How the Middle East Was Won

An announcer promotes a sweeping historical film starring Peter O'Toole as Lawrence of Arabia, Richard Burton as his namesake explorer and Richard Harris as Gordon of Khartoum, with Sean Connery as the Mufti and Candice Bergen as the American captive who falls for him. Each Englishman makes a theatrical bid to win the Mufti over, and their speeches grow ever more insulting and absurd as they compete to bring Arabia under British rule. The Mufti's patience runs thin while the trailer keeps boasting about the actors' towering performances. The rivals finally gather to raise a flag over the desert, and the film's biggest promised spectacle arrives.

Originally broadcast on 28 October 1978 as a mock movie commercial in SCTV's Farm Film Report/Arabs episode. The on-screen star captions deliberately misspell the actors' names, such as Peter O'tool and Richard Berton. According to the SCTV Guide, the sketch reunites the Harris, Burton and O'Toole trio from the Series 1 parody The Man Who Would Be King of the Popes. In the following Farm Film Report, Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok approve of the film because its stars blow up.