Holiday Humour #2: Monty Python’s the Money Programme

You may remember Monty Python, as it has shaped many British person's psyche.  

The sketches are packed into the Broadway show Spamalot, but one that has been forgetten in the archives is their pastiche on the Money Programme, a core programme broadcast by the BBC from 1966-2010. 

In 1972, Monty Python did a skit on the idea and it still has legs today, as it shows why cash is the thing we love the most.

Here's the sketch:

... and if you can't watch the clip, then here's the script:

Opening title sequence
and signature tune for ‘The Money Programme’.

Set with presenter and
two guests.

Close up on presenter.

Presenter:         

Good evening and welcome to ‘The Money Programme’.

Tonight on ‘The Money
Programme’, we’re going to look at money.

Lots of it.

On film, and in the studio.

Some of it in nice piles.

Others in lovely clanky bits of loose change.

Some of it neatly counted into fat little hundreds.

Delicate fivers stuffed into bulging wallets.

Nice crisp clean cheques.

Pert pieces of copper coinage thrust deep into trouser
pockets.

Romantic foreign money rolling against the thigh with rough
familiarity.

(starting to get
excited) beautiful wayward curlicue banknotes.

Filigree copper plating cheek by jowl with tumbling
hexagonal milled edges.

Rubbing gently against the terse leather of beautifully
balanced bank books …

(collects himself)

I’m sorry but I love money.

All money.

I’ve always wanted money …

(getting worked up
again)

… to handle, to touch.

The smell of the rain-washed florin.

The lure of the lira.

(standing on the desk)

The glitter and the glory of the guinea.

The romance of the rouble.

The feel of the franc.

The heel of the Deutschmark.

The cold antiseptic sting of the Swiss franc, and the
sunburnt splendour of the Australian dollar.

(sings to piano
accompaniment)

I’ve got ninety thousand pounds in my pyjamas.

I’ve got forty thousand French francs in my fridge.

I’ve got lots and lots of lira.

Now the deutschmark’s getting dearer.

And my dollar bill could buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

Five singers (male) in
Welsh (women’s) national costume come on. A Welsh harpist joins them.

All sing:               

There is nothing quite as wonderful as money.

There is nothing quite as beautiful as cash.

Some people say it’s folly

But I’d rather have the lolly

With money you can make a smash.

Presenter:

There is nothing quite as wonderful as money

There is nothing like a newly minted pound

All:

Everyone must hanker for the butchness of a banker

It’s accountancy that makes the world go round.

Presenter:         

You can keep your Marxist ways for it’s only just a phase.

All:

For its money, money, money.

Makes the world go round.

(a shower of paper
notes descends)

Money, money, money, money, money, money!