h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

how I've managed to see the notorious undertaker sketch if it's never been repeated on the BBC

I've definitely seen it and I can't see how else I would have watched it

Ho Hum

I've never seen any of the fourth series (except possibly when it first came out - but that is a dim childhood memory if it is a memory at all). Has it ever been repeated?

Good question..!

I'm sure I've seen the Undertaker sketch as part of another show - a sketch compilation or Python retrospective or something. Maybe that's where you saw it..? That particular epsiode (Series 2 Episode 13) has never - to my knowledge and according to my sources, anyway - been repeated in its entirety. I certainly remember it being missing from the last time they repeated Series 2 on the BBC.

I believe the fourth series has been repeated, but I've no idea when - certainly not in the last 12 years, although one episode from the fourth series was shown as part of the 30th Anniversary celebrations on the BBC (Terry Gilliam's favourite episode).

Possibly, I've certainly seen a few compilations so that would seem reasonable.

I'm actually never sure about the integrity of some of the episodes, I've seen the same sketch appear more than once in different episodes before now. The one that springs to mind is the Luberjack song which follows on from either a psychotic barber's sketch or The Parrot sketch (though that may be the film compilation...). I get the impression they chop and change some of the ealry shows about.

Ho Hum....


Tungsten Carbide Drills! What the bloody Hell's Tungsten Carbide Drills?!

Stop! This post is getting silly...

In the original Flying Circus series, the Lumberjack song follows the psychotic barber sketch. In the film 'And Now For Something Completely Different', a rehash of a load of first series sketches, the Lumberjack song followed the Parrot Sketch.

At Hollywood Bowl, the Lumberjack song followed the Church Fuzz sketch, and at Drury Lane, the Lumberjack song followed the Election Night Special sketch...

I'll shut up now

As it seems I have found people in the know...

Could anybody help me find the proper reference (a name, an episode nb. ?) for this particular Python sketch staging a brave man pushing a cart covered in rags, and shouting something unintelligible. A passers-by stops him, to ask about what he sells or recycles or whatever. Follows a nonsensical conversation about his whole familly, each of them wandering the streets of London shouting some thing or another, making a living of it.
It end up that he himself has no idea what is on the cart.

Or was it just a nightmare of mine ?

Beats me, sorry

It doesn't sound familiar, which means that it's either:

a) fourth series Python (which, to my shame, I've seen very little of); or

b) not Python at all...

I'll have to do a little digging!

I am 80% sure it is Python...
If it is not, it ought to be...

Sketch making fun of sellers on the streets of London, shouting somthing that used to be the name of whatever they are selling, but distorted beyond recognition by some local accent and very long usage of it...

If I remember well, the brave man was shouting something sounding like "straw....fleas !". But I might be making that up...

Undertaker you say...?

Well, there £ things we can do with yr Mum. We can burn her, bury her or dump her.

Dump her?

Dump her, in the Thames. Oh did you like her? Well we won't dump her then. Where is she?

She's in this sack.

Mmmmm. She looks quite young. FRED. I think we've got an Eater...


It's possible you may have heard this, as did I, on a taped compilation, called the Final Rip-Off. The Python-loving brain is a curious instrument, for I too have a mental picture, even tho I've never actually seen the scene...

How's that 4 a Theory....?