Editing The Spanish Inquisition (Monty Python)

{{short description|Series of Monty Python sketches}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

[[File:Monty_Python_Live_02-07-14_12_46_43_(14415411808).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Terry Gilliam]], [[Michael Palin]] and [[Terry Jones]] playing "The Spanish Inquisition" in ''[[Monty Python Live (Mostly)]]'', London, 2014]]

"'''The Spanish Inquisition'''" is an episode and recurring segment in the British sketch comedy TV series ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'', specifically [[List of Monty Python's Flying Circus episodes|series 2 episode 2]] (first broadcast 22 September 1970), that [[satire|satirises]] the [[Spanish Inquisition]]. The sketches are notable for the [[catchphrase]], "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!", which has been frequently quoted and become an [[Internet meme]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GGNADwAAQBAJ&pg=PT392 |title=1001 TV Series: You Must Watch Before You Die |first= Paul|last=Condon | publisher=[[Cassell Illustrated]]|location=London, England|date=2018|isbn=9781788400466}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-first=David|editor-last=Coady |date=2006 |title=Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate  |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SoyalAxDItYC&pg=PA107 |first=Brian L.|last=Keeley |chapter=Chapter 8: ''Nobody'' Expects the Spanish Inquisition! More Thoughts on Conspiracy Theory |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SoyalAxDItYC |publisher=[[Routledge]] |location=Abingdon, England|edition=First |isbn=978-0754652502 |access-date=12 September 2019}}</ref><ref name="edelman"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nobody-expects-the-spanish-inquisition |title=Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition |work=[[Know Your Meme]] |date=30 January 2012 |access-date=12 September 2019}}</ref> The final instance of the catchphrase in the episode uses the musical composition "[[Devil's Galop]]" by [[Charles Williams (composer)|Charles Williams]]. Rewritten audio versions of the sketches were included on ''[[Another Monty Python Record]]'' in 1971.

==Plot synopsis==
This recurring sketch is predicated on a seemingly unrelated narrative bit in which someone exclaims that they "didn't expect a Spanish Inquisition!", often in irritation at being vigorously questioned by another. The first appearance of Monty Python's "Spanish Inquisition" characters occurs in a [[drawing room]] set in "[[Jarrow]], 1912", with a title card featuring a modern British urban area with a [[nuclear power plant]]. A mill worker ([[Graham Chapman]]) enters the room and tells a woman sitting on a couch knitting ([[Carol Cleveland]]) in a thick accent that "one of the cross beams has gone out askew on the [[treadle]]". When Cleveland says that she cannot understand what he's talking about, Chapman repeats the line without the thick accent. The woman says, "Well, what on earth does that mean?" Chapman becomes defensive and says, "I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition!" Suddenly, the Inquisition{{--}}consisting of [[Cardinal (Catholicism)|Cardinal]] [[Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros|Ximénez]] ([[Michael Palin]]) and his assistants, Cardinal Biggles ([[Terry Jones]]) (who resembles his namesake [[Biggles]] wearing a leather aviator's helmet and goggles) and Cardinal Fang ([[Terry Gilliam]]){{--}}bursts into the room to the sound of a jarring [[sting (music)|musical sting]]. Ximénez shouts, with a particular and high-pitched emphasis on the first word: "''No''-body expects the Spanish Inquisition!".

After entering, Ximénez begins enumerating their weapons, but interrupts himself as he keeps forgetting to mention additional weapons and has to begin numbering his list over again.<ref name="edelman">{{cite book |first=Shimon|last=Edelman |date=2008 |title=Computing the Mind: How the Mind Really Works |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0SRnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA332 |publisher=Oxford University Press USA |location=Cary, North Carolina|isbn=978-0195320671 |page=332}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Monty Python's 25 funniest quotes |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comedy/comedians/monty-python-s-25-funniest-quotes/the-spanish-inquisition/ |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |location=London, England |date=1 March 2017 |page=19 |access-date=12 September 2019}}</ref> After several attempts, Ximénez states that he will come in again and herds the Inquisition back off the set. The [[double act|straight man]] mill worker repeats the [[cue (theatrical)|cue line]], the Inquisition bursts back in (complete with jarring chord), and the introduction is tried anew. But Ximénez fails again and tries to get Cardinal Biggles to do the introduction, but Biggles is also unsuccessful.

Ximénez decides to forget the introduction and has Cardinal Fang read out charges of [[heresy]] against Cleveland, who pleads "innocent", and the cardinals respond with "diabolical laughter" and threats. Ximénez intends to [[torture]] the woman with "the [[Rack (torture)|rack]]", but Cardinal Biggles instead produces a dish-drying rack. This rack is tied to Cleveland and Biggles pretends to turn a lever, but it has no effect whatsoever. As they work, Chapman answers the door to find a [[BBC]] employee ([[John Cleese]]) requesting him to open a door for a gag on "the neighboring sketch", leading into the "Jokes and Novelties Salesman" segment.

The Inquisition returns in a later sketch as an older woman (Marjorie Wilde) shares photographs from a [[Scrapbooking|scrapbook]] with another woman (Cleveland), who rips them up as they are handed to her. When the older woman presents a photo of the Spanish Inquisition hiding behind the coal shed, Cleveland says, "I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!" The three cardinals then reappear and take the older woman away to a dungeon.

Biggles tries to torture the woman by poking her repeatedly with soft cushions. When this fails, Ximénez orders Fang to get "the comfy chair", which is brought out and the woman placed in it. Ximénez states that she must stay in the chair "until lunch time with only a cup of [[coffee]] at 11", and begins to shout at her to confess{{--}}only to have Biggles break down and confess. This frustrates Ximénez, but he cannot complain about it since he is distracted by a cartoon character from the next scene.

At the end of the show, in the "Court Charades" sketch, a judge (Jones) who is also a [[defendant]] in an obscenity trial at the [[Old Bailey]] is casually sentenced by another judge (Chapman) to be [[death by burning|burned at the stake]]. The convicted judge responds, "Blimey, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!" The whole court rises and looks expectantly at the witness entrance door. As the closing credits of the episode begin, the Inquisitors race out of a house and hop on a [[double-decker bus]] to the [[Old Bailey]], all to the tune of "[[Devil's Galop]]". As the Inquisitors ride in the bus, they comment worriedly that they are running out of [[Closing credits|credits]] and are panicked that the episode will soon end. The bus reaches the courthouse and the cardinals charge up the steps of the Old Bailey. They finally burst into the courtroom and Ximénez begins to shout, "NO-body expects the Span...," but a black title card with the words, "THE END", interrupts him. In resignation, he says, "Oh, bugger", and the episode concludes.

In the ''[[Monty Python Live (Mostly)]]'' stage show, the sketch ends when Ximénez orders Biggles to "torture" the victim (who is sitting in the comfy chair) by giving her a glass of cold milk from the fridge. When Biggles opens the door, the Man in the Fridge ([[Eric Idle]]) emerges and begins singing the "[[Galaxy Song]]" to the victim, while the Inquisition exit through the fridge.

==Related sketches==
Cardinal Ximénez briefly appears two episodes later ("The [[Buzz Aldrin]] Show") in a [[vox populi|vox pop]], again displaying difficulty counting (in this instance, the kinds of [[aftershave]] he uses). Later in that episode during the "Police Constable [[Pan Am]] Sketch", the policeman tells a chemist "one more peep out of you and I'll do you for [[heresy]]", with the chemist (played by Palin) responding that he "didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition"; PC Pan Am (played by Graham Chapman) tells the chemist to shut up.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://people.csail.mit.edu/paulfitz/spanish/script.html Transcript of the sketch]

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[[Category:1970 in British television]]
[[Category:Fiction about the Inquisition]]
[[Category:Monty Python sketches]]
[[Category:Running gags]]
[[Category:Spanish Inquisition]]