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Series 1, Episode 9: Gumby Crooner
The cast:
R.J. GUMBY Graham Chapman
COMPĂRE Eric Idle
KEN BUDDHA Terry Jones
BARBER Michael Palin
CUSTOMER Terry Jones
The sketch:
(Cut back to Canadian backdrop. In front, a man with a knotted handkerchief on his heed, a woolly pullover, and braces. Superimposed caption on the screen ‘PROF. R. J. GUMBY’)
Gumby: Well I think TV’s killed real entertainment. In the old days we used to make our own fun. At Christmas parties I used to strike myself on the bead repeatedly with blunt instruments while crooning. (sings) ‘Only make believe, I love you, (hits himself on head with bricks) Only make believe that you love me, (hits himself) Others find peace of mind…’
(Cut to a swish nightclub. Compere enters.)
Compere: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the refreshment room here at Bletchley. (applause) My name is Kenny Lust and I’m your compere for tonight. You know, once in a while it is my pleasure, and my privilege, to welcome here at the refreshment room, some of the truly great international artists of our time. (applause) And tonight we have one such artist. (grovelling) Ladies and gentlemen, someone whom I’ve always personally admired, perhaps more deeply, more strongly, more abjectly than ever before. (applause) A man, well more than a man, a god (applause), a great god, whose personality is so totally and utterly wonderful my feeble words of welcome sound wretchedly and pathetically inadequate. (by now on his knees) Someone whose boots I would gladly lick clean until holes wore through my tongue, a man who is so totally and utterly wonderful, that I would rather be sealed in a pit of my own filth, than dare tread on the same Stage with him. Ladies and gentlemen the incomparably superior human being, Harry Fink.
Voice Off: He can’t come!
Compare: Never mind, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Ladies and gentlemen, we give
you Ken Buddha and his inflatable knees.
(Cut to Ken in evening dress; his knees go ‘bang’.)
Compare: Ken Buddha, a smile, two bangs and a religion. Now ladies and gentlemen, for
your further entertainment, Brian Islam and Brucie.
(Two animated men dance to jug band music When they finish we cut back to
the barber and customer, from the Homicidal Barber Sketch.)
Barber: So anyway, I became a barber.
Customer: (sympathetically) Poor chap.
Barber: Yes, pity really, I always preferred the outdoor life. Hunting, shooting, fishing. Getting out there with a gun, slaughtering a fewof God’s creatures – that was the life. Charging about the moorland, blasting their heads off.
(Sketch moves on to ‘Hunting Film‘.)