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Series 1, Episode 11: Literary Football Discussion
The cast:
INTERVIEWER Eric Idle
JIMMY BUZZARD John Cleese
SECOND UNDERTAKER Terry Jones
CONSTABLE Michael Palin
The sketch:
(Two chairs in interview set. Smart interviewer and footballer who is not over bnght in blazer.)
Interviewer:From the plastic arts we turn to football. Last night in the Stadium of Light, Jarrow, we witnessed the resuscitation of a great footbailing tradition, when Jarrow United came of age, in a European sense, with an almost Proustian display of modern existentialist football. Virtually annihilating by midfield moral argument the now surely obsolescent catennachio defensive philosophy of Signor Alberto Fanffino. Bologna indeed were a side intellectually out argued by a Jarrow team thrusting and bursting with aggressive Kantian positivism and outstanding in this fine Jarrow team was my man of the match, the arch-thinker, free scheming, scarcely ever to be curbed, midfield coguoscento, Jimmy Buzzard.
Buzzard: Good evening Brian.
Interviewer: Jimmy, at least one ageing football commentator was gladdened last night by the sight of an English footballer breaking free of the limpid tentacles of packed Mediterranean defence.
Buzzard: Good evening Brian.
Interviewer: Were you surprised at the way the Italian ceded midfield dominance so early on in the game?
Buzzard: Well Brian… I’m opening a boutique.
Interviewer: This is of course symptomatic of a new breed of footballer as it is indeed symptomatic of your whole genre of player, is it not?
Buzzard: Good evening Brian.
Interviewer: What I’m getting at, Jimmy, is you seem to have discovered a new concept with a mode in which you dissected the Italian defence, last night.
Buzzard: (pauses for thought) I hit the ball first time and there it was in the back of the net.
(smiles and looks round)
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Interviewer: Do you think Jarrow will adopt a more defensive posture for the first leg of the next tie in Turkey?
Buzzard: (confidently) I hit the ball first time and there it was in the back of the net.
Interviewer: Yes, yes – but have you any plans for dealing with the free-scoring Turkish forwards?
Buzzard: Well Brian… I’m opening a boutique.
(Cut to undertaker.)
Second Undertaker: And now let’s take a look at the state of play in the detective sketch.
(Cut to drawing room. There is an enormous pile of dead policemen from the Agatha Christie Sketch on and around the sofa.)
Constable: Alself me to introlow mybody…
(Inspector shoots him in the head. Caption on Screen: ‘CONSTABLES 13 SUPERINTENDENTS 9’)
(Cut to four undertakers carrying a coffin up a hill. One of them falters and drops. The otherslower the coffin to the ground, take out a fresh undertaker, put the fallen one in the coffin, and proceed.)