Title: Party Political Broadcast
Original Airdate: 5/12/1974
There now follows a party political broadcast on behalf of the Liberal party.
A very disgusting family discussing Rhodesia and arguing with each other is shown to be a contestant for the Most Awful Family award, but the winners turn out to be the Jordrell family. Another awful family is visited by an Icelandic honey salesman, though they aren't interested and kick him out.
Then: at a doctor's office a patient is stabbed by a nurse and bleeds out on the floor having failed to fill out the proper paperwork, a brigadier and a bishop confess their love for each other but lament they can't express it due to being on television, a cartoon of an opera singer being shot at very slowly, an appeal on behalf of extremely rich people who have absolutely nothing wrong with them to give the announcer money, a woman learning how to finish sentences, an expedition for a Walking Tree, a cricket match where the cricketers are killed by...err...African natives throwing spears and machetes, and for the last time, the end credits.
After the credits, a documentary on Ursula Hitler
This has been a party political broadcast on behalf of the Liberal Party.
Tropes:
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: "The Most Awful Family in Britain" sketch.
- Bloody Hilarious: The Batsmen of the Kalahari sketch has various preppy English guys violently murdered in a cricket match by their opponents.
- Curse Cut Short:
- First, in "The Most Awful Family in Britain":
Mr Garibaldi (Terry Jones): I could hear his great wet slobbering lips going at you... and his hand going up your...
Mrs Garibaldi (Eric Idle): Dad!- Then in the David Attenborough sketch:
Attenborough (Michael Palin): The Turkish Little Rude Plant. This remarkably smutty piece of flora was used by the Turks to ram up each other's... (Rupert nudges him) - Filming Location Cameo: Mrs Long-Name ends up at Stonehenge, only for a Linkman, played by Palin, to say, "This is Stonehenge! And it's from here we go to Africa!"
- Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Mr Vernon and Mrs Long-Name in "The Man Who Finishes Other People's Sentences" sketch.
- Funny Background Event: A man wearing a Jeremy Thorpe mask (a British politician) appears in random shots waving to the camera.
- Gasshole: Kevin Garibaldi in "The Most Awful Family in Britain" sketch; he spends most of the sketch eating beans while his dad fans the air in front of him, and goes crazy when he runs out.
- Hypocritical Humor: In "The Most Awful Family in Britain" sketch:Valerie (Graham Chapman): Don't be so bleedin' stupid. If you lived in bleedin' Rhodesia, you'd be out at bleedin' fascist rallies every bleedin' day. You're a bleedin' racist, you bleedin' are.
Mr Garibaldi: Language!
Valerie: Well he gets on my sodding wick.
Mr Garibaldi: That's better. - Office Golf: The sketch in which a doctor practices his golf swing while his patient bleeds to death in his office.
- Off with His Head!: The match of the Batsmen of the Kalahari versus the Pratts gets off to a violent start when the first move of the game has the batter's head cut clean off.
- Overly Long Name: In the Sentence Finishing sketch, the Pepperpot played by Terry Jones is named in the script as "Mrs What-a-Long-Name-This-Is-Hardly-Worth-Typing-But-Never-Mind-It-Never-Comes-Up-Again".
- Painfully Slow Projectile: The cartoon opera singer has a cannon fired at him from a few feet away. The cannonball takes about a minute to hit him, yet he makes no attempt to move out of the way.
- Skewed Priorities: The doctor in the paperwork sketch is more concerned about a man who is bleeding to death not answering his incredibly long questionnaire correctly.
- Stylistic Suck: During the closing credits, songwriter Neil Innes plays the "Liberty Bell March" on acoustic guitar rather slowly and stiltedly, as if learning guitar for the first time.
- Take That!: The last gag of the series is the continuity announcer cracking up just invoking the name of the Liberal Party.
