History Series / RippingYarns

* SlapstickKnowsNoGender: Ruth in "Murder at Moorstones Manor" passes out face-first into a plateful of cottage pie and remains like that for the rest of the episode. It's later revealed that she actually drowned in it.

* SchoolOfHardKnocks: Graybridge turns this UpToEleven by making School Bully an official post. School tradition involves fighting grizzly bears and nailing freshmen to the walls on Saint Tadger's Day. First years have to ask permission to breathe out before 10:30 AM.

* UpToEleven: A large chunk of what makes the show funny involves taking the tropes of classic adventure fiction (such as the hero’s StiffUpperLip, the SecretUndergroundPassage, or the ArtifactOfDoom) and extending them into the realms of the ridiculous.

* CorporalPunishment: Parodied (and turned into a sexual innuendo) in "Tomkinson's Schooldays", where schoolboys from the boarding school periodically have to beat their headmaster. Unpleasant for the boys and enjoyable for the headmaster.

%% * GreatEscape: "Escape from Stalag Luft 112B" (a POWCamp).

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: In "Winfrey's Last Case", the German spies cheerfully give up as soon as they discover that Winfrey's accidentally stumbled upon their plot. However, they had in fact the upper hand and could have easily defeated him, but they were just too star-struck with the famous hero.

%% * PrisonEscapeArtist: Parodied with Major Errol Phipps in "Escape from Stalag Luft 112B".

%% * StiffUpperLip: Frequently parodied.

%% * UpToEleven: A large chunk of what makes the show funny.

* EmbarrassingFirstName: Gordon's son, Barnstoneworth, in "Golden Gordon". He was named after his father's (awful) football club, Barnstoneworth United. Gordon's so fanatical about Barnstoneworth United the only other name he could think of for Barnstoneworth was United.

* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: Parodied to the limit in "Tomkinson's Schooldays" as even masters try to escape the school and the boys are forbidden to help them. Tomkinson is a new pupil at Graybridge boarding school and he is absolutely miserable and depressed. The boys have to beat the headmaster, all new boys have to fight the grizzly bear, and they have an old tradition that younger boys are allowed to be nailed to the walls by senior pupils. Random skeletons in uniforms are seen lying around. They have to ask permission to breathe out after 10:30. Tomkinson is shot in the stomach during French translation (which he considers lucky and thinks it might get him out of the school). The boys are hunted by the school leopard if they try to run away, and there's a maggot-pit for detention. Graybridge has an official school bully who gets whatever he wants and some boys are sent to the school specifically to be bullied by him. During a hopping competition between Graybridge and St Anthony's, the whole school is in a fever -- it's mostly dysentery and beriberi, blackwater fever and scurvy.

** Lady Agatha, Kevin's childhood sweetheart and his lovely wife from "The Curse of the Claw". She's a beautiful girl, living next door to Kevin in Maidenhead, England. She's first seen as a young child wearing a white dress and a pretty hat, holding a basket with flowers and enthusiastically waving to Kevin from her garden. Older Kevin mourns her death, reminiscing about her kindness, loveliness and beauty. Grosvenor, Kevin's manservant, acknowledges her beauty, too, with some indecent comments about her body, much to Keven's embarrassment and discomfort.

** Miranda in "Roger of the Raj". Roger is a son of obscenely rich English aristocrats residing in India. The honourable Miranda is his equally noble and equally rich lovely girlfriend, with large eyes, classically chiselled features and fair complexion. She proves her worth and determination when she saves Kevin from the shoot out of the revolting British soldiers and Mr Hopper, Roger's communist teacher who tries "to found a socialist state, with centralised ownership of capital to be used for the benefit of all".

* ArtisticLicenseEducation: "Tomkinson's Schooldays", being a surreal parody, is of course much weirder than ever existed in reality. Well, somewhat weirder.

--->'''Father:''' Isn't Nigel dead?
--->'''Mother:''' Yes. But imagine what he'd be like if he wasn't.

%% * ArtifactOfDoom: The Claw in "Curse of the Claw".

* TheBore: In the episode episode "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite", Eric is considered extremely boring to everyone due to his interests: rain, shovels, and black pudding. He eventually decides to man up and be more interesting -- by getting a job at a bank, but is refused for not being adequate. He is kidnapped by a bank robber who it turns out has the same interests. They go on a "crime" wave of measuring rainfall and he becomes interesting to the general public, despite not changing at all.

* SweetPollyOliver: Most of the crew of the ship in "The Curse of the Claw" are women in disguise. In a twist on the trope, thanks to the restrictive Victorian morals they had all been living under, none of them apparently realized they were women.

* SweetOnSweetPollyOliver: With the exception of Kevin and his first mate, every crew-member on board the Greasy Bastard in "Curse of the Claw" is an attractive woman playing a man. Kevin is ''very'' attracted to them, one of them in particular. The twist is they are not aware they are in fact women.

* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: Parodied to the limit in "Tomkinson's Schooldays" as even masters try to escape the school and the boys are punished for helping them. Tomkinson is a new pupil at Graybridge boarding school and he is absolutely miserable and depressed. The boys have to beat the headmaster, all new boys have to fight the grizzly bear, and they have an old tradition that younger boys are allowed to be nailed to the walls by senior pupils. They have to ask permission to breathe out after 10:30. Tomkinson is shot in the stomach during French translation. The boys are hunted by a leopard if they try to run away and there's a maggot-pit for detention. Graybridge has an official school bully who gets whatever he wants and has absolute control over the school. During a hopping competition between two schools, the whole school is in a fever -- it's mostly dysentery and beriberi, blackwater fever and scurvy.

* EmbarrassingFirstName: Gordon's son, Barnstoneworth, in ''Golden Gordon''. He was named after his father's (awful) football club, Barnstoneworth United. Gordon's so fanatical about Barnstoneworth United the only other name he could think of for Barnstoneworth was United.

** "Roger of the Raj": Morrison, an unfortunate British soldier inadvertently alludes to kinky spanking during one formal regimental dinner party as the women are retiring to a drawing room [[note]]A British custom; women left the dinner table after the meal whole men stayed to drink and talk, and they joined the women later[[/note]]. For this terrible faux pas, [[LeaveBehindAPistol he's given the option of suicide before dishonour]].
-->'''Lady Bartlesham:''' So, ladies, shall we retire?\\
'''Captain Morrison:''' We'll be in to spank you later, you firm-buttocked young Amazons, you. {{Beat}}] I'm terribly sorry. I don't know what came over me.

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: In "Winfrey's Last Case", the German spies cheerfully give up as soon as they discover that Winfrey's accidentally stumbled upon their plot.

Basically, what Creator/MichaelPalin and Creator/TerryJones did after ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' but completely different and just as funny. ''Ripping Yarns'' was the definitive parody of the "Boy's Own" genre of the inter-war years.

* CardboardPrison: ''Escape from Stalag Luft 112B'', in which Major Phipps becomes the only man ''never'' to have escaped from the prison camp of the title. And this includes the guards. Of course, after all of the British prisoners ''except'' Phipps escape (he wasn't included in their plans because he refused to submit his own plans to the various necessary escape committees), the prison becomes very much not a CardboardPrison, with guards watching Phipps 24-7 with guns trained on him at all times. The sheer tedium of this is apparently why the guards themselves eventually escape. Phipps himself then gets so obsessed with intricate escape plans that he never does put any of them into practice.

* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: Grayson the School Bully in "Tomkinson's Schooldays" has more power that any of the teachers and the headmaster. His room is luxurious and he's dresses as TheDandy instead of uniform; he controls all escape tunnels from school and he has influence outside the school ().

* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: Grayson the School Bully in "Tomkinson's Schooldays" has more power that any of the teachers and the headmaster. His room is luxurious and he's dresses as TheDandy.

%% * BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: Parodied to the limit in "Tomkinson's Schooldays".

%% * ComedicSpanking: In Graybridge, schoolboys
* CorporalPunishment: Parodied (and turned into a sexual innuendo) in "Tomkinson's Schooldays", where schoolboys from the boarding school periodically have to beat their headmaster. It's still played as something unpleasant for them and enjoyable for him.
* CreatorCameo: Terry Jones co-created the series. He turns up in a small role in "Tomkinson's School Days" and viewers suspect he voices Mr Bag's racing vultures in "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite".

* GymClassHell: In "Tomkinson's Schooldays" the school hopping team is trained to within an inch of its life and sent on a thirty-mile-hop across some of England's bleakest mountains, against a team of young Buddhists. Note the ritual "Palfrey" - a blow on the head - bestowed by a teacher with a wooden club beforehand. Tomkinson only survives with the assistance of performance-enhancing drugs.
%% * KinkySpanking
%% ** "Tomkinson's Schooldays"
%% ** "Roger of the Raj"

* LanguageFluencyDenial: "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite". Eric is possibly the most boring little tit in Yorkshire and has two interests: shovels and rainfall. He notes that his own father would pretend to be French so as not to have to speak to him.

* RecursiveCrossdressing: With the exception of Kevin and his first mate every crew-member on board the Greasy Bastard in ''Curse of the Claw'' is an attractive woman playing a man.

* TelevisionGeography: in ''Whinfrey's Last Case'', Whinfrey arrives at the remote Cornish railway station of Saltash, and a short taxi ride takes him to his even more remote holiday cottage. In reality, Saltash is on the Cornish border, within sight of the city of Plymouth (on the ''south'' coast), with the station being approached over one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's most famous bridges (absent from the episode), while the cottage and its environs appear appear to be on the distant ''north'' Cornish coast. Ironic, since Michael Palin is a rail enthusiast.
* TownWithADarkSecret: ''Whinfrey's Last Case''. It turns out that all the inhabitants of the Cornish fishing village where agent Whinfrey takes his holiday in 1913 are in fact German spies. What's more, this turns out to be part of a conspiracy between the British and German Governments.

* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: Grayson the School Bully in "Tomkinson's Schooldays" has more power that any of the teachers and the headmaster. His room is luxurious and he's dresses and TheDandy.

* EverybodyDidIt: An odd variation. [[spoil
er: In ''Murder at Moorstones Manor'', five people all claim to be the murderer. They get in a shoot-out when nobody believes them.]]

* SchoolOfHardKnocks: Graybridge turns this UpToEleven by making School Bully an official post. School tradition involves fighting grizzly bears and nailing freshmen to the walls on Saint Tadger's Day. First years have to ask permission to breathe out before 10:30 AM

* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: Grayson the School Bully in ''Tomkinson's Schooldays''
-->"In return for not hitting any of the masters, the Head had allowed Grayson certain privileges, such as having unmarried Filipino women in his room, smoking opium, and having a sauna instead of prayers."
* AffablyEvil: Grayson the School Bully, despite always referring to Tompkinson (and anyone else he talked to, including the headmaster) with a variety of witheringly contemptuous epithets, is actually fairly nice to Tompkinson, letting him use the escape tunnels he was building with the chaplain and providing him with some sort of drug (implied to be cocaine) to let him win the Hop. He even [[spoiler: passes on the mantle of School Bully to Tomkinson when he accepts a position as School Bully at Eton]]

** Kevin Orr's in ''Curse of the Claw.'' They locked Kevin's sister up inside her own home for putting too much butter on her scone and shot his brother for walking on the flower beds.
** Roger's mother in ''Roger of the Raj'' always insists on the most intense course of action when dealing with Roger, in contrast to her improbably kind husband. At one point, she attempts to shoot him when she finds out he's setting up a socialist revolution (blame Mr Hopper). Earlier, when debating parenting styles, she insists that their other son Nigel was given the "proper" treatment.
---> Father: Isn't Nigel dead?
---> Mother: Yes. But imagine what he'd be like if he wasn't.
* AliensInCardiff: Played for laughs a few times, notably with Kevin Orr's mansion in Maidenhead.
* AnachronismStew: Very slight and purely for comic effect.
* ArtifactOfDoom: The Claw in ''Curse of the Claw''.
* BoardingSchool: Graybridge in ''Tomkinson's Schooldays''.
* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: Parodied to the limit in ''Tomkinson's Schooldays''.
* TheBore: In the episode episode "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite", Eric is considered extremely boring to everyone due to his interests: rain, shovels, and black pudding. He eventually gets a job at a bank, and is kidnapped by a bank robber who it turns out has the same interests. They go on a "crime" wave of measuring rainfall and he becomes interesting to the general public, despite not changing at all.
* BritishBrevity: 9 episodes ''total''.
* BusmansHoliday: ''Whinfrey's Last Case'' revolves around the titular hero deciding that he's fed up with saving the British Empire on an almost monthly basis since 1898 and deciding to go on holiday. So of course, the place where he goes is the place where the latest scheming rotters plotting against Britain have holed up to put their plot into action, and they're so impressed by Whinfrey's reputation that they assume he's shown up to stop them and surrender pretty much without a fight.
* TheButlerDidIt: Played with: In ''Murder at Moorstones Manor'', the butler claims that he did it. Except that he has rivals who also claim they did it. Possibly the butler was telling the truth, but there's no way of knowing.
* TheCameo: John Cleese as a passerby in "Golden Gordon". Terry Jones himself might count, as he only turns up in "Tomkinson's School Days"

* DirtyCommunists: Mr. Hopper in ''Roger of the Raj'', and eventually the whole regiment. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when it turns out that, while all of them are revolutionaries, very few of them are actual communists. When Roger is made to speak and starts advocating for peaceful anarchy, they start squabbling amongst themselves whether they are opposed to ''all'' forms of centralized government, just British royalism, or something else. Mr. Hopper is ''very'' displeased.
* DirtyOldMan: The British Consul in ''Across the Andes by Frog'' has an unhealthy interest in schoolgirls, to the point where the only word he knows in the local dialect translates to "schoolgirls".
* GenteelInterbellumSetting: when most of the episodes are set.

* EverybodyDidIt: An odd variation. [[spoiler: In ''Murder at Moorstones Manor'', five people all claim to be the murderer. They get in a shoot-out when nobody believes them.]]
* GreatEscape: ''Escape from Stalag Luft 112B'' (a POWCamp).
* GymClassHell: In ''Tomkinson's Schooldays'' the school hopping team is trained to within an inch of its life and sent on a thirty-mile-hop across some of England's bleakest mountains, against a team of young Buddhists. Note the ritual "Palfrey" - a blow on the head - bestowed by a teacher with a wooden club beforehand. Tomkinson only survives with the assistance of performance-enhancing drugs.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: In ''Winfrey's Last Case'', the German spies cheerfully give up as soon as they discover that Winfrey's accidentally stumbled upon their plot.

* LaughTrack: Originally all the episodes had them, but the DVD removes them from all except ''Tomkinson's Schooldays'' and ''Murder at Moorstones Manor'', both of which were edited on videotape and never had laugh-free tracks.
* LeaveBehindAPistol: The regimental dinner in ''Roger of the Raj''. See SuicideAsComedy below.

* MurderIsTheBestSolution: This is Charles' general attitude in ''Murder at Moorstones Manor''.
* OldRetainer: In ''Across the Andes by Frog'' Palin's character is furious when he's given an old lady as a mountain guide. Cut to them lagging far behind her as she races up the mountain.
* OopNorth: ''The Testing of Eric Olthwaite'' and ''Golden Gordon'' both take place in especially miserable locations oop North.
* PrisonEscapeArtist: Parodied with Major Errol Phipps in "Escape from Stalag Luft 112B".

* StiffUpperLip: Frequently parodied.
* SuicideAsComedy: In ''Roger of the Raj'', there is a scene at a regimental dinner where various officers express controversial opinions (such as passing the port to right or even allowing women to stay and drink port with the men). This leaves them with no choice but to do the honourable thing and they each leave the room in turn to administer the shot. Rather than seeing the suicides, we only ever hear a gunshot and a loud thud (implied to be the body falling) from behind the door they just walked through. In one case, we hear a gunshot and glass shattering, followed a few seconds later by a second shot and a thud. [[EpicFail Apparently, that soldier somehow]] ''[[EpicFail missed]]'' [[EpicFail the first shot.]]
* SweetPollyOliver: Most of the crew of the ship in ''The Curse of the Claw'' are women in disguise. In a twist on the trope, thanks to the restrictive Victorian morals they had all been living under, none of them apparently realized they were women.

* UpToEleven: A large chunk of what makes the show funny.

* WholePlotReference: ''Literature/TheThirtyNineSteps'' is parodied very thoroughly in ''Whinfrey's Last Case''. The episode manages to be a more faithful adaptation of ''The Thirty-Nine Steps'' than many attempts to do it straight.

* SchoolOfHardKnocks: Graybridge turns this UpToEleven by making School Bully an official post.
** School tradition involves fighting grizzly bears and nailing freshmen to the walls on Saint Tadger's Day.
** First years have to ask permission to breathe out before 10:30 AM

* AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil: Grayson the School Bully in ''Tomkinson's Scool Days''

* AbusiveParents: Kevin Orr's in ''Curse of the Claw.'' They locked Kevin's sister up inside her own home for putting too much butter on her scone and shot his brother for walking on the flower beds.
** Roger's mother in ''Roger of the Raj'' always insists on the most intense course of action when dealing with Roger, in contrast to her improbably kind husband. At one point, she attempts to shoot him when she finds out he's setting up a socialist revolution (blame Mr Hopper). Earlier when debating parenting styles, she insists that their other son Nigel was given the "proper" treatment.
--> Father: Isn't Nigel dead?
--> Mother: Yes. But imagine what he'd be like if he wasn't.
* AliensInCardiff: played for laughs a few times, notably with Kevin Orr's mansion in Maidenhead.
* AnachronismStew: very slight and purely for comic effect.

* BoardingSchool: Graybridge In ''Tomkinson's Schooldays''
* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors
* TheBore: In the episode episode "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite" Eric is considered extremely boring to everyone due to his interests: rain, shovels, and black pudding. After he gets a job at a bank and gets kidnapped by a bank robber who it turns out has the same interests. They go on a "crime" wave of measuring rainfall and he becomes interesting to the general public, despite not changing at all.

* TheButlerDidIt: Played with: In ''Murder at Moorstones Manor'', the butler claims that he did it. Except that he has rivals who also claim they did it, Possibly, the butler was telling the truth, but there's no way of knowing.

* CardboardPrison: ''Escape from Stalag Luft 112B'', in which Major Phipps becomes the only man ''never'' to have escaped from the prison camp of the title. And this includes the guards.
** Of course, after all of the British prisoners ''except'' Phipps escape (he wasn't included in their plans because he refused to submit his own plans to the various necessary escape committees), the prison becomes very much not a CardboardPrison, with guards watching Phipps 24-7 with guns trained on him at all times. This is why the guards themselves eventually escape
* DirtyCommunists: Mr. Hopper in ''Roger of the Raj'', and eventually the whole regiment.
** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when it turns out that, while all of them are revolutionaries, very few of them are actual communists. When Roger is made to speak and starts advocating for peaceful anarchy, they start squabbling amongst themselves whether they are opposed to ''all'' forms of centralized government, just British royalism, or something else. Mr. Hopper is ''very'' displeased.

* GreatEscape: ''Escape from Stalag Luft 112B'' ( A POWCamp )

* StiffUpperLip: Frequently parodied
* SuicideAsComedy: In ''Roger of the Raj'', there is a scene at a regimental dinner where various officers express controversial opinions (such as passing the port to right or even allowing women to stay and drink port with the men). This leaves them with no choice but to do the honourable thing and they each leave the room in turn to administer the shot.
** Rather than seeing the suicides, we only ever hear a gunshot and a loud thud (implied to be the body falling) from behind the door they just walked through. In one case, we hear a gunshot and glass shattering, followed a few seconds later by a second shot and a thud. [[EpicFail Apparently, that soldier somehow]] ''[[EpicFail missed]]'' [[EpicFail the first shot.]]

* UpToEleven: a large chunk of what makes the show funny.

''Ripping Yarns'' started a year after Python ended, with its pilot ''Tomkinson's Schooldays'' being broadcast in 1975. It was followed by a first series of six episodes (including a re-run of the pilot) was broadcast in 1977. It was followed by a second series of half the size in 1979.

* TenLittleMurderVictims: ''Murder at Moorstones Manor''

** Roger's mother in ''Roger of the Raj" is an extremely talented grouse hunter and insists on the most abusive methods of parenting. When the local regiment tries to stage a rebellion, she inexplicably finds a Lewis machine gun and opens fire.

* BadassGrandma: In ''Across the Andes by Frog'' Palin's character is furious when he's given an old lady as a mountain guide. Cut to them lagging far behind her as she races up the mountain.
** Roger's mother in ''Roger of the Raj" is an extremely talented grouse hunter and insists on the most abusive methods of parenting. When the local regiment tries to stage a rebellion, she inexplicably finds a Lewis machine gun and opens fire.