STORYTELLER

Eric Idle

The sketch:

(Sketch opens with five seconds of Gilliam animation. To gentle children's music, we see bunnies jumping up and down. Cut to children's storyteller in studio.)

Storyteller: (sitting with large children's book, at desk) Hello, Children, hello. Here is this morning's story. Are you ready? Then we'll begin.

(opens book; reads)

'One day Ricky the magic Pixie went to visit Daisy Bumble in her tumbledown cottage. He found her in the bedroom. Roughly he grabbed her heavy shoulders pulling her down on to the bed and ripping off her...

(reads silently, turns over page quickly, smiles)

'Old Nick the Sea Captain was a rough tough jolly sort of fellow. He loved the life of the sea and he loved to hang out down by the pier where the men dressed as ladies...'

(reads on silently; a stick enters vision and pokes him; he starts and turns over page)

'Rumpletweezer ran the Dinky Tinky shop in the foot of the magic oak tree by the wobbly dumdum bush in the shade of the magic glade down in Dingly Dell. Here he sold contraceptives and ·.. discipline?... naked?...

(without looking up, reads a bit; then, incredulously to himself)

With a melon!?

(ANIMATION: A hippo squashes the bunnies... and other things happen. Cut to a seaside beach. By a notice, 'Donkey Rides ', run two men carrying a donkey.)