Series 4, Episode 45: BBC News (Handovers)
The cast:
NEWSREADER Eric Idle
LINKMAN Michael Palin
MAN Graham Chapman
VOICE OVER Michael Palin
The sketch:(Nine O’clock News intro in the newsroom behind. Behind the newsreader several men including Jeremy Thorpe are drinking and celebrating. A woman is dancing on the table.)
Newsreader: Good evening. Over 400,000 million pounds were wiped off the value of shares this afternoon, when someone in the Stock Exchange coughed. Sport: capital punishment is to be re-introduced in the first and second division. Any player found tackling from behind or controlling the ball with the lower part of the arm will be hanged. But the electric chair remains the standard punishment for threatening the goalie. Referee’s chairman, Len Goebbels said ‘at last the referee has been given teeth’. Finally, politics: the latest opinion poll published today shows Labour ahead with 40%, the AA second with 38% and not surprisingly Kentucky Fried Chicken running the Liberals a very close third. And now back to me. Hello. And now it’s time to go over to Hugh Delaney in Paignton.
(Cut to the linkman on the pier at Paignton. A smallish crowd is gathered behind him including Jerermy Thorpe who waves at the camera from the back.)
Linkman: Hello and welcome to Paignton, because it’s from Paignton that we take you straight back to the studio.
(Cut to a man in swimming trunks and a snorkel pushed back on his head standing in the studio holding a stuffed polecat on a pole.)
Man: Hello. And it’s from here we go over there.
(Cut to the ‘Most Awful Family’ presenter.)
Presenter: Well we’re already here so let’s go over there.
(Cut back to the newsreader.)
Newsreader: Welcome back. And now it’s time for part eight of our series about the life and work of Ursula Hifier, the Surrey housewife who revolutionized British beekeeping in the nineteen-thirties.
Voice Over: and CAPTION: ‘THAT WAS A PARTY POLITICAL BROADCAST ON BEHALF OF THE LIBERAL PARTY’
(His voice breaks up with giggles. Fade to blackout. The end.)
This was the final sketch, final episode in the four year run of ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’