Monty Python sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus
2nd episode of the 1st series of Monty Python's Flying Circus
"
The Mouse Problem
"
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Screenshot from episode
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Episode
no.
| Series 1
Episode 2 (segment)
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Written by
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Original air date
| October 12, 1969
(
1969-10-12
)
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List of episodes
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"
The Mouse Problem
" is a
Monty Python
sketch
, first aired on 12 October 1969 as part of "
Sex and Violence
", the second episode of the first series of
Monty Python's Flying Circus
.
Overview
[
edit
]
In the sketch, an interviewer (
Terry Jones
) and linkman (
Michael Palin
) for a fictional programme called
The World Around Us
, investigate the phenomenon of "men [who] want to be
mice
". The programme bears a striking similarity to an episode of
Panorama
;
[1]
even its theme tune, the fourth movement of
Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 1
, was the theme tune of
Panorama
at the time. The sketch was originally written for
The Magic Christian
but was not used.
[2]
A "confessor" (
John Cleese
) is interviewed about his experience as a mouse: when he was a teenager, he got drunk at a party and experimented with cheese, and gradually came to accept his mouse identity. "It's not a question of wanting to be a mouse ? it just sort of happens to you," he tells the interviewer. "All of a sudden you realize… that's what you want to be."
[3]
The "programme" features undercover footage of a "mouse party", where Cleese explains that "
there's a big clock in the middle of the room, and about 12:50 you climb up it and then... eventually, it strikes one and you all run down
". He also points out that there's "
a farmer's wife
" present. Then follows a discussion with psychiatrist and conjuror, The Amazing Kargol (
Graham Chapman
), about what attracts men to the mouse lifestyle. A series of
vox pops
illustrates societal attitudes towards mice men, and several historical figures who were mice, such as
Julius Caesar
and
Napoleon
, are shown, "and, of course
Hilaire Belloc
," is included. The programme also includes footage of men in mouse costumes being led into police stations, newspaper headlines about mouse scandals and mouse rights demonstrations, and photos of "mouse clubs".
In the original version of the sketch broadcast in 1969, Cleese gave out the telephone number of the mouse man as "01-584 5313". The number was that of
David Frost
's production company, which led to a large number of annoying telephone calls to Frost.
[4]
The sketch was re-edited for the repeat showing in August 1970 to remove this section.
[5]
The way of life explored in "The Mouse Problem" is an obvious parody of the secretive lives and social condemnation of
gay men
in the 1960s, and the sketch itself mimics the film and interview techniques used in serious television documentary exposes on the subject,
[1]
[6]
[7]
but also makes reference to
transvestism
,
recreational drug use
,
orgies
and other behaviour considered "deviant" by the standards of the late 1960s.
[8]
Eric Zorn
of the
Chicago Tribune
notes its similarity to a real 1967 documentary,
CBS Reports: The Homosexuals
.
[9]
Chapman, who wrote the sketch, was himself gay.
[6]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Larsen, Darl (2003).
Monty Python, Shakespeare, and English Renaissance Drama
. McFarland. p. 152.
ISBN
9780786481095
.
- ^
Larsen, Darl (2015).
A Book about the Film Monty Python and the Holy Grail
. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 70.
- ^
Graham Chapman; John Cleese; Terry Gilliam; Eric Idle; Terry Jones; Michael Palin (1989),
The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus: All the Words, vol. 1
, Pantheon, p. 25,
ISBN
0-679-72647-0
- ^
David Frost,
An Autobiography
, HarperCollins, 1993, p. 505
- ^
Andrew Pixley,
TV Zone
issue 146, 2001, cited in
"Monty Python edit news"
. 11 March 2018
. Retrieved
9 March
2011
.
- ^
a
b
Summers, Claude J. (2005).
The Queer Encyclopedia of Film & Television
. Cleis Press. p. 68.
ISBN
9781573442091
.
- ^
Hill, Lee (2001).
A Grand Guy: The Art and Life of Terry Southern
. HarperCollins.
ISBN
9780062012838
.
- ^
Darl Larsen (13 June 2008).
Monty Python's Flying Circus: An Utterly Complete, Thoroughly Unillustrated, Absolutely Unauthorized Guide to Possibly All the References
. Scarecrow Press. p. 34.
ISBN
978-1-4616-6970-8
.
- ^
Zorn, Eric (14 February 2010).
"
'The Homosexuals' ? a CBS report"
.
Change of Subject
. Chicago Tribune.
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