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Series 2, Episode 20: Killer Sheep
The cast:
PROFESSOR Eric Idle
VIKING Terry Gillam
CRICKETER John Cleese
The sketch:
(Poster: ‘Wanted For Armed Robbery – Basil’ with a picture of a sheep. Exciting crime-type music. Mix through to newspaper headlines: ‘Farmers Ambushed in Pen’, ‘Merino Ram in Wages Grab’. Eerie science fiction music; mix through to a laboratory. A scientist looking through microscope and his busty attractive assistant.)
Professor: It’s an entirely new strain of sheep, a killer sheep that can not only hold a rifle but is also a first-class shot.
Assistant: But where are they coming from, professor?
Professor: That I’don’t know. I just don’t know. I really just don’t know. I’m afraid I really just don’t know. I’m afraid even I really just don’t know. I have to tell you I’m afraid even I really just don’t know. I’m afraid I have to tell you… (she hands him a glass of water which she had been busy getting as soon as he started into this speech) … thank you … (resuming normal breezy voice) … I don’t know. Our only clue is this portion of wolf’s clothing which the killer sheep …
(Cut to Viking.)
Viking: … was wearing…
(Cut back to sketch.)
Professor: … in yesterday’s raid on Selfridges.
Assistant: I’ll carry out tests on it straight away, professor.
(She opens a door to another lab; but it is full of cricketers.)
Cricketer: Hello, is the third test in here, please?
(She slams the door on them.)
Assistant: Professor, there are some cricketers in the laboratory.
Professor: This may be even more serious than even I had at first been imagining. What a strange… strange line. There’s no time to waste. Get me the Chief Commissioner of Police.
Assistant: Yes, sir!
(She opens a cupboard and slides out the Chief Commissioner of Police on a sort of slab. He grins and waves cheerily. ‘This is Your Life’ music and applause.)
Professor: No, no, on the phone.
Assistant: Oh… (she pushes him back in)
Professor: Look of fear! (he is staring transfixed at something in the doorway) Another strange line. Look out, Miss Garter Oil!
Assistant: Professor! What is it? What have you seen?
Professor: Look – there, in the doorway.
(Cut to doorway: through it is animation of a huge sheep with an eye patch.)
Assistant: Urghhh! Arthur X! Leader of the Pennine Gang!
(ANIMATION: perhaps even mixed with stock film – as the fevered mindof Gilliam takes it – sheep armed to the teeth, sheep executing dangerous raids, Basil Cassidy and the Sundance Sheep, sheep with machine gun coming out of its arse etc. At the end of the animation, cut to studio. A narrator sitting in what could be a news set at a desk.)
Narrator: But soon the killer sheep began to infect other animals with its startling intelligence. Pussy cats began to arrange mortgages, cocker spaniels began to design supermarkets…
(Cut back to the animation again: a parrot.)