Wednesday 22 December 2010

Welcome to Shepperton Babylon

If you are a television researcher for one of those mammoth 'best of ... ' documentaries that they are always showing on BBC3, Channel 4 or Sky 3 in order to fill up the lonely hours for those sad viewers who were born too late to watch Why Don't You ... back in the late Seventies, you are convinced that there is only one joke in Carry On Columbus.

This occurs in the scene where Columbus is making a business presentation to Ferdinand and Isabella to try and attract funding for his trip.

A series of blokes wearing massive plaster jars on their heads parade in front of the monarchs, illustrating all the wondrous spices that the great explorer hopes to bring back from his voyage.

Of course, the rather camp one is introduced as: "And he's ginger."

"Ooooo - is he really?" queries the king in far too salacious a tone.

However, according to that great history of the British film industry Shepperton Babylon, there is a second joke hidden in the screenplay.

Once the trip is finally underway, a salt-bitten old seadog explains to a female passenger that it's too dangerous to go swimming in the sea because of the sharks.

"Oooooo - will they eat me whole?" she asks in delicious terror.

"No, I'm told they always spit that part out."

No comments:

Post a Comment