How Not To Be Seen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How Not To Be Seen is a popular sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
This sketch pretends to be a British government film (No. 42, PARA. 6.) presented for public service. In this sketch, the narrator, John Cleese, is trying to explain the importance of not being seen.
[edit] Plot
The film starts with a serene shot of a landscape in which there are supposedly 47 people, but none of them can be seen. The picture then changes to another serene shoot of another landscape. In it is Mr. E. R. Bradshaw of Napier Court, Black Lion Road, SE 5 who cannot be seen. The narrator asks him to stand up; he complies and immediately gets shot. According to Cleese, "This demonstrates the value of not being seen."
The picture changes again to another landscape. In it is Mrs. B.J. Smegma of 13, The Crescent, Belmont. The narrator asks her to stand up; she too complies and immediately gets shot.
The picture changes to a picture of a clear plain with only one bush in the middle of the frame. In that picture is Mr. Nesbitt of Harlow New Town. He's also being asked to stand up, but on the contrary to the previous people, he does not comply. Cleese explains that "Mr. Nesbitt has learnt the first lesson of not being seen... not to stand up. However, he has chosen a very obvious piece of cover.", the bush then explodes and a scream is heard.
The picture changes to another clear plain with three bushes in the frame. In that picture is Mr. E.V. Lambert of Homeleigh, The Burrows, Oswestry, who has stumped Cleese by choosing a very clever way of not being seen ("We don't know which bush he is behind"), although, according to Cleese, "we can soon find out." The left bush then explodes, after that the right one, and finally when the middle bush is blown up, and mixed with the noise of the explosion comes the scream of Mr. Lambert. "Yes, It was the middle one."
The picture changes to a farmland area with a water barrel, a wall, a pile of leaves, a bushy tree, a parked car, and lots of bushes in the distance. "Mr. Ken Andrews, of Leighton Road, Slough has concealed himself extremely well. He could be almost anywhere. He could be behind the wall, inside the water barrel, beneath a pile of leaves, up in the tree, squatting down behind the car, concealed in a hollow, or crouched behind any one of a hundred bushes. However we happen to know he's in the water barrel." The water barrel then explodes.
The picture changes to a panning shot from the beach huts to beach across the sea while the narrator says in background: "Mr. and Mrs. Watson of Ivy Cottage, Worplesdon Road, Hull, chose a very cunning way of not being seen. When we called at their house, we found that they had gone away on two weeks holiday. They had not left any forwarding address, and they had bolted and barred the house to prevent us from getting in. However a neighbor told us where they were."
The hut which contained the Watsons explodes, and the picture changes to one of the gumbies, who is supposed to be the neighbor who told them where they were. He blows up; his boots are the only remains.
The picture then changes to a shack ("And this is where he lived"), which also blows up, then changes to another shack ("And this is where Lord Langdin lived who refused to speak to us"), which blows up as well. The picture goes on to change to a house ("So did the gentleman who lived here"), which blows up, as well as a series of atomic explosions ("Manchester, The West Midlands, Spain, China").
The narrator bursts into mad laughter, and the sketch is over. This ending was slightly altered in And Now For Something Completely Different, in which Cleese proceeds to say, with a serious face, "And now for something completely different" after laughing, and is blown up afterwards, segueing into the opening credits.
In the ANFSCD version, the farmland scene wasn't shown, the Beach hut scene was shortened, Lord Langdin's and other houses exploding wasn't shown, and the atomic explosions weren't seen.
An Internet version of this sketch, where the sketch was redone with Halo video game footage to the audio of the sketch, was widely circulated on YouTube and other video oriented websites. A Battlefield 2 version was made as well.
