Return to the sketches indexAs featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 4
Not only did the sketch appear in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 4, it also featured in the Movie - 'And Now For Something Completely Different'. This sketch were also performed on their Album 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'.
Sargeant: (Shouting throughout) Right sir! Good evening, class.
All: (mumbling) Good evening.
Sargeant: Where's all the others, then?
All: They're not here.
Sergeant: I can see that. What's the matter with them?
All: Dunno.
1st Man: Perhaps they've got 'flu.
Sergeant: Huh! 'Flu, eh? They should eat more fresh fruit. Ha. Right. Now, self-defence. Tonight I shall be carrying on from where we got to last week when I was showing you how to defend yourselves against anyone who attacks you with armed with a piece of fresh fruit.
(Grumbles from all)
2nd Man: Oh, you promised you wouldn't do fruit this week.
Sergeant: What do you mean?
3rd Man: We've done fruit the last nine weeks.
Sergeant: What's wrong with fruit? You think you know it all, eh?
2nd Man: Can't we do something else?
3rd Man: Like someone who attacks you with a pointed stick?
Sergeant: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit. When your assailant lunges at you with a passion fruit...
All: We done the passion fruit.
Sergeant: What?
1st Man: We done the passion fruit.
2nd Man: We done oranges, apples, grapefruit...
3rd Man: Whole and segments.
2nd Man: Pomegranates, greengages...
1st Man: Grapes, passion fruit...
2nd Man: Lemons...
3rd Man: Plums...
1st Man: Mangoes in syrup...
Sergeant: How about cherries?
All: We did them.
Sergeant: Red *and* black?
All: Yes!
Sergeant: All right, bananas.
(All sigh.)
Sergeant: We haven't done them, have we? Right. Bananas. How to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. Now you, come at me with this banana. Catch! Now, it's quite simple to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. First of all you force him to drop the banana; then, second, you eat the banana, thus disarming him. You have now rendered him 'elpless.
2nd Man: Suppose he's got a bunch.
Sergeant: Shut up.
4th Man: Suppose he's got a pointed stick.
Sergeant: Shut up. Right now you, Mr Apricot.
1st Man: 'Arrison.
Sergeant: Sorry, Mr. 'Arrison. Come at me with that banana. Hold it like that, that's it. Now attack me with it. Come on! Come on! Come at me! Come at me then! (Shoots him.)
1st Man: Aaagh! (dies.)
Sergeant: Now, I eat the banana. (Does so.)
2nd Man: You shot him!
3rd Man: He's dead!
4th Man: He's completely dead!
Sergeant: I have now eaten the banana. The deceased, Mr Apricot, is now 'elpless.
2nd Man: You shot him. You shot him dead.
Sergeant: Well, he was attacking me with a banana.
3rd Man: But you told him to.
Sergeant: Look, I'm only doing me job. I have to show you how to defend yourselves against fresh fruit.
4th Man: And pointed sticks.
Sergeant: Shut up.
2nd Man: Suppose I'm attacked by a man with a banana and I haven't got a gun?
Sergeant: Run for it.
3rd Man: You could stand and scream for help.
Sergeant: Yeah, you try that with a pineapple down your windpipe.
3rd Man: A pineapple?
Sergeant: Where? Where?
3rd Man: No I just said: a pineapple.
Sergeant: Oh. Phew. I thought my number was on that one.
3rd Man: What, on the pineapple?
Sergeant: Where? Where?
3rd Man: No, I was just repeating it.
Sergeant: Oh. Oh. I see. Right. Phew. Right that's bananas then. Now the raspberry. There we are. 'Armless looking thing, isn't it? Now you, Mr Tin Peach.
3rd Man: Thompson.
Sergeant: Thompson. Come at me with that raspberry. Come on. Be as vicious as you like with it.
3rd Man: No.
Sergeant: Why not?
3rd Man: You'll shoot me.
Sergeant: I won't.
3rd Man: You shot Mr. Harrison.
Sergeant: That was self-defence. Now come on. I promise I won't shoot you.
4th Man: You promised you'd tell us about pointed sticks.
Sergeant: Shut up. Come on, brandish that raspberry. Come at me with it. Give me Hell.
3rd Man: Throw the gun away.
Sergeant: I haven't got a gun.
3rd Man: You have.
Sergeant: Haven't.
3rd Man: You shot Mr 'Arrison with it.
Sergeant: Oh, that gun.
3rd Man: Throw it away.
Sergeant: Oh all right. How to defend yourself against a redcurrant -- without a gun.
3rd Man: You were going to shoot me!
Sergeant: I wasn't.
3rd Man: You were!
Sergeant: No, I wasn't, I wasn't. Come on then. Come at me. Come on you weed! You weed, do your worst! Come on, you puny little man. You weed...
(Sgt. pulls a lever in the wall--CRASH! a 16-ton weight falls on Jones)
3rd Man: Aaagh.
Sergeant: If anyone ever attacks you with a raspberry, just pull the lever and the 16-ton weight will fall on top of him.
2nd Man: Suppose there isn't a 16-ton weight?
Sergeant: Well that's planning, isn't it? Forethought.
2nd Man: Well how many 16-ton weights are there?
Sergeant: Look, look, look, Mr Knowall. The 16-ton weight is just _one way_ of dealing with a raspberry killer. There are millions of others!
4th Man: Like what?
Sergeant: Shootin' him?
2nd Man: Well what if you haven't got a gun or a 16-ton weight?
Sergeant: Look, look. All right, smarty-pants. You two, you two, come at me then with raspberries. Come on, both of you, whole basket each.
2nd Man: No guns.
Sergeant: No.
2nd Man: No 16-ton weights.
Sergeant: No.
4th Man: No pointed sticks.
Sergeant: Shut up.
2nd Man: No rocks up in the ceiling.
Sergeant: No.
2nd Man: And you won't kill us.
Sergeant: I won't.
2nd Man: Promise.
Sergeant: I promise I won't kill you. Now. Are you going to attack me?
2nd & 4th Men: Oh, all right.
Sergeant: Right, now don't rush me this time. Stalk me. Do it properly. Stalk me. I'll turn me back. Stalk up behind me, close behind me, then in with the redcurrants! Right? O.K. start moving. Now the first thing to do when you're being stalked by an ugly mob with redcurrants is to -- release the tiger!
(He does so. Growls. Screams.)
Sergeant: The great advantage of the tiger in unarmed combat is that he eats not only the fruit-laden foe but also the redcurrants. Tigers however do not relish the peach. The peach assailant should be attacked with a crocodile. Right, now, the rest of you, where are you? I know you're hiding somewhere with your damsons and prunes. Well I'm ready for you. I've wired meself up to 200 tons of gelignite, and if any one of you so much as makes a move we'll all go up together! Right, right. I warned you. That's it...
(Explosion.)
(ANIMATION: Ends with cut-out animation of sedan chair; matching shot links into next film. Cut to deserted beach. Sedan chair arrives at deserted beach. Hunkey opens the door. Gentleman gets out in his eighteenth-century finery. The flunkeys help him to change into a lace-trimmed striped bathing costume. He then gets back into the sedan chair and they all trot off into the sea. Cut to singer in bed with woman. Singer reclining with guitar, strumming.)
Singer: And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England's mountains green... we'd like to alter the mood a little, we'd like to bring you something for mum and dad, Annie, and Roger, Mazarin and Louis and all at Versailles, it's a little number called 'England's Mountains Green'. Hope you like it. And did those feet in ancient time ...
(Cut to a man standing in the countryside.)
Man: (rustic accent) Yes, you know it's a man's life in England's Mountain Green.
((The colonel enters briskly.)
Colonel: Right I heard that, I heard that, I'm going to stop this sketch now, and if there's any more of this, I'm going to stop the whole programme. I thought it was supposed to be about teeth anyway. Why don't you do something about teeth - go on. (walks off)
Man: What about my rustic monologue? ... I'm not sleeping with that producer again.
(Cut to film of various sporting activities, wild west stage coach etc.)
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