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| The Troupe |
"It's The Arts (Intermission)," or "Intermission," is a strange and confusing episode to end a season on. However, the episode's a perfect conclusion to the first series of the show because it encompasses what series one, or season one, was about--experimentation. One could argue until the spring solstice about their interpretation of the first series of the show. Above all else, the Pythons experimented and then experimented some more. The series hadn't drawn any feedback for eight episodes. People felt drawn to the show despite its "weird" qualities. When the second season began, people were comfortable enough with the format to opine that the troupe don't change much. For the writers and performers, they constantly thought about the identity of the show in the present and the future. The only way to find a show's identity, and they did that.
The BBC allowed the Pythons to roam freely. If the Pythons wanted bare breasted women on the television show then bare breasted women would appear. If the Pythons wanted to write about Kandinsky riding in a bicycle race with fifty other expressionist painters then they wrote a sketch about a bicycle race that involved only expressionist painters. Michael Palin said, in The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons, "That level of audacity and freedom we just reveled in and I remember that being so good for the spirits, it was what we'd wanted to do for years. It didn't all work, but the general feeling was that you could imagine almost anything, and it could be done if it worked. There were absolutely no rules or limits."
Monty Python's Flying Circus would've never become the legendary and ground-breaking show that it's known as had it aired at another time. The most famous and successful individuals will tell you that time and place matters as much as God given talent. If the BBC hadn't granted created freedom, if they noted the sketches to death, if they censored anything, then it would've affected the series. The troupe had worked for other BBC television programs in the mid-60s. They admit that Flying Circus could've been affected if they were green writers and performers. Palin talked about how they wrote for budget as best they could, which is something many individuals don't think about--how the budget affects stories or sketches and how writers, directors and producers make succeed in spite of monetary restrictions. Ian McNoughton, the director of all thirteen episodes, completed the first season of the show slightly over budget, which is amazing considering what the Pythons wrote. Ian received the script and made it work. If the Pythons hired another director, who knows how that would've changed the series.
"Intermission" isn't anymore strange or confusing than other episodes in the series. The structure's slightly more stream-of-consciousness. Whereas other episodes would interrupt sketches then return to said sketch, "Intermission" abandons certain sketches because the boys, seemingly, lost interest. For example, the opening minutes of the show parody the intermissions in theater and cinemas. Suddenly, a character declares, "enough with that" and the episode turns into a lampoon of the English police force. I'd opine that the lampoon of law enforcement represents comedic anarchy of Python but, really, Graham Chapman's father was an officer so they made fun of the force.
The police officers sketches are silly. In one sketch, Graham Chapman portrays a police officer in drag. In another, John Cleese's officer cannot help a citizen with a robbery but he will return to the man's house for sexual intercourse. Each representation of police officers is unflattering. The other profession lampooned by the Pythons in "Intermission" are doctors (and one psychiatrist).
The episode asks the question: how does one conclude a season? Again, it's a piece of experimentation. I'm not sure how many shows meditated on the function of a season finale in the actual season finale. The episode closes on the image of two police men falling into a man's stomach to pull out three other individuals and someone shouts, "You can't end a series (season) like that." They don't actually. The credits roll over the footage of the undertakers chasing after the hermit who says "it's" at the start of every episode. Following the credits, the intermission card returns to tell the audience that the show itself will be in intermission, but it'll be back eventually.
According to their autobiography, the troupe felt tremendously accomplished upon the conclusion of the first series. The Pythons had one goal for the show--be funny, make the audience laugh. The goal's simple, in theory, but difficult in practice. The Pythons never over-thought their sketches, though. They wrote about what they found funny and hope that it worked. Usually, it did. They'd string together as many synonyms together for a sketch, and it'd be funny. They'd confuse a cat for eight minutes, and it'd be funny. They developed a sketch with euphemisms, and it became an all-time classic. Sometimes, they missed the mark.
But, mostly, their sketches were gold, and so was the entire series. And thus concludes the Monty Python re-watch.
THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK
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