Episode 7 Ministry Of Curious Stuff

PHONE RINGS

Here at the Ministry of Curious Stuff,

we seek to answer any question you may ask.

No question is too ridiculous.

On call are our highly curious researchers,

Lovett, Wannamaker, Frazernagle, Teaparty,

and of course, Captain Length-Width.

The Ministry is a thinking facility that helps us

to find you an answer.

'The working day will commence in ten seconds.

'Don't be late.

'Attention! Mr Reeves is entering the building.'

Welcome to the Ministry of Curious Stuff.

Morning, everybody!

-Good morning, Mr Reeves.

-Morning, Mr Reeves.

-Good morning, Mr Reeves.

-Morning.

-Length-Width.

-Yes.

-You look a little bit tired.

-I'm exhausted.

Have you been up all night on the waltzers again?

I went on the dodgems between rehearsals.

-Good man.

-Yes.

-Shall we give it a go?

-Let's.

-Come on.

-Here we go.

Two, three, four!

HARMONICA PLAYS

Fantastic! We might be ready. I am perfect. You're a little bit rusty.

-But I think we are ready for Britain's Got Talent.

-I agree.

Because this is just the sort of thing that Amanda Holden

-really goes for.

-I know. Right. Frazernagle, anyone on the lines?

I've got an absolutely brilliant question on line three.

PHONE RINGS

Hello? This is Vic Reeves here at the Ministry of Curious Stuff.

How may I be of guidance to you today?

Hi, my name is Ingrid and my question is,

can animals commit crimes?

Thank you very much. Goodbye.

They want to know, can animals commit crimes?

And there is only one way to answer that

and that is, Crime Watchers!

Stand by, Crime Watchers.

SIREN WAILS

-NEW YORK ACCENT:

-Good evening. I'm Detective Chief Inspector Vic Reeves

of the Leeds London Lowestoft LA NYPD.

Crime Watchers, what have we got?

Today's curious fact just in, Detective.

Police in London looking for suspects of a series

of burglaries have evidence

that the crimes were committed by a cheeky chimp.

A cheeky chimp!

Yes. Police did investigate but could not find any human fingerprints,

only smudgy monkey-prints.

It is thought that the monkey had been trained

by a human accomplice.

I have the officer-in-charge. G1, Mr Reeves.

'British bobby loading in G1.'

Good morning, commander.

So, you suspect there is a monkey thief

still on the loose somewhere out there?

Yes, Detective. But it's only a matter of time before we find him.

-You'd have to be a right idiot not to spot a monkey thief!

-Good man!

-Good man, at ease.

-Thank you, ma'am.

MONKEY WHOOPS

-Hey, geezer, want to buy a DVD player?

-Not now, thank you.

I am very busy, keeping my eyes peeled for a devious monkey thief.

-But thank you for asking, madam.

-Fair enough, squire.

What a doughnut!

What a nice lady!

And now, we go straight over to Detective Lovett

for some breaking news.

Thank you, Mr Reeves. I have just discovered a curious fact.

A cat called Louis was put under house arrest in 2006

for various unprovoked attacks on his unsuspecting victims.

The villainous kitty is now only allowed out in a cat-carrier.

-Thank goodness that cat isn't here!

-I agree with you.

HISSING

MEOW!

SMASH!

I don't know about you, about this time of day,

I like to brush my teeth.

Now, where is my lucky toothpaste?

It is round here somewhere... OK, the lucky toothpaste has gone.

Seal the doors! Somebody in here has taken my lucky toothpaste.

Was it you, Wannamaker? I got my eyes on you.

Or was it Frazernagle? I know you have had your eye on it for weeks.

-Maybe it was a polar bear, Mr Reeves.

-A polar what?

Get in there!

-What are you in for? Cat-napping?

-Attacking people, actually. You?

-Stealing from humans. Want to buy a kettle?

-No, thanks. What about him?

-Stealing toothpaste. I wish he had got away with it, too.

-Why?

His breath stinks.

POLAR BEAR SIGHS

Ugh!

A polar bear, well that's crazy.

Mr Reeves, I'm telling you, it's true.

Lovett's right, Mr Reeves.

In 2001, a polar bear broke into a tourist camp in Norway

and stole all the toothpaste.

They go wild for the mint. It's a fact.

How very strange.

Well, at least that solves the mystery of the missing toothpaste.

Wannamaker, Frazernagle, I'm so sorry that I ever doubted you.

OK, let's go back over to the incident desk where PC Lovett

has more information on... animals behind bars.

That's right, Mr Reeves. But it's not like you think. In some prisons,

prisoners are allowed to keep pets for good behaviour.

Is that so?

Inmate Craig "The Bonecrusher" Bennett in Y18 for you, Detective.

'Prisoner with pet moving in Y18.'

Ah, the notorious criminal, Craig "The Bonecrusher" Bennett.

At last we meet.

Oh, please, drop the formalities, dear. You can just call me Craig.

OK, is it true that, sometimes,

inmates are allowed to keep pets in their cells?

Oh, yeah, that's a fact, actually.

I've got myself a new pet in this cell right now.

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

-Well, I have been a good boy.

-LOUD SLURPING

Tony, what have I told you about drinking in the toilet?

-Oh, here he is.

-ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

Hello, you! Right, he's quite brutish.

-Get off me.

-Thank you.

OK, so there we are.

That's animals in prison, but those animals have not committed a crime.

Do we have anything on a prison for animals?

How about this, Mr Reeves?

We've found a monkey jail in India

where monkeys are imprisoned for bad behaviour.

That's right, the monkeys are most often locked up for stealing,

vandalism or just being little pests,

but some have committed more dangerous crimes

like attacking people or slapping students.

A monkey prison, eh?

Curious.

Brace yourselves.

RUMBLING

Stations, everyone!

Oo-oo-oo-all right, son?

Oo-oo-oo-all right, yeah, Ma.

Keeping my head down, staying out of trouble, you know.

Oh, I er... I brought you a present, if you er...

RATTLING

..know what I mean? Wink!

Yeah, cheers, Ma, that's, er... Just what I, erm...

-RATTLING

-..wanted. Wink.

I think I'll be taking a look at that.

No!

Oh, flippin' 'eck. We've been rumbled.

Trying to break out, eh, McChimpus? You've had it this time.

You're going to spend the rest of your life behind monkey bars.

I told you to put it in a cage!

Oh, shut up!

You silly old bag!

EASTENDERS THEME TUNE

So there we are, I think we've got enough evidence now

to prove that there are criminal animals.

That's enough information, get them off as soon as possible.

Thank you, Miss Teaparty.

Right away, Mr Reeves.

'Attention, attention,

'Flying Postal Services entering the Ministry.

'Please have your post prepared for the postal personnel upon arrival.

'Postal person descending, postal person descending.

'Please stand back.

'Postal Service reaching its destination in three, two, one.'

MUSIC: "Rule Britannia"

'Postal Services departing, stand clear.

'Post will be delivered in approximately two minutes

'and 32 seconds.

'Thank you for using Flying Postal Services.'

Hover skywards, my kestrel of correspondence,

away to eternity or another postal district.

Anyway, Mr Frazernagle, anyone else on the lines?

-Yeah, line three, I'll put them through now.

-Good.

PHONE RINGS

-POSH ACCENT:

-Hello, this is Vic Reeves at the Ministry of, er, Curious Stuff.

Can I be of assistance to you?

Hi, this is Nicolette.

What's the point of eyebrows?

Thank you, Nicolette. Goodbye.

Nicolette wants to know, what's the point of eyebrows?

Length-Width, you're a huge fan of eyebrows.

Yes, yes. And you're a fan of huge eyebrows.

And we're both fans of huge tractors.

That's right, but never get the pair confused.

Oh, no, because last week,

I ended up ploughing my field with my eyebrow.

ATONAL BLAST

Anyway, we're here to talk about eyebrows.

I'm hungry for knowledge and fact.

What have we got, Miss Teaparty?

Well, Mr Reeves, this is a very curious fact for you.

Did you know that Ancient Egyptians used to shave off their eyebrows

-when their pet cats died?

-Really?

-Oh, yes.

They would mourn the dead moggy until their eyebrows grew back.

It was meant to be a sign of respect before the cats were mummified.

It's true. Cats were sacred to the Egyptians and worshipped as gods,

-so the death of a cat was very sad in Ancient Egypt.

-Interesting.

Ancient Egyptians coming through, E11, Mr Reeves.

'Eyebrow-free Egyptians loading in E11.'

-Oh, good. Come on and have a look.

-I am going to have a look.

-Look, there! Don't be shy.

-I'm not shy.

Hello. You must be a pair of Ancient Egyptians.

Oh, dear. I see you've got both of your eyebrows shaved off.

Have you had a recent feline bereavement?

Correct. My cat, Gary Barlow,

-he was recently run over by a chariot.

-VIC WAILS

Why?

He was such a lovely little moggy.

-Would you like to see a photograph?

-Yes!

-Have you got a picture of him before he was run over?

-No, sorry.

-What about you? You only have one eyebrow.

-I thought my cat was dead

and started shaving them off. Then I realised he was just asleep.

If you don't mind me saying,

you're a very silly pair of Egyptians. Now clear off.

Get out. Go on. Get out!

-Well handled.

-Thank you.

There we are. We've learned about shaved eyebrows

but what's the point of eyebrows, Miss Teaparty?

-Would you like to hear about the Mona Lisa's eyebrows?

-Who wouldn't?

The Mona Lisa has missing eyebrows,

which is perhaps why her smile looks so strange.

According to X-rays, she did once have brows

but they just faded over time.

MUSIC: "Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert

SHE HUMS ALONG

SHE LAUGHS

MUSIC STOPS

SHE SIGHS

Such beautiful eyebrows. Such a shame they had to fade.

Anyway, we want to know, what's the point of eyebrows?

Mr Reeves, it says the proper name for a unibrow,

one big eyebrow, is a synophrys.

Oh, quite. It says here,

Victorians thought if you had a unibrow, you were a criminal.

So if you had one of those, they'd think you were a criminal?

That is...

Oh! No!

That means...

And you!

Lovett!

And Frazernagle!

The whole Ministry's been taken over by evil eyebrows!

DASTARDLY MUSIC

ATONAL BLAST

I am Viscount Unibrow, from the Victorian times.

As I suspected.

# His eyebrows meet at the top of his nose

# Like a battle to the death from a pair of crows

# He's an animal

# He's a criminal

# He's a monster with no principle

# Anyone can see that eyebrows meeting

# Must be a sign of very poor eating

# He's a minister of sinister

# And his breath smells of vinegar

# Unibrow, unibrow people

# The embodiment of evil

# Unibrow people are naughty boys

# And therefore they must be destroyed. Oi! #

THEY LAUGH EVILLY

Wah! Don't hurt me!

Well, no. It's me. It's me, look.

-Oh! You had me going then.

-Yes.

-Anyway, I think unibrows are charming things.

-Really?

Agh! Don't hurt me!

It's me, it's me, look. It's me.

-Twice in one day!

-Yes, record.

So it seems that unibrow people aren't evil after all.

Or are they?

DASTARDLY MUSIC

Right, so we've learnt lots of eyebrow facts,

but what are they actually for?

Well, Mr Reeves, I think I can answer this one.

we have eyebrows for two reasons.

One, to keep sweat out of our eyes.

and the other, so we can read facial expressions.

-Never!

-Yes, it's true.

Imagine how weird we'd look if we didn't, you know...have eyebrows.

Well, I shall now demonstrate

how eyebrows help us read the expression upon a person's face.

I've done this by shaving the head completely of a peasant.

This is Margaret. She is furious

that someone stole the forks from her cutlery drawer

while she was out digging a hole.

But you can't tell she's angry. No.

There's no visual aid.

She has no eyebrows. But with the help of this pen,

I shall draw eyebrows upon Margaret's face!

SQUEAKING

There! Now we can see

how really angry Margaret is over those missing forks.

That's not why I was angry.

I was angry because someone broke into my house

in the middle of the night and shaved all me hair off!

All right, thank you.

OK, moving on.

So, eyebrows.

Great for keeping sweat out of your eyes

and perfect for reading people's facial expressions.

Miss Teaparty, could you get those findings off to Nicolette

as swift as the wind, please?

-Right away, Mr Reeves.

-Thank you.

'Flying Postal Services has arrived.

'Post prepared for postal personnel.

'Thank you for using Flying Postal Services,

'your number-one aerial courier.'

Farewell, sweet avian courier.

Mr Frazernagle, time for one final question. Anyone on the lines?

Yes, there certainly is.

-I shall put you through.

-Thank you.

PHONE RINGS

Hello, this is Vic Reeves at the Ministry of Curious Stuff.

How may I be of service?

Hello, this is Emilia.

I just wanted to ask you a little question.

Are there fairies at the bottom of the garden?

Nice one, Emilia. Thank you. Good day.

Emilia wants to know, are there fairies at the bottom of the garden?

Hmm...

I'm very interested in that question

because I intend to catch a fairy

with my fairy trap.

Now, through my extensive research,

I have calculated that fairies very likely enjoy eating butter.

They're also enticed by bells

and four-leaf clovers.

I've also placed here a TV Guide,

which will entice the fairies

by looking at some of their favourite television programmes

and here is a camera, which will take a photo of the fairies

once they've been enticed to the area.

I shall be the first person ever to have photographed a fairy.

-Well...not quite the first, Mr Reeves.

-What?

Well, in 1917,

two girls took some photographs

of seemingly-real fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Fascinating.

And not only that...

curious!

Brace yourselves!

Stations, everyone!

RUMBLING

-COCKNEY ACCENT:

-Beautiful, lovely! To me! Gorgeous, hold it like that.

-COCKNEY: Hey, Frances, put the camera down for a minute.

-What?

Do you think people'll believe these is real fairies?

'Course they will, you Muppet!

Look, they got their wings, gossamer, everything.

I know, but do you think people's going to think,

"Oh, they's just like a couple of fairies they stuck on a photograph?"

'Course they won't! Sometimes I think you think too much.

Well, I am a very cerebral person, you know that about me, Frances.

Whatever that means, I don't know

but listen, no-one's ever seen a fairy before

-so how will they know the difference?

-OK, just take the photo.

You're getting right in my grill, Frances, giving it all that.

All your thinking's bringing me out in a sweat! I've got the pickles!

Just take the photograph and we can go home.

We can go home and watch Strictly.

-Now shut up and hold them still.

-Yes, I'm with it, Frances.

What an intriguing pair!

Actually, I'm not sure the girls were quite how you imagined them.

-Really?

-Here's a copy of the actual photo the girls took in 1917,

if you'd care to take a look.

Not really, but I suppose I will.

Well, a lot of people at the time thought the photos were genuine.

Even experts thought they were real fairies.

What were they experts in,

how to cut out drawings and photograph them?

-Ha-ha!

-Ha-ha!

Nice one, Reeves.

Yes, very good, Mr Reeves.

In 1986, which was 69 years after the photos were taken,

one of the girls confessed that the photos were just paper cut-outs.

As I suspected. So they weren't fairy photographers,

just sweet little pretty liars.

-Yes, it would seem that way, Mr Reeves.

-I thought so.

I wonder if I've caught a fairy yet.

-Length-Width, take a look.

-Yes.

-Anything?

-Nothing.

-NEW YORK ACCENT:

-It's only a matter of time, and I got plenty.

NEW YORK ACCENT: I ain't going no place fast.

We have to answer the question.

Are there fairies at the bottom of the garden?

How's this for a curious fact, Mr Reeves?

Did you know that hobbits actually once existed?

-Like Lord of the Rings? Little fellas, hairy feet?

-It's true.

We've heard of Homo sapiens, because that's us

and we know Neanderthals because they're cavemen,

but there was another species of human called Homo floresiensis.

They were about one metre tall and had very tiny heads.

I wouldn't mind interviewing one of them.

Mr Reeves, something's rumbling in X5!

'Small man landing in X5.'

Ooh!

Wow!

It's a hobbit.

Sit down, sir.

So, what do I call you? The Hobbit?

Wee Bobby Hob-Nob? The Hobster?

My name's Mike.

OK, Mike, what's Gandalf really like?

There's no such person as Gandalf.

Lord Of The Rings was just a film.

I'm a Homo floriensis.

What does Gandalf smell of?

I imagine it's probably a combination of mint imperials,

talcum powder and cabbage.

I wouldn't know what he smells like! I'm not in Lord Of The Rings!

I'm from the year 20,000 BC!

Do you know what? I don't believe you're a hobbit.

I believe you are a cheeky little imposter.

How dare you!

I've never been so insulted in my tiny little life.

I come in here, you bang on about Lord Of The Rings,

then you call me a liar. It's cos I'm little, isn't it?

Well, I'm not taking this any longer.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Mike the hobbit.

Shut up!

-Well, I think you rather wasted that opportunity.

-You think?

Yes, he was from 20,000 BC and you asked him if his name was Hob-Nob.

You might have a point.

Right, come on. We need to find out, do fairies exist?

All we have at the moment is some cardboard cut-outs

and a ropey old hobbit.

Well, here's something curious.

A lot of people in Iceland believe that fairies really exist.

-Do they?

-They do, Mr Reeves. In fact, some roads in Iceland

were specifically built so they don't interfere

with the areas they believe elves or what they call "hidden people" live.

If you thought fairies were everywhere,

road construction would be a nightmare.

-ICELANDIC ACCENT:

-Be fair to fairies!

Ja, hello, so, welcome to the site of the fairy protest

against the construction of a huge, big road.

-I have with me Ida Gemhoarder, the leader of the fairy protest.

-Hello.

Hello, so, Ida. You're an actual fairy?

-Ja.

-Wow.

So, why are you opposed to a motorway

being built in this desolate, icy area where nothing can possibly live?

Because, as most people in Iceland know,

fairies live in a desolate, icy area where nothing can possibly live

and this road is heading right for this dusty old rock

and this rock is our home!

Be fair to fairies! Be fair to fairies!

Wow. This is so sad.

Back to you in the studio.

Ain't it marvellous?

Still, there's no hard evidence that fairies exist.

That's true, of course... Hang on a minute.

There's something in the trap.

It's that thieving Cockney monkey!

Ooh-ooh-oh, look at that bell. That looks expensive.

I'll have that for myself.

Oh! And this four-leaf clover, that'll be lucky. I'll have that.

Ooh! Here's some butter. I love butter.

Going to have myself a butter party later.

Nice one. Ooh-ooh-ah-ah-hang on a minute! Look at that.

It's a TV guide. Nice, I'll have that.

-Lucky!

-No!

Not the TV guide! No!

-(SOBS)

-My life is over!

Still, there we are.

Conclusive proof that all fairies are monkeys.

I detect codswallop, Mr Reeves.

There's no proof that all fairies are monkeys.

It was a stab in the dark. Now, we've done all the research.

Let's try and answer Emilia's question properly.

Although a lot of people believe in fairies, there's no evidence

that anyone's ever caught one to prove that they exist.

Get that information off to Emilia as quickly as you possibly can.

-Right away, Mr Reeves.

-Thank you.

Satisfied, Length-Width?

On balance, yeah.

'Attention, Ministry. The working day is over.

'Reassessing curious stuff.'

Ingrid asked, "Do animals commit crimes?"

And we found out.

A chimp was responsible for a series of burglaries in 2002.

Hey, geezer! Want to buy a DVD player?

Louis the cat was arrested for a series of attacks in 2006.

Polar bears break into campsites and steal toothpaste.

They go wild for the mint.

And some prisons' inmates can keep pets as reward for good behaviour.

Hello, right, he's quite brutish. Get off me!

In India, there is a jail for naughty little monkeys.

You're going to spend the rest of your life behind monkey bars.

So, yes, Ingrid. Animals do commit crimes.

Next, Nicolette asked, "What's the point of eyebrows?" We discovered...

Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows when their cats died.

-Have you had a recent feline bereavement?

-Correct.

X-rays show that the Mona Lisa painting used to have eyebrows.

The Victorians thought that if you had a unibrow, you were a criminal.

Wah! Don't hurt me!

But the answer is, eyebrows keep sweat out of your eyes, and help us

with facial expressions. That's the point of eyebrows.

And Emilia asked, "Are there fairies at the bottom of the garden?"

In 1917, two young girls took photos of fairies.

Beautiful, lovely! To me, to me.

Turns out they were fake.

-Hobbits really existed.

-My name's Mike.

They lived in 20,000 BC.

It's cos I'm little, isn't it?

In Iceland, roads are built to avoid where elves may live.

Be fair to fairies!

So, to answer the question,

some people believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden

but no-one has ever caught one. Sorry, Emilia.

Goodbye, everybody.

'Transportation ready for Mr Reeves.'

-Goodbye, Mr Reeves.

-Goodbye, Mr Reeves.

-Bye, Mr Reeves.

-Bye, Mr Reeves.

Stand back, everyone.

I'm going home for me tea!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd