Coming soon to the Joseph Smith Memorial Theater and a Stake Center or LDS Temple Vistors Center near you. Bring the entire family to this faith demoting, bloody good dark comedy about Pythonites, Cleezites, Lamanites and Nephites. Buy it now at Desperate Book stores. Submit your screenplay scenes and comments in the box below.

Nephi (Eric Idle): Who would have thought, thirty hundred years ago, we'd all be sitting here drinking Chateau de Chaselet, eh?

All: Aye, aye.

Jared (Michael Palin): Them days we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea.

Moroni (Graham Chapman): Right! A cup of cold tea!

Jared: Right!

Nephi: Without milk or sugar!

Alma - the son of Alma (Terry Jones): Or tea!

Jared: In a cracked cup and all.

Nephi: Oh, we never used to have a cup! We used to have to drink out of a rolled-up newspaper!

Moroni: The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

Alma: But you know, we were happy in those days, although we were poor.

Jared: Because we were poor!

Alma: Right!

Jared: My brother, whose name I cannot for the life of me recall, used to say to me: "Money doesn't bring you happiness, Jared!"

Nephi: He was right!

Moroni: Right!

Nephi: I was happier then and I had nothing! We used to live in this tiny old tumbled-down house in Jerusalem with great big holes in the roof. Then, me old man went barking mad and decided we had to leave Jerusalem and go on some crazy trip. After we left, he sent me back to get some plates made o' brass from some old fart. Well listen, he wouldn't give ‘em up, so I chopped ‘is ‘ead off, I did. Then I dressed up in the dead buggers clothes and got the plates from ‘is servant, who never once recognized me even though I was just a teenager wearing the blood soaked clothes of a man twice my age. But you know, I miss that ol' house.

Jared: House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in a one room barge, all twenty- six of us, no furniture, no light except windows in the top and the bottom of the barge which we never could figure out why there was a widow in the bottom of the barge and we couldn't open the window at the top because it was tight like unto a dish. As a matter of fact the whole barge was tight like unto a dish. And my brother, you know the one whose name I cannot for the life of me recall, used to drink so much that he would get tight like unto a dish and thrash me about the head and shoulders, and whenever he would get tight like unto a dish we would all be huddled together in one corner for fear of a thrashing from my brother — whose name I cannot recall.

Alma: You were lucky to have a barge! We used to have to live in the corridor! Not to mention my parents giving me a girls name. Oooh, I used to get the crap beat out of me in school because of that. And me dad should have known better, I am after all Alma, the son of Alma. Ooh to ‘ave lived in a house.

Nephi: Well, when I say a house, it was just a hole in the ground, covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us! And then we ‘ad to travel for months in a boat tossed about the seas til we came to the uninhabited shores of Americas That's right Mr. Sorensen, I said UNinhabited.

Jared: You were lucky to have a boat! There were 150 of us living barge for years, tight like unto a dish!

Nephi: A wooden barge?

Jared: Aye!

Nephi: You were lucky! We lived for three months in a rolled-up newspaper in a the Arabian desert! We used to have to get up every morning, at six o'clock and clean the newspaper, go to traipsing around the desert, fourteen hours a day, week in, week out, for six pence a week and when we got home, our dad Lehi would thrash us to sleep with his "Iron Rod"!

Jared: Luxury! Once we got to America we used to live in a lake. We would get up out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, work twenty hours a day building a civilization that would completely disappear anyway, by the time Nephi got here, come home, and my brother, whose bloody name I still cannot remember, would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, . . . if we were lucky!

Alma: Well, of course, we had it tough! When we got home, our dad, Alma, since I am after all Alma, the son of Alma, would slice us in two with a bread knife!

Moroni: At least you had a dad, my dad was killed along with 6 million others, soldiers, their wives and children. And I had to spend the next thirty years covering the bones with lime so they would decompose and not be found in the twentieth century. Not to mention that I had to carry two million steel swords and breastplates and hide them in a cave so that modern Mormons could believe in the book of mormon by faith, instead of any evidence that we really existed. Thirty Years, I worked.

Nephi: Right! I had to get up in the morning, at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down building a bloody temple like unto Solomon, which was supposedly built with hundreds of thousands of workers whereas we only had about twenty, and when we got home, our dad would kill us with his "Iron Rod" and dance about on our graves, singing Hallelujah!

Jared: Aah. And you trying to tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you! All, joined by the three witnesses AND the eight witnesses: No, no they won't!

Vendor appears in the audience walking down the aisle (looking remarkably like John Cleese dressed as a woman): Curelom! Curelom!

American: What flavor is it? What flavor is it?

Vendor: Seagullsickle! Curelom! Curelom!

Man with hat: Could I have... Could I have two icecreams, please?

Vendor: I haven't got any icecreams, I just got this curelom!

Man with hat: Uh...

Vendor: Curelom!

Man with hat: Uh, what flavor is it?

Vendor: Well, it is a curelom, isn't it? It's not any bloody flavor! Curelom!

Man with hat: There's gotta be some flavor, I mean everything's got a flavor...

Vendor: All right, all right! It's bloody curelom flavor! Seagullsickle, Curelom!

Man with hat: Do you get jello with it?

Vendor: Of course you don't have fucking jello with it, you bloody mormon! It's fucking curelom, I mean . . .

Boyd K Packer: (In Graham Chapman's voice): Stop that! Stop that! It's filthy! Hold on! Right now, we need you! The one in the black, we need you for another skit on stage. And you, get off! You're not even a proper woman!

Vendor: Don't you oppress me mate.

Boyd: What are you trying to do? Avoid a mission or something?

Vendor: Bleedin' sexist!

Boyd: Come on, we need you for a skit! No one enjoys a good laugh more than I do. Except perhaps for my wife and some of her friends. Oh, yes, and Playelder and Cricket and Cezoram and Captain Ron and Stray Mutt and Schweizerkindly-yours and come to think of it, most people enjoy a good laugh more than I do, but that's beside the point. Right! Let's get on with this skit! Where's the other person for this skit? Right, you want to sit in that chair? And...cue...the...skit!

Scene 6

BEDEMIR: And that, my brother, is how we know the Earth to be 6000 years old.

ARTHUR: This new learning amazes me, Bro. Bedemir. Explain again how tobacco may be employed to prevent illnesses.

BEDEMIR: Oh, certainly, sir.

LAUNCELOT: Look, my brother!

ARTHUR: The Temple!

GALAHAD: The Temple!

LAUNCELOT: The Temple!

PATSY: It's only a micro-temple.

ARTHUR: Shhh! Brothers, I bid you welcome to your new house of worship. Let us enter... the Temple.

[singing]

We're saints of the Mormon temple
We go when e'er we're able
We do routines and killing scenes
With slashing impecc-Able.

We act weird in this holy spot
We shake hands and pray and cry a lot

[dancing]

We're saints of the Mormon temple
Our vows are for-mid-able
Though many times we're given signs
That are quite un-use-able
We not so smart in our thought
We like to dunk the dead a lot

[tap-dancing]

Keep our brain disabled
Fill our minds with fables.
We get new names and hide our shames
And impersonate the angels
It's a bit too lame to play the game
I have to run, or go insane.

[tap dancing]

ARTHUR: Well, on second thought, let's not go to the temple -- it is a silly place. Right.

FATHER: One day, lad, all this will be yours!

ELDER HERBERT: What, the food storage?

FATHER: No. Not the food storage, lad. All that you can see, stretched out over the shelves and desktop of this room! This'll be your gospel library, lad.

HERBERT: But Mother--

FATHER: Father, lad. Father.

HERBERT: B-- b-- but Father, I don't want any of that.

FATHER: Listen, lad. I built this gospel library up from nothing. When I joined the church, all I had was an old beat up copy of Gospel Principles and a water-stained Book of Mormon the Elders gave me. Other members said I was daft to store books in the cellar, but I stored 'em all the same, just to show 'em. The books mildewed to rot. So, I installed a dehumidifier. That overloaded the cellar wiring. So, I replaced the cellar wiring with high-grade, gold-plated copper wire. That cost so much that I went bankrupt and put us on church welfare. But then I started eBay-ing my duplicate copies of LDS literature and that started paying the bills and giving me money to invest in new books! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the most comprehensive collection of gospel literature in the mid-west.

HERBERT: But I don't want any of that. I'd rather--

FATHER: Rather what?!

HERBERT: I'd rather...

[music]

...just... sing!

FATHER: Stop that! Stop that! You're not going into a song while I'm here. Now listen, lad. In twenty minutes, you're leaving on a mission to Salt Lake City, home of some of the best rare LDS book shops in the world.

HERBERT: B-- but I don't want books.

FATHER: Listen, Alice,--

HERBERT: Herbert.

FATHER: Herbert. We live in Minnesota. We need all the LDS books we can get.

HERBERT: But-- but I don't like Salt Lake City.

FATHER: Don't like it?! What's wrong with it?! It's beautiful. It's Zion. It's got huge...LDS book stores!

HERBERT: I know, but I want the-- the mission I serve to have...

[music]

...a certain,... special... something!

FATHER: Cut that out! Cut that out! Look, you're going to Salt Lake City, so you'd better get used to the idea!

[smack]

Elders! Make sure Herbert gets on the plane to Salt Lake City.

ELDER #1: Not to get on the plane to Salt Lake City.

ELDER #2: Hic!

FATHER: No, no. He needs to get on the plane to Salt Lake City for his mission.

ELDER #1: Until he goes on his mission, we're not to go to Salt Lake City.

FATHER: No, no. No. You go to the airport with him and make sure he gets on the plane.

ELDER #1: And you'll stay here.

ELDER #2: Hic!

FATHER: Right.

ELDER #1: We don't need to do anything apart from just stop him getting on the plane.

FATHER: No, no. Missing the plane.

ELDER #1: Missing the plane. Yes.

[sniff]

FATHER: All right?

ELDER #1: Right.

ELDER #2: Hic!

FATHER: Right.

ELDER #1: Oh, if-- if-- if, uhh-- if-- if-- w-- ehh-- i-- if-- if we--

FATHER: Yes? What is it?

ELDER #1: Oh, i-- if-- i-- oh--

FATHER: Look, it's quite simple.

ELDER #1: Uh...

FATHER: You just stay with him and make sure he gets on the plane to Salt Lake City. All right?

ELDER #2: Hic!

FATHER: Right.

ELDER #1: Oh, I remember. Uhh, can he miss the plane if he stays with us?

FATHER: N-- no, no. No. You just stay with him and make sure he--

ELDER #1: Oh, yes. We'll stay with him, obviously, but if we had to leave him alone and he was headed toward the plane--

FATHER: No, no, no, no. Just keep him with you--

ELDER #1: Until he gets on the plane to Salt Lake City or anywhere else--

FATHER: No, not anywhere else. Just Salt Lake City.

ELDER #1: Just Salt Lake City.

ELDER #2: Hic!

FATHER: For his mission.

ELDER #1: For his mission.

FATHER: All right?

ELDER #1: Right. We'll stay with him until the plane gets here.

ELDER #2: Hic!

FATHER: And, uh, make sure he gets on it.

ELDER #1: What?

FATHER: Make sure he gets on it.

ELDER #1: Herbert?

FATHER: Yes. Make sure he gets on it.

ELDER #1: Oh, yes, of course.

ELDER #2: Hic!

ELDER #1: Ah. I thought you meant him. You know, it seemed a bit daft me havin' to make sure he goes on his mission him when he's already a missionary.

FATHER: Is that clear?

ELDER #2: Hic!

ELDER #1: Oh, quite clear. No problems.

FATHER: Right. Where are you going?

ELDER #1: We're coming with you.

FATHER: No, no. I want you to go to the airport and make sure he gets on the plane.

ELDER #1: Oh, I see. Right.

HERBERT But Father!

FATHER: Shut your noise, you! And get that suit on!

[music]

And no singing!

ELDER #2: Hic!

FATHER: Oh, go and get a glass of water.

[clank]

MOB: A Mormon! A Mormon! A Mormon! We've got a Mormon! A Mormon!

MOBBER #1: We have found a Mormon, might we tar and feather him?

MOB: Tar and feather him! Tar and feather!

GEN. CLARK: How do you know he is a Mormon?

MOBBER #2: He looks like one.

GEN. CLARK: Bring him forward.

MAN: I'm not a Mormon. I'm not a Mormon.

GEN. CLARK: But you are dressed as one.

MAN: They dressed me up like this.

MOB: No, we didn't -- no.

MAN: And these aren't my horns, they're false ones.

GEN. CLARK: Well?

MOBBER #1: Well, we did do the horns.

GEN. CLARK: The horns?

MOBBER #1: And the forked tail -- but he is a Mormon!

MOB: Tar and feather him! Mormon! Mormon! Tar and feather him!

GEN. CLARK: Did you dress him up like this?

MOB: No, no... no ... yes. Yes, yes, a bit, a bit.

MOBBER #1: He has got books besides the Bible.

GEN. CLARK: What makes you think he is a Mormon?

MOBBER #3: Well, he converted me to Mormonism.

GEN. CLARK: You're a Mormon too then?

MOBBER #3: Um, I got better.

MOBBER #2: Tar and feather him anyway!

MOB: Tar and feather! Tar and feather him!

GEN. CLARK: Quiet, quiet. Quiet! There are ways of telling whether he is a Mormon.

MOB: Are there? What are they?

GEN. CLARK: Tell me, what do you do with Mormons?

MOBBER #2: Tar and feather!

MOB: Tar and feather, tar and feather them up!

GEN. CLARK: And what do you tar and feather apart from Mormons?

MOBBER #1: More Mormons!

MOBBER #2: Criminals!

GEN. CLARK: So, why do we tar and feather Mormons?

[pause]

MOBBER #3: B--... 'cause they're criminals...?

GEN. CLARK: Good!

MOB: Oh yeah, yeah...

GEN. CLARK: So, how do we tell whether he is a criminal?

MOBBER #1: Take him to the judge.

GEN. CLARK: Aah, but can you not also go to the judge to get married?

MOBBER #2: Oh, yeah.

GEN. CLARK: Do criminals stay put when you set them free?

MOBBER #1: No, no.

MOBBER #2: They run away! They run away!

MOBBER #1: Let him loose and see if he runs!

MOB: Let him loose!

GEN. CLARK: What also runs away when you set it free?

MOBBER #1: Bread!

MOBBER #2: Apples!

MOBBER #3: Very small rocks!

MOBBER #1: Cider!

MOBBER #2: Great gravy!

MOBBER #1: Cherries!

MOBBER #2: Mud!

MOBBER #3: Churches -- churches!

MOBBER #2: Lead -- lead!

GOV. BOGGS: A horse.

MOB: Oooh.

GEN. CLARK: Exactly! So, logically...,

MOBBER #1: If... he.. weighs the same as a horse, he's a criminal.

GEN. CLARK: And therefore--?

MOBBER #1: A Mormon!

MOB: A Mormon!

GEN. CLARK: We shall use my largest scales!

[yelling]

GEN. CLARK: Right, remove the supports!

[whop]

[creak]

MOB: A Mormon! A Mormon!

MAN: It's fairer than most frontier justice.

MOB: Tar and feather him! Tar and feather!

[yelling]

GEN. CLARK: Who are you who are so wise in the ways of religion?

GOV. BOGGS: I am Lilburn W. Boggs, Governor of Missouri.

GEN. CLARK: You Honor!

Gov. BOGGS: Good General, will you come with me to Jefferson City, and join us at the Legislature?

GEN. CLARK: Your Honor! I would be honored.

Gov. BOGGS: What is your name?

GEN. CLARK: John Clark, your honor.

Gov. BOGGS: Then I appoint you General John Clark, Exterminator of Mormons.

Interior: Evening. Modern residential area. Living room, moderate lighting, very neat and nicely arranged fairly new furniture.

Phone on end table rings. woman appearing past middle age walks in and picks up the phone.

Luella: Hello, this is Luella

Voice on phone: Hi Mom!

Luella: Who is this!

Voice on phone: It's your son, Matthew. I just wanted to call to...

Luella: Matthew Thompson! What are you doing!

Voice on phone: ...wish you a happy birthday mom...

Luella: Alma! It's Matthew!

Enter Alma: Takes phone from Luella, bruskly

Alma: Matthew! What is the meaning of this!

Voice on the phone: Dad, I just wanted to wish Mom a happy birthday...

Alma: Son, YOU are on a MISSION! You know you are NOT to call except on Christmas!

Voice on the phone: But dad...

Alma: Hang up and go pray for forgiveness. You have really disappointed both of us.

Voice on the phone: But dad, I just miss you and Mom, and ... CLICK.

Alma slams the phone down.

Alma: Luella, this is YOUR doing! If it hadn't been for YOUR birthday, that boy wouldn't have shamed us so! I've got to call his mission president, now.

Luella: Yes, dear...

Dissolve to:

Interior: Drab office decorated with religeios style pictures of strange people in a Central American setting, and a picture of three old men at one end OF THE OFFICE and at the other a picture of a younger, ferret faced man.

Phone rings on a nearly empty, neat desk. An elderly man in a suit picks up the phone.

Mission President: This is President Klingon.

Voice on phone: President Klingon, this is Brother Thompson, I just...

Mission President: Brother Thompson. I have Elder Thompson here in front of me now, one of my assistants had just ratted, er uh, informed me of Elder Thompson's sin. I assume that is what you are calling about?

Voice on phone: Indeed it is! I can't tell you how embarrasing this is.

Mission President: I'm sure. I will be contacting your stake president shortly.

Voice on phone: You will....? Uh, I, uh...

Mission President: Will that be all Brother Thompson? Then good day.

He hangs up the phone, then turns a very grim look at a very shaken Elder Thompson.

Fade out: Families. Isn't it about time?

Scene 3 by tanstaafl - 03/27/2004

NEPHI and ZEHOBORACIUMUMOMUM riding. They stop and look. We see a castle in the distance, and before it a PEASANT is working away on his knees trying to dig up the earth with his bare hands and a twig. NEPHI and ZEHOBOACUMIUMORUM ride up, and stop before the PEASANT

NEPHI: Old woman!

ALMA: Man!

NEPHI: Man. I'm sorry. Old man, What knight lives in that castle over there?

ALMA: I'm thirty-seven.

NEPHI: What?

ALMA: I'm thirty-seven ... I'm not old.

NEPHI: Well - I can't just say: "Hey, Man!'

ALMA: Well you could say: "Alma"

NEPHI: I didn't know you were called Alma.

ALMA: You didn't bother to find out, did you?

NEPHI: I've said I'm sorry about the old woman, but from the behind you looked ...

ALMA: What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior ...

NEPHI: Well ... I AM king AND a Prophet to boot, now that you mention superiority.

ALMA: Oh, very nice. Prophet, eh! I expect you've got a lots of tithing money to furnish your palace and buy fine fine clothes and pelnty of sycophantic followers to idolize you refer to you with your middle intial. And how d'you get that? By claiming you speak to GOD! By hanging on to outdated religious dogma which perpetuates the social and economic differences in our society! No wonder you treated me an inferior - you thought I was a woman and women are always second class to you religious types. If there's EVER going to be any progress ...

An OLD WOMAN appears.

OLD WOMAN: Alma! There's some lovely filth down here ... Oh! how d'you do?

NEPHI: How d'you do, good lady ... I am NEPHI, King of the Nephites ... can you tell me who lives in that castle?

OLD WOMAN: King of the WHO?

NEPHI: The Nephites.

OLD WOMAN: Who are the Nephites?

NEPHI: All of us are ... we are all Nephites.

ALMA winks at the OLD WOMAN.

... and I am your king and prophet ...

OLD WOMAN: Ooooh! I didn't know we had "A" prophet. I thought we were a gnostic collective and we were all prophets ...

NEPHI: A woman prophet? Absurd, you can't even hold the priesthood.

ALMA: You're fooling yourself dear. We're living in a theocracy, A self-perpetuating nepotistic theocracy in which the working classes ...

OLD WOMAN: There you are Alma, bringing class into it again ...

ALMA: That's what it's all about ... If only -

NEPHI: Please, please good people. I am in haste. What knight lives in that castle?

OLD WOMAN: No one lives there.

NEPHI: Well, who is your lord?

OLD WOMAN: We don't have a lord.

NEPHI: What?

ALMA: I told you, We're an gnostic anarcho-syndicalist commune, we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive religious officer for the week.

NEPHI: Yes.

ALMA: ... But all the decisions of that officer ...

NEPHI: Yes, I see.

ALMA: ... must be approved at a bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority, after communing with god of course, in the case of purely internal affairs.

NEPHI: Be quiet!

ALMA: ... but a two-thirds majority ...

NEPHI: Be quiet! I order you to shut up.

OLD WOMAN: Order, eh -- who does he think he is?

NEPHI: I am your prophet!

OLD WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.

NEPHI: You don't vote for prophets.

OLD WOMAN: We do. So how did YOU become a prophet, then?

NEPHI: God and Jesus Christ themselves, their arms blazing the purest of flames, their eyes burning like molten steel, their vestements fiery white, appeared to me whilst I was praying in a sacred grove and spoke unto me ... telling me that I, NEPHI, was to become the prophet of all the Nephites ... That is why I am your Prophet!

OLD WOMAN: Is Deconstructor in? He'd be able to deal with this one.

ALMA: Look, strange supernatural beings with blazing arms ... that's no basis for a system of religion. Supreme religious power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical conflaguratory ceremony.

NEPHI: Be quiet!

ALMA: You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some blazin' ghost said so!

NEPHI: Shut up!

ALMA: I mean, if I went around saying I was a Pope because some arsonist had tried to set me on fire, people would put me away!

NEPHI (Grabbing him by the collar): Shut up, will you. Shut up! You act like a woman, the way you go on and on.

ALMA: Ah! NOW ... we see the mysoginistic violence inherent in the system.

NEPHI: Shut up!

PEOPLE (i.e. other PEASANTS) are appearing and watching.

ALMA (calling): Come and see the mysogyny inherent in the system. Help, help, I'm being repressed!

NEPHI (aware that people are now coming out and watching): Bloody peasant! No wonder I thought you were a woman.

NEPHI pushes ALMA over into mud and prepares to ride off.

NEPHI: And Alma is a WOMAN's name.

ALMA: Oh, Did you hear that! What a give-away.

NEPHI: Come on, Zeho . . boaconstricoricumom.

They ride off.

ALMA (in the background as we PULL OUT): Did you see him repressing me, then? That's what I've been on about ...