Subj : Re: Monty Python's "Upper Class Twit of the Year" To : All From : Aaron Date : Sun Mar 04 2007 05:18 am From: "Aaron" On 3 Mar, 09:51, "P" wrote: > I am intrigued about something in the Upper Class Twit of the Year show > sketch as it appears in the Monty Python movie "And Now For Something > Completely Different" which aired on Australian television today. > > At the end of the sketch, four pistols are sitting on a table for the > participants to shoot themselves through the head (not five, because somehow > the organisers already knew that one of the twits would run over himself > before the end of the competition - a blooper?... but I digress)... > > The twits pick up the guns and begin firing indiscriminately. One shoots > another twit. They appear to be real guns, firing blanks (obviously). In > the movie, the smoke from the guns can be seen clearly (whereas from memory, > the guns in the TV version didn't actually fire). All the twits are wearing > hats, and when they hold the gun to their heads and fire, the smoke can be > seen coming out of the barrel. > > As we know from the death of actor Jon Erik Hexum in the early 1980s, even a > blank fired at close range can be fatal. What I'm wondering is, has it ever > been documented how the Pythons did this? i.e., what the hats were lined > with? Or was the fact that none of them were actually killed in the filming > of this segment just good luck? I don't recall the precise sketch, but it sounds pretty obvious that they had the guns rigged in some way as to just emit smoke, or something of a similar nature. Either way, no blanks. --- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5 * Origin: FidoNet MONTE <--> alt.fan.monty-python (1:379/45) .