The Man who says words in the wrong order

As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 36

The cast:

BURROWS

Michael Palin

THRIPSHAW

John Cleese

The sketch:

(Cut to a doctor's surgery. The doctor has in front of him a plaque which says 'Dr E. H. Thripshaw'. Enter Burrows.)

Burrows: Good doctor morning! Nice year for the time of day!

Thripshaw: Come in.

Burrows: Can I down sit?

Thripshaw: Certainly. (Burrows sits) Well, then?

Burrows: Well, now, not going to bush the doctor about the beat too long. I'm going to come to point the straight immediately.

Thripshaw: Good, good.

Burrows: My particular prob, or buglem bear, I've had ages. For years, I've had it for donkeys.

Thripshaw: What?

Burrows: I'm up to here with it, I'm sick to death. I can't take you any longer so I've come to see it.

Thripshaw: Ah, now this is your problem with words.

Burrows: This is my problem with words. Oh, that seems to have cleared it. 'Oh I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee'. Yes, that seems to be all right. Thank you very much.

Thripshaw: I see. But recently you have been having this problem with your word order.

Burrows: Well, absolutely, and what makes it worse, sometimes at the end of a sentence I'll come out with the wrong fusebox.

Thripshaw: Fusebox?

Burrows: And the thing about saying the wrong word is a) I don't notice it, and b) sometimes orange water given bucket of plaster.

Thripshaw: Yes, tell me more about your problem.

Burrows: Well as I say, you'd just be talking and out'll pudenda the wrong word and ashtray's your uncle. So I'm really strawberry about it.

Thripshaw: Upset?

Burrows: It's so embarrassing when my wife and I go to an orgy.

Thripshaw: A party?

Burrows: No, an orgy. We live in Esher.

Thripshaw: Quite.

Burrows: ,That's what I said. such a bloody whack the diddle fa di la, fo di la, 1o do di ... do di do, rum fum.

Thripshaw: Mr Burrows, this is no common problem; You are suffering from a disease so rare that it hasn't got a name. Not yet. But it will have. Oh yes. This is the opportunity I've been waiting for. The chance of a lifetime! (zoom in to close up on him as lighting changes to dramatic spotlight) I'll show them at the Royal College of Surgeons! I'll make them sit up and take notice! Thripshaw's disease! Discovered by E. Henry Thripshaw MD! I'll be invited on 'Call My Bluff' and on merchandising the E. Henry Thripshaw t-shirt ... I'll turn it into a game ... I'll sell the film rights.

(sketch continues with Thripshaw's Disease)

Return to the sketches index