****  The Hairdressers' Ascent up Mount Everest sketch			  ****
****  from Monty Python's Flying Circus 				  ****
****  transcribed 2/24/88 by Betty McLaughlin ( IO60147@MAINE.BITNET )	  ****
 
(Begins with a picture of the sun rising over two mountain peaks)
 
Announcer (Graham Chapman): Mount Everest.  Forbidding, aloof, terrifying.
			    The mountain with the biggest tits in the world.
 
(Gong crashes, a disgusted voice interrupts)
Voice Over: Start again!
(A hideous clown in green plaid shirt, 14-inch wide blue polka-dotted bow tie,
 red curly wig, false teeth and an ugly mask steps in front of the picture of
 the mountain for a second and waves.)
 
Announcer: Mount Everest.  Forbidding, aloof, terrifying.  This year, this
	   remote Himalayan mountain, this mystical temple, surrounded by the
	   most difficult terrain in the world, repulsed yet another attempt to
	   conquer it.	(Picture changes to wind-swept, snowy tents and people)
	   This time, by the International Hairdresser's Expedition.  In such
	   freezing, adverse conditions, man comes very close to breaking
	   point.  What was the real cause of the disharmony which destroyed
	   their chances at success?
 
(Hairdresser #1 is a snowy, bundled up climber with a very gay voice.
 Hairdressers #2 and #3 are even more gay and windswept.)
 
Hairdresser #1:  Well, people keep taking your hairdryer on every turn.
 
Hairdresser #2:  There's a lot of bitching in the tents.
 
Hairdresser #3:  You couldn't get near the mirror.
 
(Cut to the announcer, a stuffy looking older man, delicately trimming
 millimeters off the leaves of cabbages growing in his country garden.)
 
Announcer:  The leader of the expedition was Colonel Sir John Cheesy-Weezy
	    Butler, veteran K2, Annapurna, and Vidal.  His plan was to ignore
	    the usual route around the south and to make straight for the top.
 
(next part shows a map of the mountain)
 
Cheesy-Weezy:  We established Base Salon here, and climbed quite steadily up to
	       Mario's, here.  From here, using crampons and cutting ice steps
	       as we went, we moved steadily up the face to the north ridge,
	       establishing Camp Three, where we could get a hot meal, a
	       manicure, and a shampoo and set.
Announcer:  Could it work?  Could this 18-year old hairdresser from Brixton
	    succeed where others had failed?  The situation was complicated by
	    the imminent arrival of the monsoon storms.  Patrice takes up the
	    story.
 
(cut to Patrice (Eric Idle) in a salon, very effeminately brushing and blow-
 drying a customer's hair.)
 
Patrice:  Well, we knew as well as anyone that the monsoons were due.  But the
	  thing was, Ricky and I had just had a blow dry and rinse, and we
	  couldn't go out for a couple of days.
 
(Picture of mountaineers climbing down mountain)
 
Announcer:  After a blazing row, the Germans and Italians had turned back,
	    taking with them the last of the hairnets.	On the third day, a
	    blizzard blew up.  Temperatures fell to minus 30 degrees
	    centigrade.  Inside the little tent, things were getting desperate.
 
(Ricky (Michael Palin) and John Cleese are crowded inside a little tent,
 sporting beards, hairnets, and curlers.  They sit beneath stationary
 hairdryers.  Cleese is reading, Ricky is buffing his nails.)
 
Ricky:	Well, things have gotten so bad that we've been forced to use the last
	of the heavy oxygen equipment just to keep the dryers going.  (A woman
	hands him a cup of tea.)  Oh, she's a treasure.
 
Cleese: Shhh!
 
(another mountain climbing scene)
 
Announcer:  But a new factor had entered the race.  A team of French
	    chiropodists, working with brand new corn plasters and Dr. Scholl's
	    Mountaineering Sandals, were close behind.	The Glasgow Orpheus
	    male voice choir were tackling the difficult north part.  All
	    together, fourteen expeditions were at the scene.  This was it.
	    Ricky had to make a decision.
 
(back to Patrice at his salon)
 
Patrice:   Well, we decided to open a salon.
Announcer: It was a tremendous success.
 
(the following is accompanied by pictures of great mountaineering
 heros upon whom are pasted elaborate Marie Antoinette style hairdos)
 
Announcer: Challenging Everest?  Why not drop in at Ricky Pule's, only 2400
	   feet from this cinema.  (A huge pink neon sign reading 'Ricky's'
	   appears on the mountain.)  Ricky and Maurice offer a variety of
	   styles for the well-groomed climber.  Why should Tensing and Sir
	   Edmond Hillary be number one on top, when you're number one on top?
 
