I saw this being fimed and was working at LH Cloakes record shop in Croydon opposite at the time. the director made us stand at the bus stop or pretend to be window shopping. The bike thrown into the street got run over by a bus after the the 4 th or 5th take !
if you don't take being silly serious then why are you being so silly? don't take yourself so seriously, take being silly serious!....ugh, right, I've gone cockeyed again lol
What I like the most about this sketch is the complete mystery over why the hell they're supposed to greet Michael Ellis with weird noises and a goblin mask.
You should see all the stuff I was advised to buy when I got this cricket... A lawnmower, a ball, a team of people... Amazing the stuff a little insect needs!
Tenth floor is the sky.... Eleventh should be heaven, must be an atheists department store they don't even have a sub-basement level for hell... Missing out on all the fun they are.
Have you considered that the building may have been designed with that in mind? I've been to a store in Hong Kong that had two more levels above its roof garden since the size of the building halved past that.
@@jamesliu8095 If I had considered that, I would have been missing out on the obvious joke, seeing as this is a comedy sketch, I tend to assume that the intention is to be funny and not weird but reasonable.
This bit - indeed, much of this entire episode - came from the first draft of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," which was quite different from the shooting script. It was set in modern as well as Medieval times. The Grail was eventually found in this department store, but the knights blew their getaway from an angry mob because God was driving the van and couldn't work the clutch. ("I'm used to automatics!")
atom splitting service, floors 1, 5, 6 are complaints, basement has dangerous gases, viruses, contagious diseases and the restaurant. second floor has satire. i wonder what other things mean on the third floor
I met Graham Chapman at a speech he gave at a college once and asked him who Michael Ellis was. He said he was a mutual friend of the Python group and they had his permission to use his name in the sketch. Other than that, there's no special meaning to the name.
*Hang on a minute. There's more than one Michael Ellis knocking about. My uncle was called Michael Ellis, yet no one popped round his house to ask if they could use his name in a sketch! It's an outrage. I'd tell him to sue but he's now a transvestite called Mandy.*
This totally reminds me of the kind of support that is generally given by some of the larger companies. Just now in a case with Google. Exactly like in the sketch. I don't see those guys, though, so I don't know if they are actually wearing goblin masks. Funny noises, definitely.
brilliant commentary of the commercial dragnet that snares you for to spend much more than you wanted, and datawarehouses you to know your every personal detail.
It is rather fascinating that even back then they knew that buying the item you want is cheap, buying all the stuff they try to sell to go with it is where it gets expensive.
You'd be amazed at how many people think that... I have lost track of the number of people who discuss various things in the past (like disease control or lack thereof) and comment 'but they were stupid in those days' versus uneducated, for example. If anything, we've gotten stupider as time has gone on - especially in the US. Traders and most 'educated' people in Europe knew multiple languages, most pre-writing cultures could memorize literally days worth of verbal history... I have trouble remembering what I did 1 hour ago.
@@johnballentine4962 Thanks in advance for your forbearance in reading this: reckon I started thinking too late at night... In the mere four years since your remarks, the Dunning-Kruger effect in America is an epidemic. Ignorance in the US has skyrocketed - and it's taken on devotional quality. Coupled with weaponized evangelical conspiracy theorists who can barely do cursive writing, the ticking of the Doomsday Clock seems a mercy. I actually know someone - vs hearing about such things in the news - who frets about the possibility that tracking devices are being implanted in vaccines. His phone was in his hand as he confided this. Irony notwithstanding, it's hard to imagine what our population would be today if these folks had been extant in the polio/smallpox eras. As grim as it seemed in the early 70s, there was still a bit of light here. Here's to belly laughs, better animal shelters and keen writing in all formats. At least a beginning.
@@johnballentine4962 more so I like the fact this is only from the 1960s/70s, making out as though there has been a massive period of time between then and now lol
I wonder if Terry Gilliam had a hand in writing this? The part with the lift made me think of his and their movies (and the wholething seemed directed almost movie-like).
Even the way Palin moves, right at the beginning, reeks of a blatant contempt for the higher classes--classic! The backbone of Python's humour was satirizing the British class system, of their day. That's why so many have trouble deciphering it. Though I'll admit, they started waning in quality, as the series progressed.
Those were the days, I remember when me dar took me into local pie shop to pick out me first ant, but all them places have been closed under health standards now, that bastards
Yes............three levels of complaints and an "atom splitting service"............could come in handy. One must admire the comprehensive range of services available at this store..........you just dont get that thesedays.
"Now here's... Oh I dropped it." "No problem, have another one." "thank you." Beautiful exchange. Blink once and it's over. Still, I laughed every single one of the four times I rewinded the video to see these two seconds again.
@henrycaville I think it could be. The road beyond looks very similar, a one-way, but the store itself looks very different. I must say after years of walking past and into Whiteley's that I'm not sure, although I never got to see it in the '70s and they might've renovated it since then, or whatever.
Terry Jones has some purdy teeth. I wish he could be like Jimmy Fallon and laugh during every skit he's ever been in for no reason just so that I could see his teeth.
Are you actually talking about Terry Gilliam? The guy who makes a rare appearance in a sketch, being the lone American in Monty Python? (in the sketch he's a well-dressed store functionary-type)... Terry Jones is another Python regular, but he's in many sketches. Darker hair & darker colored eyes, though. Also, Gilliam did the animation for M Python too (& directed or co-directed w/Terry Jones films like The Holy Grail, Life of Brian, etc)
I got chills down my spine when Graham Chapman turned to the camera and said my name out loud
oh my goodness!! I would have too, if he had uttered my name, instead of your's 😂😮
☺
I'm planing to change my name by deed pole to Michael Ellis, so I can also feel that tingle.
Come on now, you're not Michael Ellis! You're an impostor. Or a Michael Ellis impersonator.
🧟 OOoooOoOoOoHrrrr
I saw this being fimed and was working at LH Cloakes record shop in Croydon opposite at the time. the director made us stand at the bus stop or pretend to be window shopping. The bike thrown into the street got run over by a bus after the the 4 th or 5th take !
I always loved how seriously Monty Python took being very, very silly.
None more serious: none more silly
if you don't take being silly serious then why are you being so silly?
don't take yourself so seriously, take being silly serious!....ugh, right, I've gone cockeyed again lol
What I like the most about this sketch is the complete mystery over why the hell they're supposed to greet Michael Ellis with weird noises and a goblin mask.
@@krustykrevice3362 no it doesn't.
If you knew Michael Ellis, you'd understand.
@@gregoryeatroff8608 I used to know Michael Ellis but it was a different one.
LEARNING THE PIANO??!
And who the hell is Michael Ellis!!
1:35 - Good to see the Silly Job Interview applicant finally landed a position that uses his skill set.
HAHAHAHAHA
You should see all the stuff I was advised to buy when I got this cricket... A lawnmower, a ball, a team of people... Amazing the stuff a little insect needs!
It seems there’s a lot of people who have been professionally trained by these scenes.
Tough luck for them as the department store is a thing of the past
I love how the "Roof Garden" is on the eighth floor rather than the tenth like it should be.
Tenth floor is the sky.... Eleventh should be heaven, must be an atheists department store they don't even have a sub-basement level for hell... Missing out on all the fun they are.
Sub-basement is IT surely?
@@martinmills135 In the 70s?
Have you considered that the building may have been designed with that in mind? I've been to a store in Hong Kong that had two more levels above its roof garden since the size of the building halved past that.
@@jamesliu8095 If I had considered that, I would have been missing out on the obvious joke, seeing as this is a comedy sketch, I tend to assume that the intention is to be funny and not weird but reasonable.
This bit - indeed, much of this entire episode - came from the first draft of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," which was quite different from the shooting script. It was set in modern as well as Medieval times.
The Grail was eventually found in this department store, but the knights blew their getaway from an angry mob because God was driving the van and couldn't work the clutch. ("I'm used to automatics!")
No wonder this episode's so good, unlike most of the fourth season.
Ha! That is JUST LIKE the Lord God!
The department floor menu is worth pausing and reading!
Apparently, there are Vikings in the basement. I assume that they all want Spam.
No, it says, "Toilet Fixings".
Although Vikings eating Spam would explain 'dangerous gasses'.
Spillage66: Oops! I think I need to get me bloody glasses checked.
Sixth - Complaints
Fifth - Complaints
.
.
.
First - Complaints
.
Atom splitting services......................I had almost fallen off my chair
atom splitting service, floors 1, 5, 6 are complaints, basement has dangerous gases, viruses, contagious diseases and the restaurant. second floor has satire. i wonder what other things mean on the third floor
Of all the surreal things in Python, this episode is the most surreal of all. The whole Michael Ellis existential/alienation background story
feels like a version of purgatory
I met Graham Chapman at a speech he gave at a college once and asked him who Michael Ellis was. He said he was a mutual friend of the Python group and they had his permission to use his name in the sketch. Other than that, there's no special meaning to the name.
Cool you know that. So sad he's dead now, Isn't it?
+Eryn McVay Oh God no! Michael Ellis is dead?
Leopard Basement Uh... Graham Chapman.
*Hang on a minute. There's more than one Michael Ellis knocking about. My uncle was called Michael Ellis, yet no one popped round his house to ask if they could use his name in a sketch! It's an outrage. I'd tell him to sue but he's now a transvestite called Mandy.*
Now that's comedy xD
by far the most Kafkaesque sketch in their repertoire. the nightmare and absurdity in bureaucracy of a department store. among my favorites.
Three entire floors of complaints.............still not enough!
The atom splitting service could come in handy...........you can never be too careful.
This totally reminds me of the kind of support that is generally given by some of the larger companies. Just now in a case with Google. Exactly like in the sketch. I don't see those guys, though, so I don't know if they are actually wearing goblin masks. Funny noises, definitely.
The Paisley section was refering to Ian Paisley, Northern Ireland politician whose speeches were always very shouty!
"Yes, I'm The Manager"
He must look like Michael Ellis if he is confused with him.
Graham is so funny. RIP Graham. ❤ You gave us a lot of laughs.
brilliant commentary of the commercial dragnet that snares you for to spend much more than you wanted, and datawarehouses you to know your every personal detail.
And people got more acceptable of it with the times
Im personally partial to the King George Bitch ant.
It is rather fascinating that even back then they knew that buying the item you want is cheap, buying all the stuff they try to sell to go with it is where it gets expensive.
Just because it was years ago doesn't mean they were stupid lol
You'd be amazed at how many people think that... I have lost track of the number of people who discuss various things in the past (like disease control or lack thereof) and comment 'but they were stupid in those days' versus uneducated, for example. If anything, we've gotten stupider as time has gone on - especially in the US. Traders and most 'educated' people in Europe knew multiple languages, most pre-writing cultures could memorize literally days worth of verbal history... I have trouble remembering what I did 1 hour ago.
@@johnballentine4962 Thanks in advance for your forbearance in reading this: reckon I started thinking too late at night...
In the mere four years since your remarks, the Dunning-Kruger effect in America is an epidemic.
Ignorance in the US has skyrocketed - and it's taken on devotional quality. Coupled with weaponized evangelical conspiracy theorists who can barely do cursive writing, the ticking of the Doomsday Clock seems a mercy.
I actually know someone - vs hearing about such things in the news - who frets about the possibility that tracking devices are being implanted in vaccines. His phone was in his hand as he confided this. Irony notwithstanding, it's hard to imagine what our population would be today if these folks had been extant in the polio/smallpox eras.
As grim as it seemed in the early 70s, there was still a bit of light here.
Here's to belly laughs, better animal shelters and keen writing in all formats. At least a beginning.
@@johnballentine4962 more so I like the fact this is only from the 1960s/70s, making out as though there has been a massive period of time between then and now lol
Humans have always been scumbags. That is nothing new.
Just love all the people leaving with broken noses. Love the flamethrower too.
"It's not him!"
I found it so funny when the second person was wearing the mask. That was the best part along with the ant-smushingby the book.
Would you remember a very tall man, 6'9" with a scar from here to here?
Yes.
Well this guy was very small with a high pitched voice.
The most Kafka-esque Python sketch
"i'm not gonna clean it out" cracked me up
This is one of my favourite sketches 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I wonder if Terry Gilliam had a hand in writing this? The part with the lift made me think of his and their movies (and the wholething seemed directed almost movie-like).
Apparently another commenter said this was originally going to be part of The Holy Grail.
What is this?! A store for ants?!
Even the way Palin moves, right at the beginning, reeks of a blatant contempt for the higher classes--classic! The backbone of Python's humour was satirizing the British class system, of their day. That's why so many have trouble deciphering it. Though I'll admit, they started waning in quality, as the series progressed.
I thought i seen them all but this one is new to me.
This was their " dopey" period, which we all went thru im the 60's, which, for them, reached its peak with Confuse a Cat. N'est pas?
retail: if you can avoid it we envy you
One of my favourites, though John Cleese had left :-(
Those were the days, I remember when me dar took me into local pie shop to pick out me first ant, but all them places have been closed under health standards now, that bastards
Missed Cleese when he left
He's not lying, it really is the book on ants :D
How scary the doll behind!
Theatre Of The Absurd..
No one EVER did it better than MP...
The great Terry Gilliam at 1:17...!!
umm... I'm sorry, 'You see ants when you're depressed and alone.' ?
Are you trying to tell me this infestation is a product of my imagination?
one of my favourite sketches!! awesome!! :)
This is why I stopped shopping at Grace Brothers.
Just a regular day at John Lewis...
Yes............three levels of complaints and an "atom splitting service"............could come in handy.
One must admire the comprehensive range of services available at this store..........you just dont get that thesedays.
How come the ant's name wasn't ERIC ?
Perhaps because it was a full ant, not half-an-ant?
Ant-onio Banderas.
wow, that sketch just doesn't end ... sadly the video ended before the sketch ...
Read the sign 1:01 to 1:12 hilarious, one of my favorite sketches.
Complaints
They must've crawled along here and made their escape through soft toys.
Mind bloggling costume change by Pallin in this skit
Manager, Manager 😂
Love Eric in this one!
Terry Gilliam is remarkably easy to spot in this one.
Important: Do not attempt to DRINK LIQUIDS while watching this sketch.
i lold at the half p ants being on the mangy side bahah
"Now here's... Oh I dropped it." "No problem, have another one." "thank you."
Beautiful exchange. Blink once and it's over. Still, I laughed every single one of the four times I rewinded the video to see these two seconds again.
1:05 We get an explanation for all the people wearing bandages over their noses. 3rd floor!
In reply to SolarNuke1 it's The Knightsbridge March by Eric Coates
yes he's not wearing his armor.
Mr. Ellis made three you tube accounts.
At the start, Grants department store Croydon as it was.
It's hell. Just hell.
You should always fork out the dough for the champions.🤔
Brilliant sketch !!!
An ant is worth the sun: from a Japanese haiku.
do not go to the basement cuz you are surely likely to die XD
Fantastic stuff thankyou
ROFLLMAO @ the floor guide table :D:D
"Thank you Mr. Ellis!!" "No.. He said he was Jealous!!"
@henrycaville I think it could be. The road beyond looks very similar, a one-way, but the store itself looks very different. I must say after years of walking past and into Whiteley's that I'm not sure, although I never got to see it in the '70s and they might've renovated it since then, or whatever.
Send me a book about Ants please, right away.
Sometimes my whole life looks like that MP episode ...
Thanks ants!
.. thants!
the names on the list. mior corner on the list.
de noemi dur ellis, michael ellis.
Is this the required watch for Karens of the world? Manageeeeeer!
You should, It's much less painful.
2 floors for complaints.
3 people don't know Mr Ellis
This is like what happens in a fever dream
How in the hell did they get the shot with guy's bum on fire??
The 3/4ths ant is so much better
"I don't want him!"
an atom spliting service.
@ClockworkComputer Scratch that, just read a comment below saying it was in Croydon. My mistake!
Omigod this is sooo funny i nearly wet my pants hahaahah
Pro tip: If your girlfriend laughs at this, MARRY HER.
rule 2 never dance naked with the french during ant farm recreational activitys
I'm not going there, it's a silly shop.
Terry Jones has some purdy teeth. I wish he could be like Jimmy Fallon and laugh during every skit he's ever been in for no reason just so that I could see his teeth.
Are you actually talking about Terry Gilliam? The guy who makes a rare appearance in a sketch, being the lone American in Monty Python? (in the sketch he's a well-dressed store functionary-type)... Terry Jones is another Python regular, but he's in many sketches. Darker hair & darker colored eyes, though. Also, Gilliam did the animation for M Python too (& directed or co-directed w/Terry Jones films like The Holy Grail, Life of Brian, etc)
yey id so go ther for the flamer and a lot of pet ants :)
His name is Marcus 🎉
To bad picture quality here (only 240p) to make it really enjoyable. A pity.
He didn’t pay for the ant…
He did. It was 184 pounds (for all the accessories) and 1.5 pence (for the ant).
He put it on account (payment plan), which apparently got him out of leaving blood and skin samples.
who the hell is this Ellis fella?
No one you'd know.
lmao
I am not easily squishable. ants have queens do they not, and army around them.
god bless these fucking comedy gods
I don't care who Michael Ellis is.
I don't care.
You do really ,sir