sketchtv.lol Search

You're tuned to the good stuff

The Ministry of Silly Walks

Monty Python's Flying Circus1970Season 2Episode 1
Monty Python's Flying Circus
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.

The setup

A bowler-hatted civil servant with a spectacularly ridiculous gait weighs a hopeful applicant's grant request at the Ministry of Silly Walks.

Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube

Community rating

– / 10

The premise

Here’s the bit.

After collecting his copy of The Times from a newsagent, Mr. Teabag high-steps and lurches his way through London to his office at the Ministry of Silly Walks, where Mr. Putey has been waiting to ask for government money to develop his own modest walk. Teabag judges Putey's single leg-flick disappointingly ordinary and, while stalking around the room in ever stranger strides, complains that his department is starved of funds compared with defence and that foreign rivals are pulling ahead. His secretary's jerky delivery empties both coffee cups before they arrive, and a scratchy silent film of vintage silly walkers is shown before Teabag hurls the projector aside and offers Putey a fellowship on an Anglo-French project. Two beret-wearing Frenchmen then unveil the result in a field: a man dressed half as an English city gent and half as a Frenchman, who scurries off into the distance.

The funny people

Meet the cast. 6

Say it with us

Highly quotable.

I see. May I see your silly walk?

The right leg isn't silly at all, and the left leg merely does a forward aerial half-turn every alternate step.

Thank you, lovely.

Behind the scenes

The people who made it.

A little extra

Notes from the archive.

A shortened version of the sketch, without the opening walk through London, was later staged in Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. The Anglo-French silly walk La Marche Futile spoofs the joint British-French development of Concorde.

ScriptEnglish · 30 turns

Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.

  1. 00:01

    Mr. Teabag

    Time, please.

  2. 00:02

    Shopkeeper

    Oh, yes, I am.

  3. 00:04

    Mr. Teabag

    Thank God.

  4. 00:05

    Yeah.

  5. 01:11

    Mr. Teabag

    Good morning I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, but I'm afraid my walk has become rather silly recently, and so it takes me rather long. Now then, what was it again?

  6. 01:24

    Mr. Putey

    Well, sir, I have a silly walk, and I'd like to obtain a government grant to help me develop it.

  7. 01:30

    Mr. Teabag

    I see. May I see your silly walk?

  8. 01:32

    Mr. Putey

    Yes, certainly, yes.

  9. 01:36

    Well, that's it, is it?

  10. 01:54

    Mr. Teabag

    That's it, is it?

  11. 01:55

    Mr. Putey

    Yes, that's it, yes.

  12. 01:57

    Mr. Teabag

    It's not particularly silly, is it? I mean, the right leg isn't silly at all, and the left leg merely does a forward aerial half-turn every alternate step.

  13. 02:05

    Mr. Putey

    Yes, but I think with government backing, I could make it very silly.

  14. 02:09

    Mr. Teabag

    Mr. Pewdie, the very real problem is one of money. I'm afraid that the Ministry of Civil War needs to see it as defence, social security, health, housing, education, city walls. They're all supposed to be like that, but last year, the government spent less on the Ministry of Civil War than it did on national defence. Now, we get $348 million a year, which is supposed to be spent on all our available products.

  15. 02:42

    Mr. Teabag

    Can I have coffee?

  16. 02:43

    Mr. Putey

    Yes, please.

  17. 02:44

    Mr. Teabag

    Mrs. Two-Lumps, would you bring us in two coffees, please?

  18. 02:47

    Mrs. Two-Lumps

    Yes, Mr. Teabag.

  19. 02:50

    Mr. Teabag

    Out of a mind. Now, the Japanese have a man who can bend his leg back over his head and back again with every single step, while the Israelis have... Ah, here's the coffee.

  20. 03:06

    Thank

  21. 03:07

    Mr. Teabag

    Thank you. Lovely.

  22. 03:08

    Mr. Teabag

    there you're really interested in city walks aren't you

  23. 03:16

    Mr. Putey

    oh rather

  24. 03:16

    Mr. Teabag

    well take a look at this then do

  25. 03:56

    Mr. Teabag

    I'm not going to be good with you. I'm going to offer a research fellowship on the anglo-french city walk

  26. 04:01

    Mr. Putey

    La marche future?

  27. 04:03

    Brian Trubshawe

    Bonjour! Maintenant, j'allais vous abonner les biroirs comme d'habitude au sujet du marché commis. Maintenant, je vous présente, encore une fois, mon ami, le pauvre célèbre Jean-Briand. Bon appétit!

  28. 04:22

    Jean-Brian Zatapathique

    Oh, merci, mon petit chouchou! et maintenant, avec le pied de droite, avec le pied de gauche, et maintenant, l'angle au fond, c'est ma futile, et voilà!

  29. 04:44

    A

  30. 04:50

    Speaker 1

    And choice of viewing on BBC television.

The rabbit hole continues

One more couldn’t hurt.

More from across the archive.

Explore the show