Molluscs - Live TV Documentary


(Cut to an ordinary suburban living room. Mr and Mrs Jalin are sitting on a sofa. The previous item in the show is visible on their TV set. Mrs Jalin is stuffing a chicken. Mr Jalin is reading the telephone directory. The picture changes and we hear voice from TV.)

Voice (Eric Idle): The 'Nine O'Clock News' which was to follow has been cancelled tonight so we can bring you the quarter finals of the All Essex Badminton Championship. Your commentator as usual is Edna O'Brien.

Commentator (Michael Palin): (Irish accent) Hullo fans. Begorra an' to be sure there's some fine badminton down there in Essex this afternoon. We really...

(Mr Jalin picks up a jousting ball and chain and smashes the TV set. There is a ring from the doorbell. Mr Jalin sits, Mrs Jalin goes to the door, exits and comes back.)

Mrs Jalin (Graham Chapman): George?

Mr Jalin (Terry Jones): Yes, Gladys.

Mrs Jalin: There's a man at the door with a moustache.

Mr Jalin: Tell him I've already got one. (Mrs Jalin hits him hard with a newspaper) All right, all right. What's he want then?

Mrs Jalin: He says do we want a documentary on molluscs.

Mr Jalin: Molluscs?!

Mrs Jalin: Yes.

Mr Jalin: What's he mean, molluscs?

Mrs Jalin: MOLLUSCS!! GASTROPODS! LAMELLIBRANCHS! CEPHALOPODS!

Mr Jalin: Oh molluscs, I thought you said bacon. (she hits him again) All right, all right. What's he charge then?

Mrs Jalin: It's free.

Mr Jalin: Ooh! Where does he want us to sit?

Mrs Jalin: (calling through the door) He says yes.

(Mr Zorba enters carrying plywood flat with portion cut out to represent TV. He stands behind flat and starts.)

Zorba (John Cleese): Good evening. Tonight molluscs. The mollusc is a soft-bodied, unsegmented invertebrate animal usually protected by a large shell. One of the most numerous groups of invertebrates, it is exceeded in number of species only by the arthropods... viz. (he holds up a lobster)

Mrs Jalin: Not very interesting is it?

Zorba: What?

Mrs Jalin: I was talking to him.

Zorba: Oh. Anyway, the typical mollusc, viz, a snail (holds one up) consists of a prominent muscular portion, the head-foot, a visceral mass and a shell which is secreted by the free edge of the mantle.

Mrs Jalin: Dreadful isn't it?

Zorba: What?

Mrs Jalin: I was talking to him.

Zorba: Oh. Well anyway, in some molluscs, however, viz, slugs, (holds one up) the shell is absent or rudimentary.

Mr Jalin: Switch him off.

(Mrs Jalin gets up and looks for the switch unsuccessfully)

Zorba: Whereas in others, viz, cephalopods the head-foot is greatly modified and forms tentacles, viz, the squid. (looking out) What are you doing?

Mrs Jalin: Switching you off.

Zorba: Why, don't you like it?

Mrs Jalin: Oh it's dreadful.

Mr Jalin: Embarrassing.

Zorba: Is it?

Mrs Jalin: Yes, it's perfectly awful.

Mr Jalin: Disgraceful! I don't know how they've got the nerve to put it on.

Mrs Jalin: It's so boring.

Zorba: Well, it's not much of a subject is it? Be fair.

Mrs Jalin: What do you think, George?

Mr Jalin: Give him another twenty seconds.

Zorba: Anyway the majority of the molluscs are included in three large groups, the gastropods, the lamellibranchs and the cephalopods.

Mrs Jalin: We knew that (she gets up and goes to the set)

Zorba: However, what is more interesting, er... is the molluscs's er... sex life.

Mrs Jalin: (stopping dead) Oh!

Zorba: Yes, the mollusc is a randy little fellow whose primitive brain scarcely strays from the subject of the you know what.

Mrs Jalin: (going back to sofa) Disgusting!

Mr Jalin: Ought not to be allowed.

Zorba: The randiest of the gastropods is the limpet. This hot-blooded little beast with its tent-like shell is always on the job. Its extra-marital activities are something startling. Frankly I don't know how the female limpet finds the time to adhere to the rock-face. How am I doing?

Mrs Jalin: Disgusting.

Mr Jalin: But more interesting.

Mrs Jalin: Oh yes.

Zorba: Another loose-living gastropod is the periwinkle. This shameless little libertine with its characteristic ventral locomotion is not the marrying kind: 'Anywhere anytime' is its motto. Up with the shell and they're at it.

Mrs Jalin: How about the lamellibranchs?

Zorba: I'm coming to them. The great scallop (holds one up)... this tatty, scrofulous old rapist, is second in depravity only to the common clam. (holds up a clam) This latter is a right whore, a harlot, a trollop, a cynical bed-hopping firm-breasted Rabelaisian bit of sea food that makes Fanny Hill look like a dead Pope. And finally among the lamellibranch bivalves, that most depraved of the whole sub-species - the whelk. The whelk is nothing but a homosexual of the worst kind. This gay boy of the gastropods, this queer crustacean, this mincing mollusc, this screaming, prancing, limp-wristed queen of the deep makes me sick.

Mrs Jalin: Have you got one?

Zorba: Here! (holds one up)

Mrs Jalin: Let's kill it. Disgusting.

(Zorba throws it on the floor and Mr and Mrs Jalin stamp on it.)

Mr Jalin: That'll teach it. Well thank you for a very interesting program.

Zorba: Oh, not at all. Thank you.

Mrs Jalin: Yes, that was very nice.

Zorba: Thank you. (he shakes hands with her)

Mrs Jalin: Oh, thank you.

(Cut to a studio presenter at a desk.)



Continue to the next sketch... Minister for Not Listening to People