NIGEL V.O.: Mr. Flavoring?
STEVE S.: (to chair) Yes?
NIGEL V.O.: Mr. Flavoring?
BILL (to chair) Yes?
NIGEL V.O.: I'm over here.
STEVE S.: Oh. ("Nigel" sets his chair upright and settles in once more, knocking over a few family photos in the process. Steve S. is looking a bit flustered.)
CARY V.O.: Society can embrace an invisible man or woman when it wants to. Many famous people have been invisible. Some say the fourth member of the Three Stooges, Happy, was the funniest. And what of a little dance team of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Melvin the Rock n' Roll Clown? What about Harvey the rabbit? J. D. Salinger? Vice President Spiro Agnew ??
NIGEL V.O.: Hear, hear. (Steve S. is looking confusedly back and forth.)
CARY V.O.: The battle continues for us.
NIGEL V.O.: But we do need money.
CARY V.O.: So how about it?
NIGEL V.O.: WIll you donate to our cause?
(Steve S. appears dizzy, if not downright nauseous)
STEVE S.: Oh, I don't know..
NIGEL V.O.: You don't know.
STEVE S.: Well..
NIGEL V.O.: I suppose I shouldn't have expected any more from you goddamned visibles. Big lumbering idiots, the lot of you .. You go gadding about in your luxury cars, back and forth to work with others just like you .. 'Oh, seeing is believing," you say - well, if you can't see it, are you just going to ignore it, huh? Is that it? Why don't you go off and pick off fleas with your stinking visible friends and talk about how nice so and so's head looks today.. You make me sick, what with your golf courses and Olsen twin sitcoms and VAPID, ASINE DAYTIME TALK SHOWS AND YOUR FILTHY LITTLE teeth and mouths and hands and arms and all that other tripe .. I hope you choke on your CHICKEN McNuggets and drive those visible cars of yours off THE NEAREST cliff!
STEVE S.: What?!
NIGEL V.O.: Sorry, just lost my mind for a moment.
STEVE S.: That's it, get out! (He points angrily to the door)
CARY V.O.: But, but what about our money?
STEVE S.: Here, take this. (mimes handing him something)
CARY V.O.: What's that?
STEVE S.: An invisible check.
NIGEL V.O.: But, I.. I. (The angry Steve S. grabs the visitors by their collars and throws them out the door.)
STEVE S.: Out, out, OUT!
(struggling, crashing)
STEVE S.: (turning to camera) If anyone asks, you didn't see any of this. (Walks offscreen)
IAN:
They called me up at 4:00 in the morning
And told me without prior warning
That I'd be singing here
In front of all of you (many cheers)
So I wiped off my brow and I wrote this song
Now pardon if it's not that long
It's the best, you know, that I could do
It's a short song, mmm
Yeah a short song, mmm
It's not long
I'd been drinking a lot the night before
I looked like I had been through war
I barely staggered out the door
To get here
(spoken) ... by the well, you know (more cheers)
I grabbed a pen, it seemed absurd
I could hardly write a single word
Before I left there
I must apologize, mmm
Yeah I gotta apologize, mmm
It's a short song, oooh
It's not long
Have you noticed just how damnably, insufferably short this silly thing is?
You blink your eyes and you could miss it
I had my chance and pissed it all away
It's a short song, mmm
Yeah, a short song, mmm
It's not long
Not long at all, really
It begins, it's over, that's it, mmm wow
Was that it? I didn't see it, was that the song they say?
I missed that one
Can't they write 'em longer?
It's a short song, mmm
Yeah, a short song, mmm
It's a very very very very very very very very short song
It's not long
It's a short song, mmm
Yeah, a short song, mmm
It's a very very very very very very very very short song
It's not long
It's a short song, mmm
Yeah, a short song, mmm
It's a very very very very very very very very short song
It's not long
(He is still going as we cut out.)
RICKY: The song lasted six and a half hours. (laughs) Murder on the audience.
[Ricky, singing, emerges from a toilet:]
The universe is big
Very, very big
You won't believe how amazingly, mindbogglingly huge it is
You might think that it's a long way down the street to get a bite to eat
Some candy, and a box of Ploppie-Fizz
But if you take the biggest thing
That you can comfortably conceive
Only twice as big, and all in the same place
Then multiply that by itself six hundred billion times
-- Well, all of that's just peanuts to space
It's infinitely big, and you are infinitely small
To even think about it hurts the brain
They say that it's expanding
And it's rolling, twisting, turning
And that ninety-five percent of us are sane (shrugs)
Gigantic multiplied by huge
Times immense times really pretty large
Is the concept that I'm trying to 'splain in song
I'd say it in a word
But it would seem a bit absurd
'Cause there just ain't any word that fucking strong
(calliope solo)
To survive we just forget about
How huge the whole thing is
And build a house that's relatively small
We rarely even bother just to gaze up at the sky
'Cause we'd rather all be gazing at the mall (he has one foot in the toilet by this point, and going down)
But don't forget as you are going out to get that bite to eat
That you're part of this amazing cosmic dance
And I hope that you enjoy this thing
We call the human race
'least til next August
When we're conquered by ants
(slam, flush)
(Text and art by Garrett Gilchrist. With apologies and greatest respect to the Pythons.)
Also visit our page about the Felix the Dog Band.
Back to PythoNET
Property of Orange Cow Productions. ninc., 1999-2001. This piece may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, altered, forwarded, or otherwise worked with in any way without the express written consent of Orange Cow Productions, ninc. We can be reached at TygerBug@mailcity.com.