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Behind the Scenes: Watergategate

That Mitchell and Webb Look2006Season 1Episode 2
That Mitchell and Webb Look
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.

The setup

Between takes on a sunny location, a newspaper headline sends David and Robert into a pedantic fight over how scandals get their names.

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The premise

Here’s the bit.

Sitting in director's chairs on a park shoot, David reads the paper while Robert objects to his habit of making jokes about the news. When talk turns to an American scandal, Robert insists the historic one should properly carry a doubled suffix, and the pair argue about whether naming a scandal works by tacking letters onto a hotel or a previous affair. The exchange ends with a flat attempt at a water-related coinage and a rueful admission that it falls short.

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Highly quotable.

That must be the biggest scandal since Watergategate.

Aquagate. It's not great, is it?

ScriptEnglish · 35 turns

Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors.

  1. 00:00

    I tell you what's just caught my eye in the headlines right now.

  2. 00:03

    Oh, shut up, David!

  3. 00:05

    I was just going to say...

  4. 00:06

    I don't want to hear it.

  5. 00:07

    I don't want to hear your jokes about the news

  6. 00:08

    when I'm trying to sit here and having a nice rest.

  7. 00:10

    No, it's just that my eye was caught by...

  8. 00:12

    Get on a panel show.

  9. 00:14

    You've got a big boil of topical satire and he's lancing.

  10. 00:18

    No, no, I'm just interested in world affairs

  11. 00:20

    and at the same time very, very witty.

  12. 00:25

    Anyway, I wasn't going to do a joke.

  13. 00:26

    I was just going to say that my eye was caught

  14. 00:28

    by this whole scandal in America.

  15. 00:31

    Ooh, the scandal in America. Yeah, that is interesting.

  16. 00:34

    That must be the biggest scandal since Watergategate.

  17. 00:38

    Since what?

  18. 00:39

    Well, I think the American government hasn't been this screwed since...

  19. 00:42

    Well, I think you have to go all the way back to Watergategate.

  20. 00:45

    Watergategate? Isn't it just Watergate?

  21. 00:47

    No, that would mean it was just about water.

  22. 00:49

    No, it was a scandal, or gate, at the suffix gate,

  23. 00:52

    that's what you do with a scandal, involving the Watergate Hotel,

  24. 00:55

    so it was called the Watergate scandal, or Watergategate.

  25. 00:58

    But doesn't the term gate, meaning a scandal, come from Watergate?

  26. 01:03

    What, take the last four letters of a previous scandal or hotel

  27. 01:06

    and add it on to all future scandals?

  28. 01:08

    That can't be the system.

  29. 01:10

    I think it is.

  30. 01:11

    Well, what if there's a scandal about water?

  31. 01:14

    What do you call that?

  32. 01:15

    Well, you'd call it Watergate.

  33. 01:18

    What does that mean?

  34. 01:19

    Um, Aquagate.

  35. 01:22

    It's not great, is it?

The rabbit hole continues

One more couldn’t hurt.

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