British humour at its absolute best. One minute of genius storytelling ending with a brilliant and unexpected punchline that leaves one roaring with laughter ! I’m just going to watch it again once more....and maybe just once more after that.....
I saw this sketch when it was broadcast over 40 years ago and I still come back here a couple of times a year to watch it again. It's that funny. It never gets old. 🤣
@@JaredGriffiths2000 I thought it was Johnny English or the precursor of that character! 😳😕I do remember the Barclycard adverts though!! Lol! (Man, I feel old!! 😵😵 Lol!)
Amazing how well Mel Smith and Rowan acted. Griff Jones is also amazing in the sketches. These guys are better than many high profile hollywood 'stars'.
Both Atkinson and Smith had been at Oxford, so there was a bit of a playful jab there at Cambridge, which famously produced several members of the Soviet spy ring in the thirties.
@@MrPontificator plus of course the double entendre which became clear at the end, although admittedly my time at Oxford was not uneventful in this respect.
@@MrPontificator There is a great follow up to this you might have missed when in BlackAdder Goes Forth episode 5 : Plan E - General Hospital, Rowan Atkinson catches Nurse Miranda Richardson as the german spy with the proof " I said your clever boyfriend has been to one of the great Universities .. Oxford, Cambridge ... Hull... and you failed to spot only two of those are great Universities..." At that point General Melchett pipes up " That's right, Oxford is a complete dump" Stephen Fry went to Cambridge of course. :) It is a really clever rehash of an old joke still using a spy. Interestingly Ben Elton who wrote a lot of that went to the University of Manchester where he met Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson. As a northerner I like that fact. Those Uni boys all gave us a Golden Age of UK comedy.
When I saw The Princess Bride for the first time a few years ago, I thought Mel Smith was Rowan Atkinson. I'm a huge Blackadder fan, but I had not heard of Mel Smith before. He really is very funny.
There was a small coterie of young men at Cambridge University in the 1950s who were recruited by the KGB to become double agents or otherwise betray the UK. They were mostly both gay and Communist, at a time when both would make you a person of interest to the police. Some of them were not gay but were more impelled purely by ideology, others were alienated because they were gay and couldn't pretend otherwise. One man, Anthony Blunt, had been employed by the Queen as the curator of her art gallery. Another, Kim Philby, lived his last 20 years or so in Russia, no use to the KGB anymore and likely to be shot by MI5 if he left Russia. The film "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" in 1965 was a far more honest and bleak look at espionage than the James Bond extravaganzas. There had recently been a series called "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", also adapted from a John Le Carre book, which reawoke interest in Cold War spying in Europe. Of course, the title, "Came In The Cold" is a pun on the movie title. Russia is cold and the other bit is NSFW.
The Tinker Tailor series is from 1979, starring Alec Guinness, Tinker Tailor movie is from 2011, starring Gary Oldman. The latter is more easily watchable, the former is lauded by purists. I love both. There is another John le Carré's book adaptation, A Most Wanted Man, an excellent film depitcing contemporary stuff.
+anonUK At Cambridge in the 30s rather than the 50s. By the 50s even people like that had no illusions about Stalin. If anyone hasn't seen it, the lightly fictionalised 2003 miniseries is worth a squint, if only for Tom Holland as Burgess.
There' was a section in the book "Spycatcher", co-written by Paul Greengrass and Peter Wright (former MI5 assistant director) that discussed Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and the spy ring. I actually think it was a good book but I was just 16 then and I found it hard to understand at first.
He wouldn't be shot, he'd be arrested if he came back to Britain. If he were shot in a foreign country it would be by MI6 not MI5 but MI6 aren't quite as trigger happy as James Bond would have you believe.
@@vaclav_fejt Frankly I found the 1979 series a lot more watchable than the 2011 movie. For one, the acting is more nuanced, while the movie is a bit too shouty. Also, Haydon, Lacon and especially Alleline seem miscast to me.
Reminds me of some "under cover" agents of the community, I had no idea about! Until someone said that "he' the last of the secret agents, and he's my man!" Unfortunately it was not to be so, for her!
+ainhoa aparicio ...or any of John le Carré's stories, really (I enjoy his novels, but they're pretty formulaic). "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", from which this sketch takes its name, is another one (adapted for film in '65, starring Richard Burton).
@@davidjames7106 To be fair it was pretty funny. Genuine laugh out moment for me.This quoting the script thing I don't quite get I do give you however.
@@shaunukhiking I'm guessing the 'quoting the script' thing is for ppl of little originality who still want to participate, while attempting to maintain a low risk of attack profile.
Its sad but reality that he got world famous by doing stupid thing with no dialogues...while these satirical comedies and live performances are real treasure...
Which everyone knows is a sequel to; " The spy who came in with a cold ," Which started out as a sequel, but later became; " The spy who came in with a cold and flu after catching a bit of a bug ," And that one was..............,
Did you think that this was a Soviet spy recruiting a UK spy to defect, or did you think throughout the conversation that he was bringing him to Russia as his boyfriend? It's the fact that we are led to believe they were talking about the former, but it unexpectedly turned out to be the latter was the joke. That's about the best I can do explaining it. Maybe it's not your type of humor.
I failed to understand the joke. Any background knowledge I should be aware of? Both characters are spies, they go to Moscow, and not sure where the word "boyfriend" comes in.
really? it was obviously a lampoon of a 70s type spy series, with the gay Cambridge graduate (based on an actual person who was a gay Cambridge graduate who sold out to the Russians, kim philby probably) thinking he was going to spy for the soviet union, in a tinker, taylor, soldier, spy scenario or as the title lampoons the spy who came in from the cold (john le carre novel) changed to the spy who came in the cold. But the joke was he just wanted him for his gayness not his spying and he was being a bit of a misogamist as well, in a gay way.
Implies you could just walk over the border from Finland back then. Update: Thanks for the replies. Update 2: Isn't "freelance sculptor" a euphemism for unemployed?
You actually could. Many young Finns went over to Russia in the weekends for cheap alcohol. From the border back to Helsinki a lot of drink drive accidents were recorded
British humour at its absolute best. One minute of genius storytelling ending with a brilliant and unexpected punchline that leaves one roaring with laughter !
I’m just going to watch it again once more....and maybe just once more after that.....
Mel Smith makes such an excellent 80s Russian
I saw this sketch when it was broadcast over 40 years ago and I still come back here a couple of times a year to watch it again. It's that funny. It never gets old. 🤣
Can we just acknowledge the hilarity of 'Freelance sculptor'? 🤣
0:16 That neck move.
Mel Smith - much missed.
That could had been a prequel Johhny English.
Rowan Atkinson also played a secret agent in a series of credit card commercials.
He also played Johnny English in Never Say Never Again (1983) Sean Connery's last outing as Bond!
@@shaunpenne1840 He didn't play Johnny English in that film but it was another spy film.
@@JaredGriffiths2000 I thought it was Johnny English or the precursor of that character! 😳😕I do remember the Barclycard adverts though!! Lol! (Man, I feel old!! 😵😵 Lol!)
@@shaunpenne1840 yeah I think in that way it was a precursor to Johnny English.
Amazing how well Mel Smith and Rowan acted. Griff Jones is also amazing in the sketches. These guys are better than many high profile hollywood 'stars'.
Americans cannot do this kind of humor, it's not in their thought process.
@@johntomasini3916 it's the damned religion that people pretend to have.
"Cambridge. That's good. Very good." This part gets me every time:)
Both Atkinson and Smith had been at Oxford, so there was a bit of a playful jab there at Cambridge, which famously produced several members of the Soviet spy ring in the thirties.
@@MrPontificator plus of course the double entendre which became clear at the end, although admittedly my time at Oxford was not uneventful in this respect.
@@MrPontificator There is a great follow up to this you might have missed when in BlackAdder Goes Forth episode 5 : Plan E - General Hospital, Rowan Atkinson catches Nurse Miranda Richardson as the german spy with the proof
" I said your clever boyfriend has been to one of the great Universities .. Oxford, Cambridge ... Hull... and you failed to spot only two of those are great Universities..."
At that point General Melchett pipes up " That's right, Oxford is a complete dump"
Stephen Fry went to Cambridge of course. :) It is a really clever rehash of an old joke still using a spy.
Interestingly Ben Elton who wrote a lot of that went to the University of Manchester where he met Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson. As a northerner I like that fact.
Those Uni boys all gave us a Golden Age of UK comedy.
How on earth could they hold a straight face when doing this sketch.
RIP Mel Smith
They were gay?
Because they must have rehearsed it more than once.
You mean gay face.
Multiple takes? (Or was it live at the time? I don’t know)
The car in the background looks seriously cool
When I saw The Princess Bride for the first time a few years ago, I thought Mel Smith was Rowan Atkinson. I'm a huge Blackadder fan, but I had not heard of Mel Smith before. He really is very funny.
41 years since I saw that and it still cracks me up
There was a small coterie of young men at Cambridge University in the 1950s who were recruited by the KGB to become double agents or otherwise betray the UK. They were mostly both gay and Communist, at a time when both would make you a person of interest to the police. Some of them were not gay but were more impelled purely by ideology, others were alienated because they were gay and couldn't pretend otherwise. One man, Anthony Blunt, had been employed by the Queen as the curator of her art gallery. Another, Kim Philby, lived his last 20 years or so in Russia, no use to the KGB anymore and likely to be shot by MI5 if he left Russia. The film "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" in 1965 was a far more honest and bleak look at espionage than the James Bond extravaganzas. There had recently been a series called "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", also adapted from a John Le Carre book, which reawoke interest in Cold War spying in Europe. Of course, the title, "Came In The Cold" is a pun on the movie title. Russia is cold and the other bit is NSFW.
The Tinker Tailor series is from 1979, starring Alec Guinness, Tinker Tailor movie is from 2011, starring Gary Oldman. The latter is more easily watchable, the former is lauded by purists. I love both.
There is another John le Carré's book adaptation, A Most Wanted Man, an excellent film depitcing contemporary stuff.
+anonUK At Cambridge in the 30s rather than the 50s. By the 50s even people like that had no illusions about Stalin. If anyone hasn't seen it, the lightly fictionalised 2003 miniseries is worth a squint, if only for Tom Holland as Burgess.
There' was a section in the book "Spycatcher", co-written by Paul Greengrass and Peter Wright (former MI5 assistant director) that discussed Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and the spy ring. I actually think it was a good book but I was just 16 then and I found it hard to understand at first.
He wouldn't be shot, he'd be arrested if he came back to Britain. If he were shot in a foreign country it would be by MI6 not MI5 but MI6 aren't quite as trigger happy as James Bond would have you believe.
@@vaclav_fejt Frankly I found the 1979 series a lot more watchable than the 2011 movie.
For one, the acting is more nuanced, while the movie is a bit too shouty. Also, Haydon, Lacon and especially Alleline seem miscast to me.
I did not see that ending. Mel's comic Russian accent is hilarious by itself.
Possibly the best sketch ever, certainly the finest punchline.
I have watched this maybe 30 times in the last 12 hours and this sketch is so funny
Had me in hysterics the first time I saw this sketch and still has me in hysterics now
Reminds me of some "under cover" agents of the community, I had no idea about!
Until someone said that "he' the last of the secret agents, and he's my man!"
Unfortunately it was not to be so, for her!
There was another Le Carre spoof in Alas Smith And Jones, an offshoot of NTNON.
There is one I remember but can't find. Full of crappy spy jargon
Comedy gold! Love early 80's!
British humour at the best.
The last split second of this clip Atkinson measuring up his new master...
The title of the sketch made me laugh as hard as the punchline.
Ive just read it for the first time. Hilarious!
Classic NTNON
A one minute masterpiece!! 😂😂😂👍
Thanks Mel.
As an unexpected punchline, that really punches. (I will buy it).
The quip is already in the title: They dropped the word "from"!
I did not see that!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The spy who came in the somewhat brownish cold
LOL! Oh my god.... this is amazing! And they did this 30 years ago!!!
YEP=--WHEN WE WERE FREE TO SPEAK OUR MINDS, AND SATIRE WAS KING.
Philip Croft Not rly, like people complained endlessly abort Life of Brian right? They probably wouldn't now
@@peterjoyfilms Interesting Freudian slip, 'abort' instead of 'about'/
The prototype Johnny English
I would have loved this in a Tom Clancy thriller!!!
I am a freelance sculptor.
There is no going back, you know..
The ultimate punchline is not particularly hilarious but the acting and script are just epic. Such a hilarious sketch.
It's funnier if you know who they're referring to.
@@epiendless1128 what is it then?
It was still somewhat unusual for a man to refer to his boyfriend when this was made.
They are lampooning either "Tinker, taylor, soldier spy" or "Smiley's people" (the series with Alec Guinnes, I mean).
+ainhoa aparicio
...or any of John le Carré's stories, really (I enjoy his novels, but they're pretty formulaic). "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", from which this sketch takes its name, is another one (adapted for film in '65, starring Richard Burton).
ainhoa aparicio Maybe even the Cambridge 5.
'Spy? Spy?! No boyfriend of mine goes out to work.'
Martin Mitchell yes, I watched the punch line too
@@davidjames7106 To be fair it was pretty funny. Genuine laugh out moment for me.This quoting the script thing I don't quite get I do give you however.
@@shaunukhiking I'm guessing the 'quoting the script' thing is for ppl of little originality who still want to participate, while attempting to maintain a low risk of attack profile.
@@emansnas people of little originality...
@@herbayum76 Actually...? No. A subtle msg re appropriate level of respect (and/or lack thereof). Better: "...ppl of little originality...."
@LankanTVPresenter Well congratulations, I'm happy for you :-) But did you actually not like the video?
Its sad but reality that he got world famous by doing stupid thing with no dialogues...while these satirical comedies and live performances are real treasure...
Isn't that an old Volvo TP21 "sow" (sugga) in the background?
Gjaeralaus Could they get a Zil back then ?
Go Rowan go! More fun than monty python, and probably bigger!
Love u Rowan Atkinson And Mr Bean
KING IJAZ He's at his best as Lord Blackadder.
Nothing like this today
Brilliant
They almost lose it with probable hysterical laughter when Mel says ‘spy’ - sarcastically, for the second time...
Which everyone knows is a sequel to;
" The spy who came in with a cold ,"
Which started out as a sequel, but later became;
" The spy who came in with a cold and flu after catching a bit of a bug ,"
And that one was..............,
The spy who self isolated and washed his hands?
@Peter---The Spy Who Had Covid 19.( and couldn't meet his handler because he was self isolating.)
The hypochondriac who feared he had Covid, who, due to his true illness, damn near died.
One of the better ones (I personally think the "glasses" one is funnier but that doesn't seem to be up on the web.
Mimochodem také jsem (původem) z Ostravy. Říkal jsem si, že mi ten kůň ve Tvém profilu něco připomíná :D
The old rough trade times
@LankanTVPresenter haha very good
I don't get it... Someone please explain?
Kredeidi He's a professional bungee jumper looking for a new rubber.
It's about misunderstanding a coded conversation - which he (and we too) thought was about spying.
johnny english's origin lol
Did he say: his boyfriend? 😂😂😂😂
the very point! About Cambridge Five spy ring two agents were gays and one bisexual.
😂😂😂😂
Can someone kindly explain this joke to me please 😹
Did you think that this was a Soviet spy recruiting a UK spy to defect, or did you think throughout the conversation that he was bringing him to Russia as his boyfriend? It's the fact that we are led to believe they were talking about the former, but it unexpectedly turned out to be the latter was the joke. That's about the best I can do explaining it. Maybe it's not your type of humor.
Hint: Cambridge Five
are you czech or what (nick)? :D
††† 2018 Dios †††
😀😀😀😀
Freelance Sculptor
😀😀
Brilliant lol
hahahahahahahhaha
He says " No boyfriend of mine goes out to work" but yes.
lol ACE
††† Dios (2019) †††
I failed to understand the joke. Any background knowledge I should be aware of? Both characters are spies, they go to Moscow, and not sure where the word "boyfriend" comes in.
Must know the history. Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess, the spies from Cambridge Five, were both gays. It is humorous reference.
Didn't get it
Me too
really? it was obviously a lampoon of a 70s type spy series, with the gay Cambridge graduate (based on an actual person who was a gay Cambridge graduate who sold out to the Russians, kim philby probably) thinking he was going to spy for the soviet union, in a tinker, taylor, soldier, spy scenario or as the title lampoons the spy who came in from the cold (john le carre novel) changed to the spy who came in the cold. But the joke was he just wanted him for his gayness not his spying and he was being a bit of a misogamist as well, in a gay way.
Implies you could just walk over the border from Finland back then.
Update: Thanks for the replies.
Update 2: Isn't "freelance sculptor" a euphemism for unemployed?
You actually could. Many young Finns went over to Russia in the weekends for cheap alcohol.
From the border back to Helsinki a lot of drink drive accidents were recorded
Actually Finland and the Soviet Union enjoyed very good relations during the Cold War
"...no boyfriend of mine go afterwork." So he is a gay and is looking for a new boyfriend.
nezapamatovatelne No, he's a professional bungee jumper looking for a new rubber.
No jasně. Většinou mi lidi za ten nick nadávají, že je to debilní. :D
Tak není to debilní... Ale je to nezapamatovatelné. :D
co?
Half of Russians troops are like this...no wonder they're losing the war with Ukraine at the moment.
Sadly not now because the grumpy leftists banned comedy on tv. 😟
Yes that's exactly what happened. "Leftists" "banned" comedy 🙄