British Comedy Guide

Nazi policy

I went to a recording of That Mitchell & Webb Sound last night, which was lots of fun, I'd never been to a radio recording before. Anyway, they did a sketch which, whilst not identical to this, was based on the same concept, so I thought I may as well chuck this up here. It was always going to be in their style, anyway, because Mitchell & Webb love Nazis (legal note: Mitchell & Webb do not love Nazis).

HITLER: Victory is at our fingertips, Himmler! Soon, soon the world shall bow to the principles of the glorious Third Reich. It is time to begin demonstrating these principles, in the strongest manner possible.

HIMMLER: Mein Fuhrer, Operation Rhineland is poised to begin! We shall start exterminating the Jewish untermensch immediately.

HITLER: Well, OK, Heinrich, we could do that too, but I am talking about the greater goal of Nazism: accurate grammar.

HIMMLER: Fuhrer?

HITLER: Grammar. We shall purge sloppy grammar from the face of the earth with all necessary force. And spelling, that's on the list too.

HIMMLER: Erm. This is coming as a bit of a surprise to me, if I'm honest. Bit controversial, I'd say.

HITLER: Really? Well, what would you have said was the cornerstone of Nazism?

HIMMLER: The strive for racial purity.

HITLER: Right. Sure. I mean, it's good - I'm all for it - but when people in the future talk about Nazis, I want them to think of a glorious master race who were ruthlessly correct when using the conditional tense. Ooh, ooh, and parking.

HIMMLER: Parking?

HITLER: I've decided that Nazis stand for the extremely rigorous application of urban parking restrictions - if future generations start connecting our name with anything else, it will be an insult to those people who die in this war.

HIMMLER: And what about the eradication of the Jews?

HITLER: I reckon you're a bit obsessed with that, to be honest. Perhaps you could take a break from the Final Solution stuff, Himmo, I've got some more ideas I want to develop: I want to work on linking the management of weights and measures with Nazism.

HIMMLER: How do you mean?

HITLER: Oh, you know, the size of a pint, that sort of thing. And I really want us to be synonymous with feminism. We could look at enforcing an egalitarian lexis - getting rid of "manhole cover", and what have you.

HIMMLER: Is feminism not at odds with some of our policies of exclusivity?

HITLER: Oh, I'm sure that's a paradox that will dissolve if you think about it long enough. Now, off you go and start a concentration camp for split infinitive degenerates, or something. Chop chop: arbeit macht frei!

[HIMMLER exits, HITLER picks up phone and dials]

HITLER: Goebels? I've heard that in Russia they don't strictly applied speed limits, divert half the troops to Moscow. [Pause] I don't care if it's cold! [Pause] No I'm not making the uniform warmer! Does a military dress code mean nothing to you? [Pause] Oh, we won't lose *millions* of troops, you always exaggerate.

Actally, now I paste this, I begin to think I wrote this for s Skit Comp anyway, so you may have read it already. Sorry. Anyway, feel free to say anything about it, if anything should pop into your head, or not, as the moddo takes you.
:)

Clever and funny. I recognised it from skit comp. Nice bit of arbeit.

It started well and the dialogue is good throughout, but it really tails off.
The end needs a complete overhaul and possibly a punch pertaining to grammar?
A good effort though and you have a real flair for laying out realistic dialogue.

Yeah, I was never happy with the ending, Teddy. The original thing he says on the phone in the 1st draft was "Goebels? Are those charts for acceptable carrot colour ready yet?", to tie it in with 90s Euro-paranoia, but I wasn't sure. It at least has the advantage of being shorter!

"Does a military dress code mean nothing to you?" should be your punchline as it's in line with the theme of the sketch: the last sentence actually detracts from it

I think something more off-the-wall akin to the "acceptable carrot colour charts" line would work better for Hitler's second line: the bigger the non-sequitur the better. The "the greater goal of Nazism: accurate grammar. " line just feels a bit too expository and might fit in better later on.

Even if Euro-paranoia isn't as fashionable these days, which is dubious if you've seen UKIP's poll ratings, the whole thing fits in very well with our perceptions of Germans

I voted for this skit comp, as the opening is great, but wonder if it tries to cover too much ground; grammar nazis is a phrase I recognise, but parking nazis. feminism nazis, etc seems to dilute the premise.

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