The Ministry of Silly Walks
Encyclopedia
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
comedy troupe's television show Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...
, episode 14, which is entitled "Face the Press". The episode first aired in 1970. A shortened version of the sketch was performed for Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl is a 1982 concert film in which the Monty Python team perform many of their greatest sketches at the Hollywood Bowl. The show also included filmed inserts which were mostly taken from two Monty Python specials, Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus, which had been...
. This sketch involves John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
as a bowler hat
Bowler hat
The bowler hat, also known as a coke hat, derby , billycock or bombin, is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown originally created in 1849 for the English soldier and politician Edward Coke, the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester...
ted civil servant in a fictitious British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
government ministry responsible for developing Silly Walks through grant
Grant (money)
Grants are funds disbursed by one party , often a Government Department, Corporation, Foundation or Trust, to a recipient, often a nonprofit entity, educational institution, business or an individual. In order to receive a grant, some form of "Grant Writing" often referred to as either a proposal...
s. Cleese, throughout the sketch, walks in a variety of silly ways (including one that briefly imitates the scissor gait
Scissor gait
Scissor gait is a form of gait abnormality primarily associated with spastic cerebral palsy. It is associated with an upper motor neuron lesion.-Presentation:This gait pattern is reminiscent of a marionette...
of spastic diplegia
Spastic diplegia
Spastic diplegia, historically known as Little's Disease, is a form of cerebral palsy that is a neuromuscular condition of hypertonia and spasticity in the muscles of the lower extremities of the human body, usually those of the legs, hips and pelvis...
), and it is these various silly walks, more than the dialogue, that has earned the sketch its popularity. Cleese has cited the physical comedy
Physical comedy
Physical comedy, also known as slapstick, is a comedic performance relying mostly on the use of the body to convey humour.Physical comedy, whether conveyed by a pratfall , a silly face, or the action of walking into walls, is a common and rarely subtle form of comedy...
of Max Wall
Max Wall
Max Wall , was an English comedian and actor, whose performing career covered music hall, theatre, films and television.-Early years:...
, probably in character as Professor Wallofski, as important to its conception.
The sketch
Cleese is presented with a "walk in progress" by one Mr. Putey (Michael PalinMichael Palin
Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....
). Putey demonstrates his silly walk which, to Cleese, is not particularly silly. He tells Putey that he does not believe the Ministry can help him, as his walk is not silly enough, and funding is short. The government, he explains, is supposed to give equally to Defence, Social Security, Health, Housing, Education and Silly Walks, but recently spent less on Silly Walks than on national defence. After a visit of Mrs. Twolumps (see below) Cleese shows Mr. Putey a film with silly walks. (The segment is a parody of early 20th century cinema, complete with Michael Palin
Michael Palin
Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....
dressed up as Little Tich
Little Tich
Harry Relph, , known on the stage as "Little Tich", was an English music hall comedian. He was noted for the characters of The Spanish Señora, The Gendarme and The Tax Collector, but his most popular routine was his Big Boot dance, which involved a pair of 28-inch boots, commonly called "slapshoes"...
.) After he tosses the projector off stage, Cleese offers Mr. Putey a grant that will allow him to work on the Anglo-French Silly Walk, La Marche Futile (an obvious parody of the Concorde
Concorde
Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde was a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport . It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation...
's Anglo-French development), which is then demonstrated by a man (Terry Jones
Terry Jones
Terence Graham Parry Jones is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, children's author, popular historian, political commentator, and TV documentary host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team....
) dressed in a mixture of stereotypical English and French outfits, with a sped-up version of La Marseillaise
La Marseillaise
"La Marseillaise" is the national anthem of France. The song, originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin" was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. The French National Convention adopted it as the Republic's anthem in 1795...
played over the top.
There is a brief appearance during the sketch by Mrs Twolumps, presumably the Minister's secretary, bringing in coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
with full silly walk (Carol Cleveland
Carol Cleveland
Carol Cleveland is a British actress/comedienne, most notable for her appearances as the only significant female performer on Monty Python's Flying Circus.-Early life:...
in the Hollywood Bowl version). As she enters, the cups fall all over the tray, completely spilling their contents. The Minister looks at the tray, says "Thank you, lovely" and she exits again, taking the tray with her, complete with upended cups. In the Hollywood Bowl version, Carol Cleveland accidentally (or possibly intentionally) hops next to Cleese and spills some of the coffee on him during the sketch.
As the years went by amid repeated requests to do the sketch, Cleese found it increasingly difficult to perform these walks. He'd say, when told about a new Python Tour, "I'm not doing silly walks."
In the book The Pythons, members of the troupe indicated that they considered the whole scene nothing more than pure silliness. Cleese in particular seems disheartened that so many fans consider it the troupe's "best" sketch.
Reception
In 2005, the sketch was chosen by a poll taken in BritainUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
as the 15th greatest comedy sketch of all time (and one of 5 Monty Python sketches in the top 50).
External links
- Video of the skit (from the official Monty Python YouTube channel)
- Monty Python in Britain's Top 50 Comedy Sketches
- Montreux Festival - Silly Walks Special