STOP THAT, MISS BRIGGS!

Bullies Don't Explode Everyday

Monty Python's Flying Circus was the greatest effort in the English-speaking world to do humor with intelligence, and discounting some abysmal mistakes in their judgment, the troupe usually succeeded gloriously. Chaotic and self-referential, the show's frenetically linked skits were seldom intended to make sense.

From, "My brain hurts!" to "Say no more, nudge, nudge," every fan has their fav expression among Monty Python's extensive contributions to the pop culture lexicon.

Mine is, "Things explode every day."

Audio from the Monty Python album, "Matching Tie and Handkerchief"...  

That's the admonishment a character played by John Cleese delivers to his mother in her living room where seconds earlier, her best friend Mrs. Nickabder -- well, fatally exploded. No, she did not die in an explosion. She just exploded. Out of the blue, without any prior indication, for no known reason, during mundane chit-chat.

Her demise happened during a social call at the home of the mother of Cleese's character. Cleese plays a high government official who evidently shares the home with his mother.

I first heard the skit on a Monty Python phonograph record a year after I discovered the TV show in 1977 when public television outlets started airing it (that first episode made me a fan for life).

The record version of the Mrs. Nickabader skit differs in important subtle ways from the television skit.

On the album, it begins as Cleese's character walks into the house, briskly saying, "Good evening, Mother." His tone becomes more downbeat, as he sees that Mrs. Nickabader is over for a visit. (The spelling of her name varies greatly from website to website, and it was not anywhere on the album, so I'm going by phonetics.)

"Oh," Cleese adds somewhat glumly, "Good evening, Mrs. Nickabader." He clearly dreads finding her there, and in Pythonesque unreality at its weirdest, we immediately see why.

Mrs. Nickabader, who looks and sounds the classic English pie baking, doting elderly homemaker next door, exudes that grandmotherly tendency to lavish affection on any baby she encounters.

And to Mrs. Nickabader, the man who has just entered the house is a baby. "Oh, he's walking already," she says of the 6-foot-5 suit-and-tie clad Cleese. Mrs. Nickabader is not pretending he is a baby, she believes he is one, and evidently does this all the time in his presence.

It gets weirder. Cleese's mother goes along with Mrs. Nickabader's delusion, responding, "Yes, he's such a clever little fellow!"

What follows are the classic ebullient child affection rituals. Mrs. Nickabader uses the "child directed speech," adults normally will use (like vocalizing and saying "widdle" for little), when interacting with babies or pets – but not with full grown adults.

When Mrs. Nickabader asks, "Can he talk -- Can he talk?" a fed up but still passive Cleese, in a line that cracks up the audience, retorts, "Of course I can talk. I'm Minister for Overseas Development."

Even an American listener not familiar with British cabinet posts is rolling on the floor laughing at that. What a plight!

And out of Mrs. Nickabader's purse comes the predictable rattle, which she shakes in front of his eyes to see if they will follow along. Cleese, in a pose of utter capitulation, obliges, moving his eyes back and forth, mumbling, "Yes, the rattle, yes, very good."

Then, in a saner mode, he turns to his mother, asking, "Mother, could I have a quick cup of tea, please? I have an important statement about Rhodesia in the Commons tomorrow."

Just as we hear Mrs. Nickabder start to let loose with an "Ooooh" to gush over that, a powerful boom cuts her reaction, and her life short.

Cleese's mother says, "Oh! Mrs. Nickabader's exploded!" From this point, she acts aware that her son is in fact an adult, but the skit's absurdity isn't nearly done.

Now it's Cleese whose remarks are wildly ill suited for the situation.

"Good thing, too," he casually says of the catastrophe. The misery and humiliation he was incapable of ending by showing some simple backbone have now ended once and for all, but his nonchalant tone sounds as though he has just learned that an annoying neighbor is moving away, rather than just seen her killed.

Appalled, his mother protests, "Oh! She was my best friend!"

"Oh, mother," Cleese responds. "Stop being so sentimental! Things explode every day."

"Yes, I s'pose so," his mother, now inexplicably unconcerned, says. She follows with a classic rationalization: "Anyway, I didn't like her, really."

And on goes their evening. The two step toward the middle of the living room and sit down, giving no thought even to removing the body, much less grappling with a tragedy.

The TV version has a little further dialogue that links this skit to another, but on the record album, it ends here, leaving first-time listeners at a loss to explain what just happened on their initial visit to the home of the Minister for Overseas Development and his mother.

As said, Python skits are meant to be absurd and without any "message," yet they tend to take place in real world settings.

My mom was not a Monty Python viewer, but she knew how much the troupe's humor meant to me from my vivid descriptions of the TV show's skits of the previous night. I coaxed her into listening to at least one of the Python records and she liked the intelligent take offs on the English classic literature and history she had long studied. Only one skit, however, became a running joke between Mom and her son.

Any mention of explosions, British government officials or little ones could prompt an immediate reference to the doomed Mrs. N.

"Of course he can talk," a grinning Mom said after I innocently wandered into the Python zone by asking if the toddler child of a real life friend was verbal yet. "He's the... finance minister." Or whatever.

One morning I found Mom's note reminding me to put the garbage cans out -- signed by, "Mrs. Nickabader." I then drew an explosion image next to the name.

I soon moved out on my own to take my second newspaper reporter job, this one 30 miles away, and quickly learned that another staffer also was a Monty Python lover. At 9 am, he or I would bring up a skit from the show, then another would naturally ensue, then another, then another, and we'd not return to journalism duties until half past 10.

I believe the hardest laugh we ever shared happened one evening in my apartment when we beheld the ultimate absurdity of these erudite Oxford and Cambridge fellows defying the laws of physics with Mrs. Nickabader's demise, then suspending the laws of civility with her instantly being reduced to another example of "things." Things!

What really had us doubling over was our joint realization that this skit was beyond explanation, perhaps more so than any other product of Monty Python's Flying Circus. The story of Mrs. Nickabader could be thought of as the comedic equivalent of "2001: A Space Odyssey" in its ultimate mystery, with fans forever trying in futility to solve it.

If my journalism co-worker and other Python fan acquaintances could move easily from the Mrs. Nickabader skit to other matters, she occupied a place in my mind fulltime. She wasn't about to just go away with an instant boom.