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Series 3, Episode 36: Thripshaw’s Disease
The cast:
THRIPSHAW John Cleese
MAN Michael Palin
The sketch:
(Cut to front of a booklet, entitled ‘A Dissertation on Thripshaw’s Disease Presented to the Royal College of Surgeons by Dr E. Henry Thnpshaw’. Captions zoom forward over it:)
HARLEY STREET
FLEET STREET
BROADWAY
HOLLYWOOD
(A page of the book turns to reveal the title ‘David O. Seltzer Presents’. The page turns again to reveal ‘Rip Glint in:’. The page turns again to reveal a title in stone lettering ~ la Ben-Hur, with searchlights behind it la 20th-Century Fox: ‘Dr E. Henry Thripshaw’s Disease’. Cut to stock film of maraudlng knights.)
SUPERIMPOSED CAPTION: ‘SYR1A 1203’
(The knights sack a village, looting, pillaging, burning and murdering. Cut to a studio set with interviewer and Thripshaw.)
Interviewer: (speaking with frequent pauses, as of one reading from a slow autocue) That clip… comes from the new David O. Seltzer… film. The author… of that film clip… is with me… now. Doctor E. Henry… Thripshaw.
Thripshaw: Well, I feel that they have missed the whole point of my disease.
Interviewer: This is… always the problem… with directors of film… clips.
Thripshaw: Yes, well you see, they’ve dragged in all this irrelevant mush…
Interviewer: What… are you doing… now?
Thripshaw: Well at the moment I am working on a new disease, which I hope to turn into a musical, but, primarily we are working on a re-make of my first disease and this time we’re hoping to do it properly.
Interviewer: Well… let’s just… take a… look at this new film… clip.
(Film clip exactly as before. Cut to Thripshaw at a desk evidently in a castle. A knight in armor rushes up to him.)
Thripshaw: Well now, what seems to be the matter?
(Cut to a corner of the set where a man emerges from a barrel.)