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The Bishop

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

The setup

A crime-busting bishop and his gang of sunglassed vicars race from church to church to stop booby-trapped services, but never quite get there in time.

Community rating

– / 10

The premise

Here’s the bit.

A crozier slams down on the desk of the crooked insurance man Mr. Devious, and the moment he cries out the hero's name the action cuts to the titles of a church-produced crime film. In mitre and robes, the Bishop and four hench-vicars in dark glasses screech up to a village church in a huge American car and burst in just as the vicar announces his text, a second too late to stop the pulpit exploding. A call through his crook sends him to a christening where the baby is ticking, then to a wedding where pulling the ring brings down an enormous weight, past a hanged bell-ringer and to a graveside where a cannon rises out of the grave. Finally a faint cry from an office-block window sends the gang sprinting through the streets and up the stairs to Mr. Devious's door, which they smash open using one of the vicars as a battering ram, and the film starts over from the beginning.

The funny people

Meet the cast. 4

Say it with us

Highly quotable.

Don't say the text!

Don't say the kid's name, Vic!

A little extra

Notes from the archive.

Wikipedia's episode list describes the segment as a parody of The Saint scored with Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme. The Bishop returns briefly later in the same episode, when a studio discussion cuts back to him and his titles stop abruptly.

The rabbit hole continues

One more couldn’t hurt.

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