Tory Housewives Clean-Up Campaign

As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 32

The cast:

VOICE OVER

Eric Idle

FIRST PEPPERPOT

Graham Chapman

SECOND PEPPERPOT

Terry Jones

THIRD PEPPERPOT

Eric Idle

The sketch:

Voice Over: (newsreel voice) In the modern Britain, united under a great leader, it's the housewives of Britain who are getting things moving. (Red Devils flying; picture of Edward Heath) Here a coach load of lovely ladies are on their way to speed up production in a car factory. (coach load of pepperpots, middle class, grey hair, Mary Whitehouse glasses; the coach says 'Tory Tours) And here we are boys, it's the no-hurry brigade hanging about for endless overtime. And just watch these gallant girls go into action . .. (cut to a factory yard; some workers in brown overalls are eating sandwiches out of tins; the clock says 1.15; the coach comes swinging in, the ladies pour out about to belt the men with umbrellas and handbags; the men flee back into factories) Not working fast enough? Well, there's an answer for that. (a man at a machine, producing something incredibly fast; a pepperpot holds an enormous sledgehammer) Yes, this is certainly the way to speed up production. (wide shot of factory interior; three pepperpots stand on a gantry above work floor, wearing armbands, saying 'P.P. ' and dark Mary Whitehouse glasses) This is the recipe for increased productivity to meet the threat of those nasty foreigners when Britain takes her natural place at the head of the British Common Market. (a group of strikers, picketing with slogans, 'Fair Pay', 'Less Profits', 'Parity', 'No Victimization') And how's this for a way to beat strikers. (pepperpots arrive, clinging to side of old Buick; they race in and start beating the strikers with the banners) Those spotty continental boys will soon have to look out for Mrs Britain, and talking of windmills, these girls aren't afraid to tilt at the permissive society, (art gallery exterior; pepperpots run in with bundles and ladders) Business is booming in the so-called arts, but two can play at that game, chum. (cut to art gallery interior, pan around paintings 'cleaned up'- trousers and cardigans being added to nude piaures and statues, Bermuda shorts on David, shorts on tubular structure, an attendant in shorts too). And it's not just the modern so-called plastic arts that get the clean-up treatment.

(Cut to a theatre stage. Desdernona on a bed. Othello with her.)

Othello: Oh Desdemona, Desdemona.

(The pepperpots race on to the stage and pull him off.)

Voice Over: And those continentals had better watch out for their dirty foreign literature. Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Genet won't know what's hit them. Never mind the foulhess of their language - come '73 they'll all have to write in British. (pepperpots burning books: 'Bertrand Russell', 'Das Kapital', the 'Guardian ', 'Sartre', 'Freud') You can keep your fastidious continental bidets Mrs Foreigner - Mrs Britain knows how to keep her feet clean ... but she'll baffle like bingo boys when it comes to keeping the television screen dean...

(Cut to the BBC TV Centre. The peppet~ots parade in carrying signs: 'Clean TV Centre', 'God Says No To Filth', 'To The Cells'. Another pepperpot in the background holds a sign: 'Wanted Dead Or Alive' and photo of Robert Robinson.)

Voice Over: Better watch out for those nasty continental shows on the sneaky second channel. (armed pepperpots escorting people out of TV Centre) But apart from attacking that prurient hot-bed of left-wing continentalism at Shepherds Bush, what else do these ordinary mums think? Do they accept Hegelianism?

1st Pepperpot: No! ..

Voice Over: Do they prefer Leibnitz to Wittgenstein?

2nd Pepperpot: No! No!

Voice Over: And where do they stand on young people?

3rd Pepperpot: Just here, dear. (pepperpot standing on long-haired youth's head)

Voice Over: And their power is growing daily and when these girls roll their sleeves up its arms all the way. (pepperpots standing on the turret of an armoured vehicle; four pepperpots on motor bikes flank it) Yes, this is the way to fight the constant war against pornography.

(Machine guns chatter. Two pepperpots in a trench firing. Mortar bombs, reloading and firing. Bombs and smoke. At the end of the film we pick up on the nude organist (Terry Jones), sitting amongst the explosions. He plays his chords.)

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