Vocational Guidance Counsellor

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Vocational Guidance Counsellor is a Monty Python sketch that first aired on December 21, 1969, in the episode "Episode 10".[1][2]

The sketch is credited with creating the popular stereotype of accountants being boring.[3] Four decades on, the Financial Times reported that it still haunts the profession.[4]

Plot

Herbert Anchovy (

banking, but soon reveals that he lacks the courage even for that. As he rambles on, the counsellor delivers a public service announcement to the audience about the dangers of chartered accountancy.[1][5][6]

Re-release

The sketch was included in the DVD

And Now For Something Completely Different in 1971. In this version the counsellor's description of lions is accompanied by stock footage of a lion charging the camera, which causes Anchovy to recoil in terror. At the end of the film version Eric Idle appears as a fairy to grant Anchovy's wish of seeing his name in lights, whereupon he turns into the host of "Blackmail". In the Monty Python Live (Mostly) stage show at the O2 (which also features a brief stock shot of a lion, on the overhead screen), the sketch ends with Anchovy telling the counsellor he would rather be... a "systems analyst!" (though on a different evening, his choice of career was a "sperm donor!". Other careers were mentioned on other nights at the O2). In fact this was a red herring as in all instances, the audience were expecting Anchovy to say "lumberjack"...then as Palin (as Anchovy) leaps to his feet he announces he wanted to be... "a lumberjack!", at which point he strips off his suit to reveal a lumberjack's outfit, and the sketch segues into The Lumberjack Song
.

References

  1. ^ a b "Vocational Guidance counselor, As featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 10". Orangecow. Retrieved 23 March 2009.
  2. ISBN 0-907516-22-X
    .
  3. ISBN 978-0-7619-7147-4
    . Retrieved 27 March 2009.
  4. ^ Learn the elementary bits about business, Financial Times, 14 October 2008
  5. ISBN 978-1-932857-31-3
    .
  6. ^ "Vocational Guidance Counsellor". shooting script. Jump Station. Retrieved 23 March 2009.
  7. ^ "Monty Python's Flying Circus: Set One—Volume 1". Digitally Obsessed. Retrieved 23 March 2009.
  8. ^ "Monty Python's Flying Circus: Graham Chapman's Personal Best". review. IGN. 12 April 2006. Archived from the original on 9 July 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2009.

External links

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