From “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”
Transcribed by Jonathan Partington
Colonel (Graham Chapman): get some discipline into those chaps, Sergeant Major!
Sargeant (John Cleese, shouting throughout): Right sir! Good evening, class.
All (mumbling): Good evening.
Sargeant: Where’s all the others, then?
All: They’re not here.
Sgt.: I can see that. What’s the matter with them?
All: Dunno.
Chapman (member of class): Perhaps they’ve got ‘flu.
Sgt.: Huh! ‘Flu, eh? They should eat more fresh fruit. Ha. Right. Now, self-defence. Tonight I shall be carrying on from where we got to last week when I was showing you how to defend yourselves against anyone who attacks you with armed with a piece of fresh fruit.
(Grumbles from all)
Palin: Oh, you promised you wouldn’t do fruit this week.
Sgt.: What do you mean?
Jones: We’ve done fruit the last nine weeks.
Sgt.: What’s wrong with fruit? You think you know it all, eh?
Palin: Can’t we do something else?
Idle (Welsh): Like someone who attacks you with a pointed stick?
Sgt.: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh? Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I’ll tell you something my lad. When you’re walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don’t come crying to me! Now, the passion fruit. When your assailant lunges at you with a passion fruit…
All: We done the passion fruit.
Sgt.: What?
Chapman: We done the passion fruit.
Palin: We done oranges, apples, grapefruit…
Jones: Whole and segments.
Palin: Pomegranates, greengages…
Chapman: Grapes, passion fruit…
Palin: Lemons…
Jones: Plums…
Chapman: Mangoes in syrup…
Sgt.: How about cherries?
All: We did them.
Sgt.: Red and black?
All: Yes!
Sgt.: All right, bananas.
(All sigh.)
Sgt.: We haven’t done them, have we? Right. Bananas. How to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. Now you, come at me with this banana. Catch! Now, it’s quite simple to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana. First of all you force him to drop the banana; then, second, you eat the banana, thus disarming him. You have now rendered him ‘elpless.
Palin: Suppose he’s got a bunch.
Sgt.: Shut up.
Idle: Suppose he’s got a pointed stick.
Sgt.: Shut up. Right now you, Mr Apricot.
Chapman: ‘Arrison.
Sgt.: Sorry, Mr. ‘Arrison. Come at me with that banana. Hold it like that, that’s it. Now attack me with it. Come on! Come on! Come at me! Come at me then! (Shoots him.)
Chapman: Aaagh! (dies.)
Sgt.: Now, I eat the banana. (Does so.)
Palin: You shot him!
Jones: He’s dead!
Idle: He’s completely dead!
Sgt.: I have now eaten the banana. The deceased, Mr Apricot, is now ‘elpless.
Palin: You shot him. You shot him dead.
Sgt.: Well, he was attacking me with a banana.
Jones: But you told him to.
Sgt.: Look, I’m only doing me job. I have to show you how to defend yourselves against fresh fruit.
Idle: And pointed sticks.
Sgt.: Shut up.
Palin: Suppose I’m attacked by a man with a banana and I haven’t got a gun?
Sgt.: Run for it.
Jones: You could stand and scream for help.
Sgt.: Yeah, you try that with a pineapple down your windpipe.
Jones: A pineapple?
Sgt.: Where? Where?
Jones: No I just said: a pineapple.
Sgt.: Oh. Phew. I thought my number was on that one.
Jones: What, on the pineapple?
Sgt.: Where? Where?
Jones: No, I was just repeating it.
Sgt.: Oh. Oh. I see. Right. Phew. Right that’s bananas then. Now the raspberry. There we are. ‘Armless looking thing, isn’t it? Now you, Mr Tin Peach.
Jones: Thompson.
Sgt.: Thompson. Come at me with that raspberry. Come on. Be as vicious as you like with it.
Jones: No.
Sgt.: Why not?
Jones: You’ll shoot me.
Sgt.: I won’t.
Jones: You shot Mr. Harrison.
Sgt.: That was self-defence. Now come on. I promise I won’t shoot you.
Idle: You promised you’d tell us about pointed sticks.
Sgt.: Shut up. Come on, brandish that raspberry. Come at me with it. Give me Hell.
Jones: Throw the gun away.
Sgt.: I haven’t got a gun.
Jones: You have.
Sgt.: Haven’t.
Jones: You shot Mr ‘Arrison with it.
Sgt.: Oh, that gun.
Jones: Throw it away.
Sgt.: Oh all right. How to defend yourself against a redcurrant – without a gun.
Jones: You were going to shoot me!
Sgt.: I wasn’t.
Jones: You were!
Sgt.: No, I wasn’t, I wasn’t. Come on then. Come at me. Come on you weed! You weed, do your worst! Come on, you puny little man. You weed…
(Sgt. pulls a lever in the wall–CRASH! a 16-ton weight falls on Jones)
Jones: Aaagh.
Sgt.: If anyone ever attacks you with a raspberry, just pull the lever and the 16-ton weight will fall on top of him.
Palin: Suppose there isn’t a 16-ton weight?
Sgt.: Well that’s planning, isn’t it? Forethought.
Palin: Well how many 16-ton weights are there?
Sgt.: Look, look, look, Mr Knowall. The 16-ton weight is just one way of dealing with a raspberry killer. There are millions of others!
Idle: Like what?
Sgt.: Shootin’ him?
Palin: Well what if you haven’t got a gun or a 16-ton weight?
Sgt.: Look, look. All right, smarty-pants. You two, you two, come at me then with raspberries. Come on, both of you, whole basket each.
Palin: No guns.
Sgt.: No.
Palin: No 16-ton weights.
Sgt.: No.
Idle: No pointed sticks.
Sgt.: Shut up.
Palin: No rocks up in the ceiling.
Sgt.: No.
Palin: And you won’t kill us.
Sgt.: I won’t.
Palin: Promise.
Sgt.: I promise I won’t kill you. Now. Are you going to attack me?
Palin & Idle: Oh, all right.
Sgt.: Right, now don’t rush me this time. Stalk me. Do it properly. Stalk me. I’ll turn me back. Stalk up behind me, close behind me, then in with the redcurrants! Right? O.K. start moving. Now the first thing to do when you’re being stalked by an ugly mob with redcurrants is to – release the tiger!
(He does so. Growls. Screams.)
Sgt.: The great advantage of the tiger in unarmed combat is that he eats not only the fruit-laden foe but also the redcurrants. Tigers however do not relish the peach. The peach assailant should be attacked with a crocodile. Right, now, the rest of you, where are you? I know you’re hiding somewhere with your damsons and prunes. Well I’m ready for you. I’ve wired meself up to 200 tons of gelignite, and if any one of you so much as makes a move we’ll all go up together! Right, right. I warned you. That’s it…
(Explosion.)