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Series 1, Episode 5: A Duck, A Cat, A Lizard
The cast:
CHAIRMAN Terry Jones
FRENCH AU PAIR Carol Cleveland
MAN ON ROOF Terry Jones
MAN IN STREET John Cleese
MAN Michael Palin
VOICE OVER John Cleese
PEPPERPOT Eric Idle
WOMAN Carol Cleveland
YOUNG MAN Eric Idle
The sketch:
(Scene a chairman of discussion group.)
Chairman: Well to discuss the implications of that sketch and to consider the moral problems raised by the law-enforcement methods involved we have a duck, a cat and a lizard. Now first of all I’d like to put this question to you please, lizard. How effective do you consider the legal weapons employed by legal customs officers, nowadays?
(shot of lizard; silence)
Well while you’re thinking about that, I’d like to bring the duck in here, and ask her, if possible, to clarify the whole question of currency restrictions, and customs regulations in the world today.
(shot of duck; silence)
Perhaps the cat would rather answer that?
(shot of cat; silence)
No? Lizard?
(shot of lizard again and then back)
No. Well, er, let’s ask the man in the street what he thinks.
(Cut to film: vox pops.)
French Au Pair: I am not a man you silly billy.
Man on Roof: I’m not in the street you fairy.
Man in Street: Well, er, speaking as a man in the street…
(a car runs him over)
Wagh!
Man: What was the question again?
Voice Over: Just how relevant are contemporary customs regulations and currency restrictions in a modern expanding industrial economy?
(no answer)
Oh never mind.
Pepperpot: Well I think customs men should be armed, so they can kill people carrying more than two hundred cigarettes.
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Man: (getting up from a deckchair and screaming with indignation and rage: he has a knotted handkerchief on his head and his trousers are rolled up to the knees) Well I, I think that, er, nobody who has gone abroad should be allowed back in the country. I mean, er, blimey, blimey if they’re not keen enough to stay here when they’re ‘ere, why should we allow them back, er, at the tax-payers’ expense? I mean, be fair, I mean, I don’t eat squirrels do I? I mean well perhaps I do one or two but there’s no law against that, is there? It’s a free country. (enter a knight in amour) I mean if I want to eat a squirrel now and again, that’s me own business, innit? I mean, I’m no racialist. I, oh, oh…
(The knight is carrying a raw chicken. The man apprehensively covers his head and the knight slams him in the stomach with the chicken.)
Woman: I think it’s silly to ask a lizard what it thinks, anyway.
Chairman: Why?
Woman: I mean they should have asked Margaret Drabble.
Young Man: (very reasonably) Well I think, er, customs people are quite necessary, and I think they’re doing quite a good job really.