The Classic Comedy thread

The Bookshop Sketch

Written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman for the 1967 TV series At Last The 1948 Show, where it was performed by Cleese (as the clerk) and Marty Feldman (as the customer). This original performance was believed lost for decades, surviving only on audio, until being rediscovered late last year. I don't think it has been made public yet.

The sketch has been done several times since then. Feldman did it on a UK TV special with John Junkin, then on US TV with Flip Wilson. This version didn't work at all -- Flip is far too hip to be acceptable as an uptight sales clerk. Another failed version had Cleese teamed with his ex-wife Connie Booth. She just isn't eccentric enough.

There have been other Python remakes, including Cleese and Chapman for an LP and Cleese with Eric Idle at a reading to promote the former's autobiography. Despite the sketch's link with Feldman, I think Idle is my favorite customer -- his amiably cooperative but ultimately absurd actions nicely contrast with the ever-increasing craziness of the clerk.

The version I'm posting is one of the more obscure, from a short-lived NBC variety series called The Big Show (1980). Graham Chapman plays the clerk, with English impressionist Joey Baker (some will recall him from the cult series The Kopykats) as the customer. He's not bad (even if he's clearly reading off cue cards), but this is Chapman's sketch, as he throws subtlety to the winds and goes far over the top, giving every line everything he's got. It's probably the most "Cleese"-like performance Chapman ever gave.

 

Do you remember the 'four yorkshire men' sketch from the 1948 show ?..
I love that sketch and i remember when python did it live at drury lane..

 

The Drury Lane album (some years after it was released) was where I first heard "Four Yorkshiremen". I quoted the punchline so often it became a running among my friends.

Here is the original.



One thing this reveals/confirms is how bad Cleese is at accents. He must have realized this, as IIRC he does not appear in the Drury Lane version.

 

Yeah.. i also first heard it on the drury lane album years after its release..some great sketches on there..
I know what you mean about Cleese but he's my favourite python and one of my favourite people in comedy.. python were not as good when Cleese left..
Cleese is/was a genius , Fawlty towers has to be my favourite sitcom

 

Can't recall the episode title (Gourmet Dinner?); Cleese, in typical over the top character, was beating his temperamental car with a tree branch...
Laughed to the point of tears!

 

That episode is 'Gourmet night' but every episode is a classic and you must get the box set ! .. Basil Fawlty is one of the greatest comedy characters ever... i have wet myself to many Fawlty towers moments !

 

Absolutely...
I was strictly going by memory with the episode title. I actually have the VHS box set purchased many years back, and the DVD set was gifted me Christmas '14.
To quote Entertainment weekly: "...the Sistine Chapel of sitcoms." Couldn't agree more!

 

Yeah i would agree with that assessment of Fawlty towers. It is timeless. It deserves a thread of its own !.. I watched the episode 'the psychiatrist' last night -haven't seen it for ages- and its as funny as it was when i first saw it...
Fawlty towers
Blackadder
rising damp
operation good guys
one foot in the grave ... are my favourite british sitcoms.

 

Partial to Marx brothers and Stooges. But are they historically hysterical or hysterically historical?

 

Tom Koch

From Wikipedia:

Thomas Freeman "Tom" Koch (May 13, 1925 – March 22, 2015) was a writer for Mad Magazine for 37 years.

Koch's most enduring contribution to Mad is almost certainly 43-Man Squamish, a fictitious field sport with dadaist rules which became unexpectedly popular in real life, due not only to Koch's ideas and scripting but also to the illustrations provided by George Woodbridge.

Koch was also one of the primary writers for radio performers Bob and Ray. Koch was a staff writer for Dave Garroway's Monitor program, turning out 100 pages of material per week, when he was asked by NBC in 1955 to write spot scripts for Bob and Ray's guest appearances. He ended up writing nearly 3,000 comedy pieces for the duo. Among Koch's sketches were the Slow Talkers of America, the Parsley Society of America, Mr. Science, and episodes of "The Gathering Dusk," a soap opera parody starring Edna Bessinger, "a girl who's found unhappiness by hunting for it where others have failed to look." "Tom's stuff couldn't have been more on the button," said Bob Elliott. "Everything he did was funny. he was a gold mine of funny thoughts and exactly what we needed to punctuate what we had already been doing."

Through all of it, he never had a contract with Bob and Ray; "Sometimes they would give me money and sometimes they wouldn't," said Koch. Like many radio performers, Bob and Ray did not credit their writers; Elliott later wrote, “I feel we didn’t give him a real shake that he should have had."

Koch's professional association with the duo lasted 33 years, though contact was infrequent. Bob Elliott recalled that he and Ray Goulding would only learn where their ongoing storyline segments were headed next by ripping open the envelopes mailed in by Koch: "It was great when the Tom Koch package arrived." Following Koch's death, Elliott told the New York Times that he had only met Koch three times, and that Goulding had met him just once.​

 

Got something against the Marx Bros?

 

So many, so good.

 

I still remember the day Groucho died because I was 11 years old and a comedy nerd. This, while most of my friends only cared about the recent death of Elvis.

Matt

 

no finer classic comedy than W.C. Fields It's A Gift!

 

Great picture, Jozef. First time I've seen it.

 

Not a thing. See my earlier comment: #23

 

That link is dead -- here's a new one:



The Marx segment begins around 7:56 in Pt 2

Movie buffs take note -- at around 17:20 of Pt 1 we see mentions of "upcoming" Paramount productions, many of which were never made, and some which were delayed, such as Lives Of A Bengal Lancer, originally an Ernest Schoedsack project but eventually directed by Henry Hathaway 4 years later.

Following the Marxian madness are scenes from a film called Stepdaughters of War, directed by Dorothy Arzner. This project was apparently canceled, leaving these bits at its only surviving record.

 

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Shaw and Lee, ‘Nut’ Comedians »

Warner Bros. filmed Shaw and Lee for posterity in 1928, recording their act in an eight minute short titled “Beau Brummels.” The two men perform their act on camera, standing stock still as they stoically sing nonsense tunes, performing spot-on underplayed double takes toward each other after particularly odd lines. Exhibitors Daily Review praised their performance, noting it featured their “sure-fire stuff” such as nonsense rhyming songs and foolish lyrics. The review stated “the material is old but good…they perform in the simple look style and hardly crack a smile, which is o.k.” The Los Angeles Times also praised “Beau Brummels” on January 31, 1928 when it appeared with the Conlin and Glass Vitaphone short and “Lights of New York” at the Warner Bros. Theatre.​