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Monty Python Travel Agent sketch internal logic query

Started by ajsmith2, June 14, 2019, 04:54:21 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

ajsmith2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUMrkHrHWbE

https://www.montypython.net/scripts/travagent-long.php

Was wondering if I'm missing something obvious with this sketch, or if I'm just taking it over seriously. My issue is this: Idle's Mr Smoketoomuch character claims he cannot pronounce the letter 'C' and always substitutes it was a 'B'. Later in the sketch he is advised to replace a 'c' with a 'k'. And yet his OWN NAME which he states before being advised to swap a c for a k, contains a 'c' which he seems to have no problem pronouncing. Added to that, when he goes into his extended rant at the end of the sketch, while he continues to pronounce more words beginning with 'c' with a B instead, he also uses pronounces several more 'c's (including Calamari, Campbells and Cream) entirely correctly.

Surely this has been remarked upon before? Was there a point to this contradiction that I'm missing or am I just over thinking a deliberately absurd and nonsensical sketch?

neveragain

I think (though it pains me to admit it) the logic isn't sustained. The same thing happens with the Knights Who Say Ni being afraid of the word "it". Before that fact is mentioned, I'm sure they say or hear "it" without trouble.

McChesney Duntz

AND THE DINER HAS AT LEAST TWO DISHES WITHOUT SPAM IN IT!!!

EOLAN

I could excuse the "c" in his name MisterSmokeTooMuch as it is not a hard c to some extent.

I think that basically the sketch goes into such a long rant that at a certain point my idol Idle just wasn't able to sustain the logic anymore. Alternatively; the character gets himself into such an angry and rambling headspace that the defect that prevents him from pronouncing the letter C is just subsumed. Like how someone's stammer may disappear if they start to sing.

Tony Tony Tony

Reminds me of a chap I knew who couldn't pronounce words beginning with an 'f' or a 't'. So he couldn't say fairer than that then.   

Brundle-Fly

I've only just suddenly realised that The Lumberjack Song would cause absolute apoplexy now.


Andy147

He also says "cut down a bit" and "actually" before the K for C suggestion.

Similarly, when Mr Lambert and Mr Verity are selling beds, they aren't consistent in the way they exaggerate/understate numbers.

Shit Good Nose


ajsmith2

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on June 14, 2019, 07:30:50 PM
Or, y'know, you could just, y'know, enjoy it...

I did! However, CaB is traditionally a safe space for airing such comedy nit pickery and related ruminations as they alight on the brain, so off I went posting it on here in an 'idle' moment.

the science eel

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on June 14, 2019, 06:45:03 PM
I've only just suddenly realised that The Lumberjack Song would cause absolute apoplexy now.

'I go to the gender-neutral lavatoryyyy'

mojo filters

Quote from: Not The Nine O'Clock News
Have people forgotten how Monty Python suffered for us? How often the sketches failed?

Danger Man

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on June 14, 2019, 06:45:03 PM
I've only just suddenly realised that The Lumberjack Song would cause absolute apoplexy now.

The last few years feels like we are living under the Spanish Inquisition


Tony Tony Tony

Quote from: Danger Man on June 14, 2019, 10:43:46 PM
The last few years feels like we are living under the Spanish Inquisition



Hey... Oh I see what you did there.

McChesney Duntz

Is this the place to register a complaint about the "dictating"/"not dictating" antlers-on-and-off confusion in the "Biggles Dictates a Letter" sketch?

famethrowa

Quote from: Danger Man on June 14, 2019, 10:43:46 PM
The last few years feels like we are living under the Spanish Inquisition



I think maybe Reg is being disingenuous about how much he knows about the trouble at the mill? Seems very defensive.

Quote from: McChesney Duntz on June 14, 2019, 06:18:00 PM
AND THE DINER HAS AT LEAST TWO DISHES WITHOUT SPAM IN IT!!!

Yes.  The first two options are 'egg and bacon,' and, 'egg, sausage, and Bacon.'  Yet the customer still keeps asking why they don't have a dish without spam.

Andy147

In the "Ypres 1914" sketch (shortly before the Spam sketch), the Major (Chapman) tells the others that one of them will have to take the "other" way out. Padre (Cleese), having lost both his arms, volunteers, but the Major insists they decide by chance. When he loses, he tries to get out of it by asking for a volunteer (with the offer of a posthumous VC), but nobody does, so he goes back to deciding by chance.

- Why doesn't he accept Padre's offer in the first place?
- Why doesn't Padre volunteer again when the Major asks for a volunteer?

idunnosomename

Quote from: neveragain on June 14, 2019, 05:07:42 PM
I think (though it pains me to admit it) the logic isn't sustained. The same thing happens with the Knights Who Say Ni being afraid of the word "it". Before that fact is mentioned, I'm sure they say or hear "it" without trouble.
arthur says "it" once ("what is it that you want") and the head knight says it twice (refering to the shubbery).

No wonder I didn't initially get the ending as a child and the word was supposed to be

TheMonk

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on June 14, 2019, 06:45:03 PM
I've only just suddenly realised that The Lumberjack Song would cause absolute apoplexy now.
I'd never realised how dated some of their stuff has become until a viewing of the rather depressing film of the O2 shows. Particularly I Like Chinese, which removed the most potentially offensive lines rendering its inclusion pointless.

What about that one when Palin was hitting mice to make them squeak, as a form of music, before being chased by a crowd of outraged middle-aged or elderly women? That wouldn't go down well, now.

Ambient Sheep

I think the 90s / early-00s would have been worse for that one, tbh.  It's really so absurd I struggle to think it could cause that much offence, especially as it's presented as an abhorrent act.

It was Terry Jones, btw.

Ambient Sheep

Meanwhile I'm glad someone's picked up on that thing in the Spam sketch.  That always bugged me.

DrGreggles

The live version of the Travel Agent sketch is peak Idle.

Mister Six

Quote from: Andy147 on June 15, 2019, 10:12:42 AM
In the "Ypres 1914" sketch (shortly before the Spam sketch), the Major (Chapman) tells the others that one of them will have to take the "other" way out. Padre (Cleese), having lost both his arms, volunteers, but the Major insists they decide by chance. When he loses, he tries to get out of it by asking for a volunteer (with the offer of a posthumous VC), but nobody does, so he goes back to deciding by chance.

- Why doesn't he accept Padre's offer in the first place?
- Why doesn't Padre volunteer again when the Major asks for a volunteer?

They could have gotten out of this by having him say "Anyone volunteer? Just put your hand up!" which would make slightly more sense and also be another joke.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on June 15, 2019, 01:07:16 PM
I think the 90s / early-00s would have been worse for that one, tbh.  It's really so absurd I struggle to think it could cause that much offence, especially as it's presented as an abhorrent act.

Agreed.  You'd have to be a proper Mary Whitehouse to take offense at that particular sketch.  It's not like they're real mice being whacked and as you say, it's supposed to be absurdly abhorrent.  That's the joke.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Phoenix Lazarus on June 15, 2019, 12:57:15 PM
What about that one when Palin was hitting mice to make them squeak, as a form of music, before being chased by a crowd of outraged middle-aged or elderly women? That wouldn't go down well, now.

Marvin Suggs should be sacked by ITV and be questioned by the police for this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rCoseZkII0

Cold Meat Platter

Interesting how in the old cut version of the Summarise Proust sketch the contestant's hobbies of "Strangling animals, golf and masturbating" were curtailed to just strangling animals and golf, followed by a weird disjointed laugh.
Nowadays it would be the animal asphyxiation that would enflame people like Jeremy Corbyn's Loony left Nazi racist PC Stasi Brigade.

Autopsy Turvey

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on June 15, 2019, 01:08:57 PM
Meanwhile I'm glad someone's picked up on that thing in the Spam sketch.  That always bugged me.

See I always thought of these logical inconsistencies as a key part of Python's style. The fact that they choose to list two Spam-free meals, and then have the waitress react with disgust at the idea of a Spam-free meal, adds to the humour for me, I love a bit of pedant-baiting illogic. A character can drop a speech impediment when that joke's over, I love that they feel no reason to stick with it.

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on June 14, 2019, 06:45:03 PM
I've only just suddenly realised that The Lumberjack Song would cause absolute apoplexy now.

I dunno, there's something timelessly funny about a lumberjack proudly outing himself as a transvestite in a jaunty song that's meant to be about how rugged he is. I suspect nobody would genuinely find this offensive accept a handful of bitter hack activists.

Quote from: TheMonk on June 15, 2019, 11:58:05 AM
I'd never realised how dated some of their stuff has become until a viewing of the rather depressing film of the O2 shows. Particularly I Like Chinese, which removed the most potentially offensive lines rendering its inclusion pointless.

Everything is dated, if it ever said anything about the time that it was created in and for. According to Hewison's Case Against book, the I Like Chinese single was banned from radio play in Birmingham over fears that Chinese folk would be offended. I suspect, again, that very few of them would have minded it, after all it is a positive, celebratory sort of song.

Dusty Substance

Quote from: DrGreggles on June 15, 2019, 01:13:17 PM
The live version of the Travel Agent sketch is peak Idle.

He's absolutely outstanding in that. That massive long dialogue he has to remember word-for-word, in front of an audience of thousands whilst being chased by Cleese is incredibly impressive.

Idle's become a bit of a punchline in recent years for being the money obsessed Python (and, also I guess, for not writing Fawlty Towers, not directing Brazil, not being everyone's favourite Pole To Poler, not dying or not developing dementia) but there will forever be an argument for him being the best Python for that live performance.

But, yeah, logic probably wasn't at the front of their minds when the silly bunts wrote that sketch.