The Spanish Inquisition (Monty Python)
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The Spanish Inquisition was one of the most popular Monty Python sketches. The principal catchphrase in this sketch was "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
Nobody in their right mind could have expected this form of Spanish Inquisition, in which the inquisitors proceed to use such extremities of torture as poking with soft cushions and forcible seating in a comfy chair as a means of forcing a heretic (a housewife) to recant. This Inquisition has a hard time starting to inquisit, as they get bogged down in recitations of their chief weapons, among which are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms. (Listen: 15 seconds audio sample .ogg file.)
This was a recurring sketch, always predicated by an unrelated sketch in which one character, expressing irritation at being questioned by another, would announce "I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition!" At this point the Inquisition, consisting of Cardinal Ximinez (Michael Palin), Cardinal Biggles (Terry Jones), and Cardinal Fang (Terry Gilliam) would burst into the room. Ximinez would shout, with a particular and high-pitched emphasis on the first syllable, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
One of the sketch's features was that Ximinez's blood-thirsty bluster ran into the problem of not being able to produce the desired tortures. When he called for "the Rack," his assistants immediately produced a dish-drying 'rack.' After expressing his frustration with a furious clench-toothed grin, Ximinez was barely able to seriously order the victim to be tied to the 'rack,' and interrogated. When poking the victim with soft cushions produced no confession, Ximinez would inquire whether his assistants had gotten all the stuffing together into one end of the cushions, for supposed maximum effectiveness.
In the original Monty Python's Flying Circus TV episode (episode 15), the Spanish Inquisition makes several "unexpected" appearances, until at the very end of the show they are caught by surprise. As the closing credits roll the Inquisitors race to where they weren't expected, only to arrive just as the words THE END appear, Ximinez crying "Nobody expects the Sp...oh, bugger!" (which, incidentally, was a strong word for a BBC comedy show at the time, and some BBC regions omitted it from the broadcast).
Its influence
This sketch may have been an inspiration for "the Inquisition" portion of the 1981 movie History of the World Part I.
"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" appeared as a fictional crossover in a Batman comic book; Robin is fighting desperately against terrible odds when Batgirl unexpectedly arrives to help. After the villains are safely dispatched, in the panel at the bottom right corner of the page Robin unleashes a barrage of questions at Batgirl, asking "What are you doing here? Why did you come? How did you know where I was?" and so on, causing the overwhelmed Batgirl to reply with "Hey, slow down, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!" When the reader turns the page, the first panel on the next page features the Spanish Inquisition arriving on horseback, shouting "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!". In a clever bit of plot twisting, this unlikely event was actually worked in as a rational part of the overall plot.
In the cult series Mystery Science Theater 3000, a running gag was that when a character in the film being watched would burst through a door, Tom Servo would yell out "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
When the British Abbey National Bank was taken over by the Spanish Banco Santander in a surprise move in 2004, The Now Show used the phrase, "Nobody expects the Spanish acquisition".
John Hannah and Gwyneth Paltrow made a connection with each other in the film Sliding Doors using the phrase.
See also
- Mel Brooks's film History of the World, Part I has a sketch with a singing and dancing inquisition.
References
- The Monty Python script
- A YTMND page featuring the Robin and Batgirl joke mentioned in the article
