Mistakes that made the final edit

[Autopsy Turvey]

Rita Davies (wife of director Ian MacNaughton), who appears several times in the show, e.g. as the woman whose husband is kidnapped by the baby snatchers ("He was only forty-seven!")

Ah yes! Pleasingly, when reprised a year later in And Now For Something Completely Different, "he was only forty-eight!"

Oh and Cleese again in Vocational Guidance Counsellor, "if I call Mr Chipperfield and say to her-er him, 'look here, I've got a forty-five-year-old chartered accountant with me who wants to become a lion tamer', his first question is not going to be 'does he have his own hat?'"

[famethrowa]

Village Idiot sketch. Cleese is in bed with two women. "I may be an idiot, but I'm no fool."
He pauses for a moment, then claps his hands together and says "Right!" as if to say "The take's over, let's get out".

At around 4 mins.

Surely a mistake?
.

No! Jeez. He's saying "right, let's get busy in this here bed, ladies" in character. I knew that straight off

[Replies From View]

Also; in the scene where Alan is describing the opening to The Spy Who Loved Me in series 2 of I'm Alan Partridge, Coogan says "what, a whole sumbarine?!" (instead of 'submarine').

Was that definitely a mistake?  It feels to me like a written joke (I can't think of why anyone would more naturally say 'sumbarine' than the intended word - and it feels like the kind of joke you come up with when you are looking at a word on a page).

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Ah yes! Pleasingly, when reprised a year later in And Now For Something Completely Different, "he was only forty-eight!"

Oh and Cleese again in Vocational Guidance Counsellor, "if I call Mr Chipperfield and say to her-er him, 'look here, I've got a forty-five-year-old chartered accountant with me who wants to become a lion tamer', his first question is not going to be 'does he have his own hat?'"

In that very same sketch, Michael Palin says " reasonable wear and tear" twice when talking about his hat., having said it too early mere milliseconds before.

Also, in the entirety of the 1973 series, Graham Chapman is clearly reading his lines off idiot boards, having been too pissed up to learn his lines properly.

Feel a bit like a Python- specific Robert Webb when he needs a bit of cash outside  Peep Show" now. :-/

[Replies From View]

Was that definitely a mistake?  It feels to me like a written joke (I can't think of why anyone would more naturally say 'sumbarine' than the intended word - and it feels like the kind of joke you come up with when you are looking at a word on a page).

...sorry; I hadn't yet read the rest of the thread where this has been disputed back and forth ever since.


Anyway, my view is that some wordplay jokes - more obviously than others - seem to stem from words being seen on a page rather than a natural slip of the tongue. 

I remember thinking this when I saw one of the dreadful Red Dwarf VIII episodes, when Rimmer, who is meant to be drunk, says a string of "no"s in quick succession.  "Absolutely not sir.  No, no no, no... no," (probably not an exact quote but the episode is not worth me revisiting to check).  In what I am guessing was an attempt to add a bit of variety to the string of "no"s, Chris Barrie pronounces the second to last "no" as if it is the first two letters of "not".  So the wrong 'o' sound, essentially.  "Absolutely not sir.  No, no no, no'.... no."

It's not a mistake that anyone saying the word "no" could ever make, even when very drunk.  To me it's very obviously devised from seeing the words written down and playing with the sounds the letters make, which is very unnatural in any environment that isn't meant to seem scripted.  Dunno if I'm making sense outside of my own head here.


So that's a shit version of it, because Red Dwarf VIII is shit, but I'd say "sumbarine" falls into the same category.



Oh, I've just realised that "sumbarine" has enough in common with the word "tambourine" for it to naturally occur as a slip of the tongue in conversation.




Anyway what a load of bollocks post.  Fuck it and.

[mjwilson]

Fawlty Towers: "you ponce in here expecting to be hand waited on hand and foot" he just blows past it anyway, it's a brilliant scene and it doesn't spoil it at all

Also FT: "Good afternoon gentlemen. And what can I do for you three gentlemen?"

No way that first "gentlemen" should be there, the repetition spoils it a bit.

[BeardFaceMan]

Oh, I've just realised that "sumbarine" has enough in common with the word "tambourine" for it to naturally occur as a slip of the tongue in conversation.

I'd say its the opposite, "sumbarine" isn't a popular or well known mispronounciaton of "submarine", like when he says "codpast", that's why I think it's deliberate, it's not like there's any dialogue either side of the word that would account for a flub like that either.

Having said that, i checked the script book and it says "submarine".

But having said that, I still think it was deliberate.


It's Saturday night!

[Replies From View]

Also FT: "Good afternoon gentlemen. And what can I do for you three gentlemen?"

No way that first "gentlemen" should be there, the repetition spoils it a bit.

I like it.  He makes these kinds of slips when Basil is supposed to be stressed or concussed, so it completely works.

[mjwilson]

I like it.  He makes these kinds of slips when Basil is supposed to be stressed or concussed, so it completely works.

I agree that it's realistic but I don't think the line flows very well.

[McChesney Duntz]

Also, in the entirety of the 1973 series, Graham Chapman is clearly reading his lines off idiot boards, having been too pissed up to learn his lines properly.

Python pedant checking in: there was no 1973 series (the last three episodes of the third series aired in January '73 but were shot a year previous). Do you mean the third or fourth series? Because there's a lot of line-flubbing on his part throughout the third series (and it had already been getting bad by the end of the second - can't seem to get the line "I thought it was because you were interested in me as a human being" out properly in "The Toad Elevating Moment" in s2e13, then flounces off oddly, but because he's Graham Chapman, it's still funny), to the point that what reads like a really good sketch where GC plays an inept sculptor had to be scuttled entirely because he couldn't recall his lines. Whereas I don't recall a whole lot of such moments in the fourth, despite his alcoholism being at its worst at that point. So maybe he did require cue cards for that one. I may need to look more closely.

[Replies From View]

I agree that it's realistic but I don't think the line flows very well.

I'm so used to it that the "corrected" version feels more wrong to me.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Python pedant checking in: there was no 1973 series (the last three episodes of the third series aired in January '73 but were shot a year previous). Do you mean the third or fourth series? Because there's a lot of line-flubbing on his part throughout the third series (and it had already been getting bad by the end of the second - can't seem to get the line "I thought it was because you were interested in me as a human being" out properly in "The Toad Elevating Moment" in s2e13, then flounces off oddly, but because he's Graham Chapman, it's still funny), to the point that what reads like a really good sketch where GC plays an inept sculptor had to be scuttled entirely because he couldn't recall his lines. Whereas I don't recall a whole lot of such moments in the fourth, despite his alcoholism being at its worst at that point. So maybe he did require cue cards for that one. I may need to look more closely.

I meant the fucking third series. I just very strongly associate that series ( along with the Matching Tie And Hankerchief Album, and the good Bok) with the year 1973, ok, bub? Yer ( Chap)man is actually fairly on top of things in the fourth series, and is even entrusted with the leading role in the Mr. Neutron episode.

[McChesney Duntz]

Easy, Mongo.

So - kind of off topic, but not really - there's a legendary (possibly apocryphal) MPFC moment where GC repeatedly flubbed a line, requiring so many retakes that when he finally got it right, the audience cheered, which they were allegedly unable to edit out, so it remains in the episode. Does anybody know where that moment occurs? Or is it self-perpetuating myth?

[St_Eddie]

Having said that, i checked the script book and it says "submarine".

But having said that, I still think it was deliberate.

No, no.  I was right, you were all wrong.  The end.

[BeardFaceMan]

The script book is a typo. Your move!

[Gurke and Hare]

can't seem to get the line "I thought it was because you were interested in me as a human being" out properly in "The Toad Elevating Moment" in s2e13,

Do you mean when he pronounces it "hooman being"? I'm not sure that's a flub, I could believe it as a deliberately funny way of saying it.

[Replies From View]

No, no.  I was right, you were all wrong.  The end.

If it deviates from the original script it's because Coogan was improvising and deliberately doing it like that.  No fucker accidentally says "sumbarine", come on now.  You have to learn your lesson on this.

[Replies From View]

Do you mean when he pronounces it "hooman being"? I'm not sure that's a flub, I could believe it as a deliberately funny way of saying it.

Sooner or later anything not seen as blankly reading from a page will be taken as an error.

[TheMonk]

On Fawlty Towers- I know it's supposed to be shoddy workmanship but the business at 1:38 looks particularly lame.
https://youtu.be/sYyEIfKDwC0

[St_Eddie]

If it deviates from the original script it's because Coogan was improvising and deliberately doing it like that.  No fucker accidentally says "sumbarine", come on now.  You have to learn your lesson on this.

It's an incredibly long speech from Coogan where he has to talk inordinately quickly.  It would hardly be surprising for him to have slightly stumbled over a single word within that entire speech.  Try saying 'submarine' ten or so times quickly, without taking a breath.  It's very easy to accidentally say "sumbarine".

[Replies From View]

It's an incredibly long speech from Coogan where he has to talk inordinately quickly.  It would hardly be surprising for him to have slightly stumbled over a single word within that entire speech.  Try saying 'submarine' ten or so times quickly, without taking a breath.  It's very easy to accidentally say "sumbarine".

Except he didn't say "submarine" ten times in a row without taking a breath.  This is precisely where you are going wrong.

[St_Eddie]

Except he didn't say "submarine" ten times in a row without taking a breath.  This is precisely where you are going wrong.

No, but he said the word multiple times within a short span of time, whist delivering a long and complex monologue.  It's perfectly conceivable that he accidentally mispronounced the word a single time during said monologue.

[BeardFaceMan]

It's also perfectly conceivable that he did it on purpose as he mispronounced it a way that no one does in real life, and he has a record of mispronouncing words in that way that is still in his work today, like 'codpast' in From The Oasthouse, or 'clantily scad beauties' in This Time.

[McChesney Duntz]

Do you mean when he pronounces it "hooman being"? I'm not sure that's a flub, I could believe it as a deliberately funny way of saying it.

Maybe. Doesn't play that way to me - seemed like he was having trouble getting the line out (even if the "hooman" was deliberate).

[Dave The Triffids]

My fucking wife has an ass in her cock in the driveway

I was hoping this would get a mention.  If it was a mistake, it's a great one - it really adds to William H Macy's anguish and anger in that scene.

[neveragain]

Maybe. Doesn't play that way to me - seemed like he was having trouble getting the line out (even if the "hooman" was deliberate).

Chapman's 'hooman' was definitely a flub, he rushes the sentence leading up to it and gets in a little muddle. At the other end of the scale, I have no reason not to believe that Coogan is meticulous in practicing his delivery.

Back to Python, Cleese must have been the most regular flubber. I'm quite fond of his "or I'll have to shoot you thro the head" in the Cheese Shop.

[Autopsy Turvey]

Chapman's 'hooman' was definitely a flub, he rushes the sentence leading up to it and gets in a little muddle. At the other end of the scale, I have no reason not to believe that Coogan is meticulous in practicing his delivery.

I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, it is a hurriedly garbled line and that's not how Chapman pronounces 'human'; on the other, I always understood what he said, and Peter Cook as Clive says 'hooman' all the time. On balance, I'm not sure it warrants a retake, as the timing of the exit is immaculate, I'd say.

[mojo filters]

Chapman's 'hooman' was definitely a flub, he rushes the sentence leading up to it and gets in a little muddle. At the other end of the scale, I have no reason not to believe that Coogan is meticulous in practicing his delivery.

[My emboldening]

I totally agree. Just from my memory of the interview rounds Coogan did for Philomena I recall him specifically mentioning how he would insert mispronounciations into Partridge to subtly round out the character, hence I find it hard to believe "sumbarine" was any kind of mistake that slipped through.

[Thomas]

It's pronounced Steve Cugan.

[An tSaoi]

Village Idiot sketch. Cleese is in bed with two women. "I may be an idiot, but I'm no fool."
He pauses for a moment, then claps his hands together and says "Right!" as if to say "The take's over, let's get out".
Surely a mistake?

In the Village Idiot sketch, Cleese clapping his hands and going "Right!" refers to having two women in bed[nb]He's about to sex with them!![/nb], following as it does the line about him "not (being) a fool".

No! Jeez. He's saying "right, let's get busy in this here bed, ladies" in character. I knew that straight off

I'm not convinced. There's something off about the timing if it's a scripted part of the scene. The part where Idle's voiceover beings feels like the moment when you would cut. It just lingers for a second more than you would expect. To me it looks more like Cleese is about to get up out of bed rather than get down to it.

To me that looks like a similar thing they did with the Mr Show Larry Flynt parody sketch, where they used a longer edit than was planned because what happened after made it funnier. So not a mistake as such, but footage used after the person being filmed thought their job was done.

This seems a bit more plausible.