It seems to me that a clip being groomed for future 'classic comedy moments' is the Small/Far away scene from Father Ted. Funny it may be, but i'm not sure if it's the best scene from the series. Maybe i'll get back to you on that one - unless someone posts something that i agree with.

- The Python sketch where Palin (?) wants to learn to fly and Chapman is expressing dismay that he requires an aeroplane to do so ("ooh Pater, Pater, can I have an aeroplane?) Also Chapman, Idle and Jones in the sketch where Idle has left his writer father to become a miner ("There's nowt wrong with gala lunches!")
- Paul Merton's solo series was v. hit and miss, but two moments stand out - the sketch that runs backwards ("I see. Thank you very much." "Yes, all time is running backwards today." "My watch seems to be runnng the wrong way." etc.) and the bit where Merton takes a treasure map with an 'X marks the spot' and then digs up... an X. Stupid idea, but his facial expression is a joy.
- The Day Today interview with the woman who makes jam ("I hate Sebastian Coe!")
- The Duff Beer plug in the 1960 Presidential debate on the Simpsons. ("I, ah, too would like to express my fondess for that particular beer.")
- The Simon Day "That's weird/Hold the bells" routine from the Fast Show.
- The Incredible Bullshitting Man sketch from an early Smith and Jones series ("Go on - hit me in the stomach!")
- The Stoneybridge promotional video from Absolutely ("There's Wullie - he must have got his van fixed. See you later gang!")
- The first McGleshen sketch from Absolutely ("Nip Nap Shite")
- The Neighbours piss take from Fry and Laurie ("You mean you were having an affair with me - behind my back?")
- The jeweller's shop sketch from Fry and Laurie ("On me? I have no Opal Fruit on me.)
- Hugh Laurie's 'Mystery' song on Fry and Laurie
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf sketch from Fist of Fun
- The clubbing scene from 'Spaced' ("Only for the hardcore UK raver...")
- The bit in the Father Ted episode New Jack City where the new Priest is drilling holes in Ted's walls whilst listening to very loud drum n' bass, which fades into the commercials then fades up at the other end.
- The Not the Nine O'Clock News piss take on 30s poetry - 'Spain - An Old Poof Remembers' ("Barcelona is bleeding/Barcelona is bleeding/Barcelona is bleeding/Hot)
- The Price is Right sketch from Spitting Image ("Daley Thompson - Come on down!")
- Anything from Spitting Image with Jim Callaghan or Michael Foot in.

Sure there are loads more - that's enough to be going on with.

Brass Eye - the entire 'cow terror' sketch
Not Only But Also - The Beethoven Show
The Goodies - the film sequences from 'Give Police A Chance'
Friday Night Armistice - the 'Eurosceptics' discussion
The Day Today - "Peter, you've lost the news!!!"
Fist Of Fun - Quinlank getting Rich and Stew's autographs
The Young Ones - Rik's attempt to nail Vyvyan in his room
Knowing Me Knowing You - the 'Question Time' parody
Father Ted - the priest chatline

And Best Of All:
Monty Python - Raymond Luxury-Yacht interview

Are you looking for radio moments too?

In bite-sized short clip form:

Absolutely - The part where McGleshen (sp? - The fiercely patriotic scot played by Docherty, anyway) is forced by his agent to rehearse a speech on the Firth of Forth (or somesuch). After McGleshen starts reading, his agent chips in with 'och, that's very interesting', and McGleshen glowers back for *exactly* the right length of time to make me laugh twice. That bit.

A Bit of Fry & Laurie - Hugh Laurie's helium-enhanced rendition of Hey Jude.

Nightstand* - "Tonight we're talking about euthanasia. And I don't mean my annual vacation in Bangkok."

Fist of Fun (radio) - Rich's women/global conspiracy piece, followed by female guest saying 'yes Rich, it's all true etc'.

"It's true, Stu. Did you hear that?"

"I didn't hear anything, Rich. There was no sound then."

The Critic - Prince Charles being kicked out of a very select private school.

"No single parents!" (this was pre-The Accident) "Who died and made you king?"

(Mournfully, to self) "Nobody..."


And from there the humour arose.

*Nightstand - spoof Springer show on Paramount a few years ago. Very patchy, but brilliant in places. Surfaced on C5 at about 4am last year.

The Simpsons : where Homer throws his last peanut in the air and it fails to land in his mouth. His scrabblings for it under the sofa reveal a variety of other things "agh! pointy! ugh! moving!" and finally a $20 bill. Leading to the the immortal line
"$20? But I wanted a peanut" and then Homer's conversation with his brain about how $20 is probably better than a peanut. "money can be exchanged for goods or services".

The very dimly remembered bit in Absolutely on the Stoneybridge council where the councillors fall out with each other and one of them "fails to recognise the chair".

Father Ted : I'll add my vote to the Priest chatback line, and also to Ted & Dougal protesting in a very generic way outside the cinema - "Down with this sort of thing" says Ted, "careful now!" says Dougal.

1.Morecambe and Wise christmas show when Barry Norman or is it Ricard Baker? does a cartwheel in the South Pacific bit.
2.Basil Fawlty trying not to Sieg Heil in front of some krauts staying at his house.
3.Capt. Mainwaring grassing up Pike to the Nazis while hes on a stepladder.
4.Peggy Mitchell riding a horse on top of a panto horse in that bit in HI de HI.
5.Penny Keith slipping on some mud and landing on some baby piglets,causing Felicity Kendal to knock a gravy boat all over her tits in The Good Life.
6.The streaker on Freds Weather Map.
7.The bit in Black Adder 4 when they get gunned down.
8.Basil hitting a car with some twigs in Monty Python.
9.Spike Milligan telling Norman Lamont hes a cocksucker to his face live on the Johnathan Ross Comedy prize night show.
10.That fat Scally racist who sits in the armchair makes a funny remark about some telly hes watching.

I'm with the individual who suggested the Absolutely "refusing to recognise the throne" bit. Pure class.

Not technically comedy but...

At the end of Music Of The Millenium (C4) when vacant muso-whore Jo Whiley asks Bob Geldof for a summing up.

"Well, it's a load of bollocks, really."

Who could forget the elephant on Blue Peter?

No, seriously, I liked the Friday Night Armistice when they dug up Blue Peter's time capsule and replaced the contents with porn.

Armistice Blue Peter Time Capsule:

I'd go for that too, and the 'parade of Britishness' with a fight outside a chip shop, a Welsh tenor singing the theme from "The Sweeney", a bellringer playing Blur's "Parklife", and a jigsaw that went yellow in the window of a corner shop.

When Armando hits the mark, he REALLY hits the mark.

Tomato - Ted... aubergine - your... potato - wife's... turnip - dead.

The infamous clitoris scene from "Butterflies"

That bit in the Young Ones episode "Bambi" with Rik and Neil talking on the train to Manchester - "It's only University Challenge, Rik, It's only University Challenge!"

One of the Frank Hovis sketches in Absolutely where he talks about having to get out of the bath when you need a crap - "You think, oh no. Then you've got to get out, get dried... me? I don't bother. Why, it's only like a bar of soap floating around. But the last time I did that, I'd forgotten about my upset tummy..."

A Chris Morris signoff at the end of an episode of On The Hour - "That's it, that was On The Hour, and wherever you are, I'm going to find you."

>The infamous clitoris scene from "Butterflies"
>
Tell me that's a joke....please?

When I've heard big belly laughs from people in cinemas:

Animal House:
The bit where she's obviously wanking the bloke in the car, but you can't see. When he can't get it up, she takes off her rubber gloves (posh kids - geddit?)

Also, The bit after they "shot" the horse in the Dean's office. The next scene has two men talking in the office, with four horse's legs sticking straight up in the air from behind a settee and some bloke measuring it up and then deciding to fire up a chainsaw.

Also, when the bloke is sitting on the stairs at the toga party singing a gentle folk song. Bluto (John Belushi) comes down the stairs in his toga, stops, listens a bit with various facial expressions and then grabs the bloke's guitar and smashes it many times against the wall. Then, after a short pause, says, "sorry".

Enough for now.

>>The infamous clitoris scene from "Butterflies"
>>
>Tell me that's a joke....please?

It's more of a famously scandalous thing than actually being funny. There was a massive scandal in the papers at the time though I watched it again when it was repeated a couple of years ago and of course it seems tame now, but the look on Geoffrey Palmer's face is priceless.

>>>The infamous clitoris scene from "Butterflies"
>>>
>>Tell me that's a joke....please?
>
>It's more of a famously scandalous thing than actually being funny. There was a massive scandal in the papers at the time though I watched it again when it was repeated a couple of years ago and of course it seems tame now, but the look on Geoffrey Palmer's face is priceless.

No one's even remotely fooled by this, are they?

Bollocks.

>- The Not the Nine O'Clock News piss take on 30s poetry - 'Spain - An Old Poof Remembers' ("Barcelona is bleeding/Barcelona is bleeding/Barcelona is bleeding/Hot)

Alas Smith and Jones surely? Wasn't it an extended sketch about the Spanish Civil War?

>Sure there are loads more - that's enough to be going on with.

A terrific list. How about...

>The Troubleshooters sketch from the first series of ABOF&L...
"Am I right in thinking you have a daughter?"
"Yup - Henrietta."
"Did he? Did he really? That must have hurt. Hurt like hell on a jetski."

>Morris's interview with Mike D'Abo in OTH...
"Masturbation..."

>Any Michael Alexander St John contribution to Blue Jam
"So, who said suburban plum and suitcase was dead?"

>Er, the latest KitKat ad - seen for the first time at 2:30 this morning - it's the one with the greyhound-track hare. I was gasping for air, I tell you.

>>- The Not the Nine O'Clock News piss take on 30s poetry - 'Spain - An Old Poof Remembers' ("Barcelona is bleeding/Barcelona is bleeding/Barcelona is bleeding/Hot)
>
>Alas Smith and Jones surely? Wasn't it an extended sketch about the Spanish Civil War?
You may well be right. I can't remember but I thought I saw it again recently during the the NTNOCN compiliations..
>
>>The Troubleshooters sketch from the first series of ABOF&L...
>"Am I right in thinking you have a daughter?"
>"Yup - Henrietta."
>"Did he? Did he really? That must have hurt. Hurt like hell on a jetski."

All of these are fantastic.
"Look out that window Peter. Tell me what you see."
"The car park, John."

>>Morris's interview with Mike D'Abo in OTH...
>"Masturbation..."
"It's the next best thing to making love..."
>>Any Michael Alexander St John contribution to Blue Jam
>"So, who said suburban plum and suitcase was dead?"
Sorry to get needlessly recherche but has anyone heard any of Michael Alexander St John's '10 ideas to change the world' from Morris' GLR days? Classic bits include:
"Lorry soup"
"Leaning out of the car window at 90, shouting 'Grrr, grrr. Leaf coupons.' when overcharged for beer."

Chris Needham's video diary deserves a posting in here too. Truly one of the most painfully funny things I have ever seen.

The Fry and Laurie sketch from Saturday (Friday?) Night Live where Laurie wants to buy a fence but they end up speaking each other's lines. (Better than it sounds)

>The Fry and Laurie sketch from Saturday (Friday?) Night Live where Laurie wants to buy a fence but they end up speaking each other's lines. (Better than it sounds)

I remember that! It was fantastic! What about their SNL 'Standing rather a long way away from...' sketch? And wasn't there one that included the line 'Your kitchen could be a minefield. And if it is, you're in big trouble.' Or something like that...

Chris Morris' interview with a dolphin expert in On The Hour:

"There's no quid-pro-quo in the dolphin world"
"No, no money at all"

"They gave the woman unconditional love"
"Fish!"
"What?"
(mumbling:)"She might have eaten a lot of fish"

"What's a dolphin's favourite record?"

I'll second Python's flying lesson sketch, and FOF's Boy Who Cried Wolf, too.

"I suppose Tubular Bells..."
"So you were working *on* these drugs?"
"Off yer face..."

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"There's no such thing as a nutter in the dolphin world?"

"There appears not to be..."

Noel Edmonds talking about the dangers of the drug *Cake* on Brass Eye and looking like a sanctimonius fool. Brings an evil grin to my face.....or maybe it's because I really dislike Noel Edmonds.....

>>>>PS: if anyone has a copy of Anthea Turner getting blown up, could they please Email it across to me. Thanks :)

I'd like to add to that list the title sequence from Bottom (makes me laugh every time) and the "News Report" of Noel Edmonds murdering Clive Anderson in Brass Eye

Although I have mixed feelings about the 'franchise' as a whole, the Swinging London
musical opening to the first Austin Powers film is pretty impressive.