The Colonel (Monty Python)

The Colonel is a recurring fictional character from the British television show Monty Python's Flying Circus, played by Graham Chapman.

The Colonel acts as a "straight man" comic foil to the show's absurd characters and sketches. He maintains a rigidly mirthless personality and is always dressed in khaki British Army uniform. He occasionally makes appearances in the show, usually breaking the fourth wall and disrupting sketches to pronounce them too silly for the public and, therefore, demanding that something else be shown. He often orders the show to proceed in a different direction (sometimes to the unshown director) and frequently makes offhanded insults to men with long hair.

The Colonel's role in stopping or redirecting sketches has been discussed as an example of a character breaking the fourth wall of theatrical production, challenging the "fictional credibility" of the presentation, and has been compared to the work of Luigi Pirandello.

The Colonel appeared first in the pilot episode, "Whither Canada?" in a documentary-formatted sketch, to help describe the Allied Forces involvement in joke warfare during World War II.

He appears four times in "Owl-Stretching Time", protesting rip offs of the British army's slogan, "It's a Man's Life in the Modern Army."

The Colonel appears most frequently in "Full Frontal Nudity". In this episode, the Colonel is writing in his office when he is suddenly approached by Private Watkins (played by Eric Idle), a young soldier who has been in the army for one day, claiming he wants to leave as it's dangerous and people get killed. They're interrupted by the entrance of two gangsters, Dino and Luigi Vercotti, who attempt an outrageously obvious protection racket, hoping to extort money from the Colonel in exchange for agreeing to protect his army. After a brief dialogue between the gangsters and the humourless Colonel, the latter stands up, exclaiming that the whole premise is too silly. He addresses the unseen director of the sketch and begins to take over the show. He claims that he has not been given a single funny line and demands to have the camera zoom in on his face. Looking straight into the camera, the Colonel orders that the show proceed to an animated segment, which it does.

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