A Bit of Fry and Laurie

- Season 1

(1989)

Sketches include: Vacation Pictures. Privatized Police. Argue The Toss/Up The Ass/Oh No, Not Another One. Deodorant lover. Something Wrong With My Suit. Hugh Sings "Mystery". Executive Breakfast Lounge. Toy Car Salesman. Australians.

Sketches include Fry as headmaster and Laurie as a parent with child "poisoned by randy sex talk" in Biology Class; Laurie reads Fry poetry suitable for daily and vacation uses; Fry plays a minister who simply wants kids to stay away from his bloody car; Fry plays recruiter and Laurie is applicant to a perverted SAS; Fry is a Tally-Ho librarian who proviides patrons like Laurie with severely edited texts which extol Mother England; Laurie plays an odd psychic who claims he can bend spoons on Fry's talk show; F&L tongue-in-cheek skit poking fun at the thought police ...

A man quizzes an Information Desk attendant. Derek Nippl-e reports a car mishap to the police. A conversation about the uniqueness of Language and how it defines us. Performance of the three word song, "America". A cad of a talk show host gets a dressing down by a guest author. Expositional news of blown covert ops is delivered to, and read by the rather pleasant commander of MI-5. A beggar is accosted for busking, which devolves into a debate of Classism and Democracy. An anemic program of Hand Exercise. Troubleshooting board members plot and booze it up.

Fry steals Laurie's brain as a practical joke, but Laurie never notices. A pleasant Greek lunch is spoiled by Laurie's insecurity and lack of self-esteem. A tobacconist posing as a doctor prescribes cigarettes. The commander of the M.I.5 and his assistant are back for a chat, and two unwavering detectives demand to know the whereabouts or an unmarried woman's husband.

An episode rife with controversy: several of the sketches are canceled after an audience member demands they are his stolen intellectual property. A teen poet helps his headmaster to accept the head's own repressed longing to express himself in metaphor. The polite M.I.5 boys return, and a young entrepreneur is denied a bank loan for his drug operation. Fry names his nipples, and, with Laurie's help, tells us how a floppy hat can save you from being killed by a bus.

As a service to the public, Fry and Laurie provide two TV critics to deride the show. A lesbian-obsessed lawyer, a miserable English teacher, and a young couple who baptize their infant for business reasons provide plenty of fodder for the critics' self-absorbed rambling. As an added bonus, Laurie walks us through his very favorite sketch, and, with Fry's help, celebrates Swiss week.

Highlights include a puppy who has had a hard life: the conversational pull of the Book of Genesis versus that of girlfriends' breasts; and a retirement home resident who, at 94, decides he wants to suck the marrow (or more specifically, the oral sex) out of life. The pleasant boys from M.I.5 are back to treat each other with love, and the taxation minister is heckled by no other than Tony of Plymouth, avenger of the poor.