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Salty Ham
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
Unable to sleep after dinner, Gordon drinks from a pitcher and berates Fran over the ham. Her attempts to explain how she cooked it lead him into ever more extravagant complaints about food and family, until he bans pork from the house. After demanding quiet, he softens enough to ask about dessert, while Fran returns to the question of cooking a whole pig.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 2
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
It's that salty bloody ham!
I am tired; I am salty; I require silence.
Behind the scenes
The people who made it.
Bruce McCulloch
Writer
Scott Thompson
Writer
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
Bruce McCulloch has said that he and Scott Thompson wrote the sketch together, drawing Gordon from his father and Fran from Thompson’s mother.
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:12
Fran
Gordon? Gordon, what are you doing up, hon? It's after two o'clock in the morning.
- 00:22
Gordon
It's that salty, bloody ham.
- 00:27
Fran
The ham we had at dinner?
- 00:30
Gordon
Yes, was there another ham?
- 00:32
Fran
You didn't like it.
- 00:35
Gordon
No, I didn't like the ham, dear. It was a little bit salty, thanks.
- 00:39
Fran
Well, you certainly wolfed enough of it down.
- 00:43
Gordon
I didn't wolf it down a man works all day he expects a normal ham meal not damn bastard brine
- 00:53
Fran
well I don't know what could have gone wrong
- 00:55
Gordon
well something did
- 00:57
Fran
I didn't do anything different I went down to Dietrich's and I picked myself up a choice six-pound Virginia ham
- 01:04
Gordon
did you drop it in in salt on the way home, perhaps?
- 01:07
Fran
No, I basted it with a mustard glaze. Then I put maraschino cherry and pineapple spears in it and popped it in a 350 degree oven for two hours.
- 01:19
Gordon
Was it a bargain ham? Help me out here, honey. Did you stuff the ham with salt?
- 01:24
Fran
No, Gordon, no, you can't stuff a ham, silly. There's no hole to stuff. You stuff a turkey, not a ham. Well, I suppose you could stuff a whole pig. But I wouldn't want to have to cook a whole pig. I wouldn't know how. Barbara would know. I'll call her.
- 01:48
Gordon
Put down that phone. Nobody's asking you to cook a whole damn pig. A man my age shouldn't be up all night looking for Gatorade streams in the backyard.
- 02:00
Fran
Let's be fair to the ham, dear. ham is a salty food it's not like porridge or toast or a pear
- 02:08
Gordon
i know that ham isn't porridge or toast or a pear
- 02:15
what do i
- 02:17
Gordon
your old lady's a horrible cook oh admit it everything with her is so bland i could puke she would boil a pork tart where's you you would salt fish from the the Dead Sea.
- 02:28
you know
- 02:32
Gordon
You know what's going to happen to me? I'm going to get a big pussy boil right on my neck. Is that what you want in bed with you? A big puss boil shooting salt all over your good bed linen. I work hard all day. I expect a normal hand meal, not voodoo pork. Pork!
- 02:58
Gordon
You know what this reminds me of, don't you?
- 03:00
Fran
I hate to guess.
- 03:02
Gordon
The mushroom pork incident.
- 03:04
Fran
Oh! When will you ever let me live that one down?
- 03:07
Gordon
Who but you would screw up something as simple as a pork chop, smother it in mushroom sauce every-
- 03:13
Fran
It was gravy!
- 03:15
Gordon
It was porridge!
- 03:16
Fran
And besides, that was a long time ago. That was when we lived in the Blue House, remember?
- 03:23
Gordon
Well, I can taste it like it was yesterday. That, now this. I see a pattern developing.
- 03:33
Gordon
I'm vanishing.
- 03:35
Gordon
I'm banishing pork.
- 03:37
Fran
What?
- 03:38
Gordon
I've made a decision to banish pork. It's not coming in through that door. It's not coming in through that window. Your rock star son isn't bringing it home in his big, fag hair. As of today, we are a pork-free household. I have spoken.
- 03:54
well
- 03:59
Fran
Well, I guess there's no point in me making you ham sandwiches for your lunch tomorrow.
- 04:03
Gordon
No, honey, no point whatsoever.
- 04:05
Fran
Fine. You just have to eat in the cafeteria then. See how you like that. It's ham Tuesday.
- 04:09
Gordon
Great.
- 04:10
Fran
Well, you seem to know so much about cooking, Gordon. Why don't you do all the cooking around here?
- 04:14
Gordon
Why don't you shut up around here?
- 04:16
Fran
No, no, no, no, no. We'll knock a hole in the ceiling, drag the barbecue in, tattoo an apron to your chest. You can cook to your heart's content.
- 04:22
Gordon
Shut up.
- 04:23
Fran
It just gets my goat. You wake me up in the middle of a lovely dream About Barry Gordy taking me to the Grammys To harangue me about some stupid ham
- 04:34
Gordon
I think it was a little salty
- 04:35
Fran
Oh, I don't think it's fair, Gordon I do everything in my power to be a good wife to you I fold sheets and pillowcases I shoo the kids out of that precious garden of yours I do everything in my power Short of greeting you at the door in saran wrap
- 04:48
Gordon
Oh, shut up about that, stop
- 04:49
Fran
And for what? For nothing For once in our marriage I would just like to have the last...
- 04:55
Gordon
Shut up!
- 04:56
Fran
Word!
- 05:01
Gordon
I I am tired. I am salty. I require silence,
- 05:22
Fran
you old soldier.
- 05:31
Uh,
- 05:41
Gordon
Uh,
- 05:41
Gordon
listen, Mother. Is there any more of that nice dessert left? The jello one, two, three.
- 05:50
Fran
What's that?
- 05:50
Gordon
The jello one, two, three.
- 05:53
Gordon
Yeah,
- 05:53
Gordon
I think I'm gonna get myself a little bit of that.
- 05:55
Fran
Well, there's a little bit left in the fridge would be on your garnish beside the ham. Might've been some salt transference.
- 06:01
hello Barb
- 06:16
Fran
Hello, Barbara? It's Fran calling. Sorry to wake you so late, dear, but I was just wondering if you'd know how to cook a whole pig. You tried what? Swedish meatballs tartare.
- 06:29
Fran
or how to go.
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
More from across the archive.
