The Spanish Inquisition (Monty Python)

"The Spanish Inquisition" is a series of sketches in Monty Python's Flying Circus, Series 2 Episode 2, first broadcast 22 September 1970, parodying the real-life Spanish Inquisition. This episode is itself entitled "The Spanish Inquisition". The sketches are notable for their principal catchphrase, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!", which has become a frequently used quote.[1][2][3][4] The end of the sketch uses music from the composition "Devil's Galop" by Charles Williams. Rewritten audio versions of the sketches were included on Another Monty Python Record in 1971.

Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Terry Jones playing "The Spanish Inquisition" in Monty Python Live (Mostly), London, 2014

Plot synopsis

This is a recurring sketch always predicated on an unrelated sketch in which one character mentions that they "didn't expect a Spanish Inquisition!", often in irritation at being questioned by another. The first appearance of the Spanish Inquisition 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) that "one of the cross beams has gone out askew on the treadle". When she says that he doesn't know what he's talking about, the mill worker gets defensive and says, "I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition!" Then the Inquisition—consisting of Cardinal 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)—burst into the room to the sound of a jarring 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 listing their weapons ("fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, fanatical devotion to the Pope, nice red uniforms"), but interrupts himself as he keeps forgetting to mention additional weapons and has to begin his list over again.[3][5] After several attempts, Ximénez states that he will come in again, and herds the Inquisition back off the set. The straight man mill worker repeats the 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 the woman. The woman pleads innocent, and the cardinals respond with laughter (as an on-screen caption reads "DIABOLICAL LAUGHTER") and threats (as the on-screen caption changes to "DIABOLICAL ACTING"). Ximénez intends to torture the woman with "the rack", but Cardinal Biggles instead produces a dish-drying rack. This rack is tied to the woman as Biggles pretends to turn a lever, but it has no effect whatsoever. As they work, the mill worker 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 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, the other woman 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 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 credits (which are seen on screen) and are panicked that the sketch 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, only for Ximénez to shout, "NO-body expects the Span—oh, bugger.", as the words "THE END" appear on-screen.

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.

Cardinal Ximénez briefly appears two episodes later ("The Buzz Aldrin Show") in a 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"; except that instead of the Spanish Inquisition arriving, PC Pan Am (played by Graham Chapman) simply tells the chemist to shut up.

gollark: I'm obviously not colluding. I don't even know what pizza is. What is pizza?
gollark: It's also what someone not doing that would say, however, and as I am obviously not that - specifically, I am not involved in any way with the companies involved in production, distribution or marketing of pizza or other baked goods (I don't even eat pizza) - I am of course not colluding with said firms.
gollark: Is this cheese? Of course not.
gollark: ↑ yellow thing
gollark: https://tenor.com/view/yellow-alert-gif-7762498

References
  1. Paul Condon. 1001 TV Series: You Must Watch Before You Die. Cassell Illustrated. ISBN 9781788400466.
  2. Brian L. Keeley (2006). "Chapter 8: Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition! More Thoughts on Conspiracy Theory". In David Coady (ed.). Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate (First ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-0754652502. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
  3. Shimon Edelman (2008). Computing the Mind: How the Mind Really Works. Oxford University Press USA. p. 332. ISBN 978-0195320671.
  4. "Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition". Know Your Meme. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
  5. "Monty Python's 25 funniest quotes". The Daily Telegraph. London. 1 March 2017. p. 19. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
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