"Election Night Special" is a Monty Python sketch parodying the coverage of United Kingdom general elections, specifically the 1970 general election, on the BBC by including hectic (and downright silly) actions by the media and a range of ridiculous candidates.
This sketch was featured in Episode 19 of the Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series, which aired November 3, 1970. A somewhat different version of the sketch (leading into The Lumberjack Song) was also featured on the Monty Python Live at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane album.
Throughout the sketch, the linkman (John Cleese) and other commentators appear in a fixed sequence, either giving variations on their original statement or simply repeating it, as results are coming in from various constituencies. The election is mainly contested by two major parties, the Sensible Party and the Silly Party, though third-party candidates (Slightly Silly, Very Silly) make their appearance.
Read more about Election Night Special: The Candidates and Their Vote Totals, Cultural References
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“Do you know I believe that [William Jennings] Bryan will force his nomination on the Democrats again. I believe he will either do this by advocating Prohibition, or else he will run on a Prohibition platform independent of the Democrats. But you will see that the year before the election he will organize a mammoth lecture tour and will make Prohibition the leading note of every address.”
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Greek Alexander from my flesh,
Augustus Caesar, and after these
That great rogue Alcibiades.”
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“An indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for a strict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)