Sacco & Vanzetti Satellite TV

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Although broadcast some time ago, Never Mind the Sea Ox is still one of the most popular shows throughout Sacco & Vanzetti. It is repeated here for its anthropological value.

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Never Mind the Sea Ox

Far out in the deep dark unknown of space, where all things are possible, even Friday afternoons, strange goings-on go on. This is a weekly 30-minute soapumentary bringing viewers a glimpse of what a land on the very outskirts of humanity may be like, how its people may live, the tricks and troubles, the paradoxes and polarities that fill their lives.

Oh do not ask what is it, let us go and make our visit:

Welcome to the Land of the Sea Ox!

First, let’s meet Benny Bear and Mickey Monkey. These fine and frisky fellows do important work.

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See them on their little seesaw? Up and down they go, determining foreign relations. See them, see them as they bounce up and down. Will they go to the ball or won’t they go to the ball? Sometimes Benny goes higher, sometimes Mickey goes higher. Sometimes Benny sits down too hard and Mickey goes flying through the air.

What fun they have! What weird and wacky frolics they create!

Face the facts

Now let’s go and find out about all the people who live in this fantastic and fantastical land. Here are some of them enjoying a walk in the park:

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Let’s tell you some important facts so that we can get to know them a little better.

40 per cent of them are male and 40 per cent of them are female. 20 per cent of them expressed no preference or failed to return their weekly census forms. (Measuring things in the Land of Sea Ox is very important and everyone has lots of fun doing it all the time!)

Of the 40 per cent who said they were male, 4.5 per cent said they wouldn’t mind being female and, if the government thought it was a good idea this week, they would be happy to swap with the 3.8 per cent of the 40 per cent of the females who said they would prefer to be males so that sometimes they too could could clean their ears with someone else’s pen.

99.86 per cent of the people who filled in the survey said they didn’t like Harry who lives up the road because he often lights bonfires on sunny afternoons. The 0.14 per cent who said they didn’t really mind Harry lighting bonfires were evenly divided into those who live down the road and thus a long way from Harry and those who said they were closely related to him. Actually it was Harry.

Harry said that at least 95 per cent of people should mind their own business. And he said that if anyone ever again came asking silly bloody questions on his doorstep when he could be making a bonfire they would 110 per cent for certain sure get a smack in the mouth.

100 per cent of people he said this to felt that he meant it at least 98 per cent.

This 100 per cent of people who knocked on Harry’s door feels next time it’s necessary to get Harry to answer a survey the grumpy chap in accounts would be a good person to send. 67 per cent of the people who work in accounts agree.

Another Fine Mess!

This happy pair are the Land of the Sea Ox’s top comedians. They look after trade with other nations. Week after week the antics of this hapless duo fill domestic audiences with glee as their knockabout humour sees them getting into all sorts of scrapes.

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It’s pure slapstick comedy and it runs every day of the week. Citizens love to keep up with the whirlwind of constant changes as these two try every trick in the book to make a buck.

Even though everyone knows each new scheme will end in disaster, it’s all good clean fun and many citizens buy newspapers, listen to the radio and watch television to keep up with the twisting turning storyline because the plot can change in minutes!

A word from our sponsor

Now let’s tune in to a government broadcast from an important ministry, the MiaoW Checkout:

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This is the Important MiaoW Checkout telling citizens Important Things that they need to know.

A planned efficiency drive at the Checkout has led to new efficiencies that have been totally successful and utterly efficient.A carefully planned downturn in the number of foreign visitors has meant that the Checkout can relocate to More Important, slightly smaller and therefore Much More efficient offices.

We cannot state enough how carefully this has been planned. So we will say again that our plans to reduce the number of nations who were friendly enough to use the Checkout have been utterly successful and that the plans to do this were planned carefully. And efficiently.

The new, more efficient Checkout is open nearly all afternoon on most Thursdays - unless it’s raining or Darren who runs it has to take His Mum shopping because His Dad has taken the Car.

This is all Totally Efficient and Very Important.

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The Outer Limits

We end this week’s broadcast with an extract from a popular science fiction show that sees all sorts of creatures from the known world coming to the Land of the Sea Ox to show off the quality of their science fiction.

It is not without troubles though and the super stunning crew of the relatively nearby coffee shop never quite have to grapple with death and disaster that threatens to explode the universe in a ball of white hot anti-matter flame and toast the muffins too much on one side:

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“Captain, she cannae take it. This coffee mug was never meant tae hold hot chocolate. One more marshmallow and she’ll surely blow. If this chocolate were anti-matter from a parallel universe and the cup were a Gravity-Shield Ensconcer we’d surely be staring death and, aye, disaster right in the face.”

“Try to keep it together chief washer upper, table seven’s beverage has got to get through or it could mean the end of the civilised world if we ever knew it.

“What's the matter First Assistant Checkchops?”

“Captain! There’s Muppets on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow! There’s Muppets on the starboard bow, sir!”

“Quick! Turn hard a-left Checkchops and get the Café Closed Shields up! If one Muppet gets past those shields we’re certain to be grappling with some kind of disaster that probably involves facing the possibility of a grisly, gruesome death or at least a quite serious injury.”

That's all folks

That ends this week's episode of Never Mind The Sea Ox. Be sure to tune in next week for more fly-by-wire, cut-and-thrust, policy-on-the-hoof antics from the greatest improvisation team since Chorley College's Blind Man's Buff Championship.

The Out Takes

In the production of any soapumentary it is inevitable that a lot of material will end up on the cutting room floor. This is due mainly to the time constraints of the broadcast window rather than the quality of the items that don’t make it to air.

Recent attempts to avoid this have favoured the concept of “reality tv” where the cameras roll live around the clock and audiences dip in to savour moments at their leisure.

However, our producers felt this would not present the best understanding of the Land of the Sea Ox as the twists and turns come so thick and fast that even politicians are often confused.

So now, for your further edification, we are pleased to present all those bits and bites that had been unfairly condemned to the edit suite floor, remastered and presented as a broadcast special.

Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for:

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It’s Magic, Never Believe It’s Not So

Meet magician Colin Conway – he’s the king of the club circuit throughout the Land of The Sea Ox. He’s a master of magic and an icon of prestidigitation.

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Seen here in his trademark conjuring combats, he’s ever-ready with his world-renowned catchphrase “I will take you to our policy in one hour”.

This sorcerer is no mere rabbit-from-a-top-hat man. Closely linked to the government, he has been called in as a special adviser a number of times and even the best officials are trying to work out how he can pull a policy from thin air and then make it disappear again even before the ink is dry.

As a special interactive trick for S&VsTeeVee, he’s hidden a policy somewhere in this programme. If any viewer can spot it and read the small print, phone him on his direct line and say “Your name is Colin Conway and I claim my £5.”

The Gentle Dew from Heaven

Controversy and politics go hand in hand and, on some very rare occasions, debate can become confrontation. Not in the Land of the Sea Ox though. For here a very special unit of highly-trained individuals are on hand to seek harmony where there is strife and resolution where there is dissent.

Meet the professionals from the Arbitration and Conciliation Service:

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These experts use their finely-tuned diplomatic skills to bring immediate calm in any crisis.

Their various techniques for resolving conflict include: Out The Back, Down An Alley and Up Behind You One Dark Night You Bastard, where the kindly officers go out of their way to offer their clients conclusive violence.

Art Is Short For Arthur

Professor Wolsten Wolstencroft, assistant curator at the Land of the Sea Ox National Portrait Gallery, discusses the most recent painting of the government Chief Executive with art critic Malcolm McMalcolm.

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McMalcolm: “Professor Wolstencroft, this painting has already been dubbed a modern classic and a true insight into the serenity that is at the core of every great leader’s being. Can you tell us why it is deemed such an apt portrayal of state dignity?”

Wolstencroft: “Oh sure, I can do that. But please to call me Wolsten as is the habit of of the staff at the gallery. And I may call you Malcolm, yes?”

Malcolm: “Of course you can, Wolsten. Please feel free to call me Malcolm, or, as my colleagues in the office call me, Malc.”

Wolsten: “Malc, this is a friendly shortening of your name as a gesture of comradeship, I feel. I would like to return the compliment and ask that you call me Woollie as is the case amongst my fellow members of the Curator Club.

Malc: “That is a wonderfully intimate offer Woollie and worthy of a great man such as yourself. I wish to reciprocate and would be delighted for you to call me Crotch Crusher McMalcolm, as I am known in the national kick boxing league.

Woollie: “Ah, a momentous moment in understanding between the world of art and the world of media. Please to call me XPF3175, as I am known at the Correctional Institute for the Habitually Inane.”

Crotch Crusher: “I’m afraid that’s all we have time for, although with such depth of passion and relevance in each brush stroke, we could clearly take this debate even further.

“And so, it’s goodnight from XPF3175 and from me, Stinky Pete, as I was known at school.”

XPF3175 and Stinky Pete were discussing the new painting: “National leader walks over bridge while everyone else is going the other way and having fun behind him but he is really, really serene honestly and definitely not panicking”. On show at the National Portrait Gallery.