Recap / The Brittas Empire S7E1: The Elephant's Child

Linda: You're going to die anyway if you get pneumonia.

Tim: Good. At least I'll die of something I'm not scared of.

— Linda Perkin trying to stop Tim Whistler from making himself sick to avoid a bungee jump.

• Date First Aired: 06/01/1997

As Brittas is going into work, he spots what appears to be a huge pile of animal shit in the car park. Also, Carole's not at her usual place in reception, with Linda instead manning the place. Apparently, Carole's doing a self-assertion course and she's decided to use it in practise by telling Brittas that she'll be late.

In Brittas' office is Councillor Drugget, who has received complaints that Brittas has been overdoing sending through leaflets, advertising a bungee jump that Brittas is setting up. He also points out that the council is not happy that Macho Max is hosting the event, due to their female offerings being fairly politically incorrect. However, they've sponsored the insurance and everything so Brittas still has to keep them on as the sponsor, although Drugget doesn't want any more publicity from them.

As Gavin is in reception, Helen comes in. The sauna and solarium is up for lease again (Penny - it's previous owner - having been Chuck-Cunninghamed in the previous episode), and this has given her the idea to start up a business. But Helen needs 10,000 pounds. Thus, she asks Gavin to perform a criminal act with her (although he recommends the now heavily pregnant Julie instead).

Meanwhile, Linda finds Tim dripping wet and mostly naked in the pool. As it turns out, Tim doesn't want to do the bungee jump, since he has a fear of heights. However, he is unable to get out because Gavin thinks him to be tough and he doesn't want Gavin to know of his fear. Of course, it doesn't help that Gavin has friends in the SAS. Ironically, Tim doesn't know that Gavin has a fear of heights as well (or to be more specific, vertigo), and he doesn't want Tim to know either.

At the meeting, Brittas promotes Macho Max's product offerings, including t-shirts depicting male abs. He also sorts out who is jumping who. At the end of the meeting, Colin comes in. As it turns out, the shit outside the centre is his, or to be more precise, that of an elephant's. However, Colin is unwilling to reveal why he has elephant poop with him. However, Julie eventually finds out why; he has proposed to a Mrs. Edwina Harcourt at the zoo. However, an elephant took and ate the ring at the last minute. Since she won't marry him until he can find the ring, Colin has been purchasing the elephant shit from the zoo and going through it in hopes of finding the ring. In the same meeting, he also offers to be a godparent to Julie's child. Helen comes in afterwards and reveals her plan to raise money to Julie. She has a fur coat which is insured for 5000 pounds, and she plans to steal it from the a locked cupboard in the centre and report it as stolen to get the insurance money.

That night, Julie and Helen break into the centre. However, they squabble over what to do with the furcoat. Plans proceed to be complicated when Julie goes into labour. Luckily, the duo are assisted by Brittas, who was able to figure out that Helen has broken in, Colin, who's still clearing out the manure, and Carole, who's been using the opportunity to have a midnight swim. The child is born, and Julie calls him Gordon Colin Porter, after Brittas and Colin. Carole also loses her assertiveness as a result, although Brittas lets this slide.

The day of the bungee jump comes, and Tim and Gavin finally find out that they're both scared of jumping, with Gavin admitting that his friends are actually part of Scandinavian Airways. They both agree to not jump. Unfortunately for Helen, one of the balloons gets loose and she and Brittas ends up being dragged along for the ride and right into the pile of elephant poop. Even worse, Brittas end up swallowing the ring that Colin was hoping to propose to Harcourt to.

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Tropes In this episode:

• Acronym Confusion: Tim initially doesn't want to tell Gavin of his fear of heights because apparently, Gavin has friends in the SAS, which he believes to stand for the Special Air Service. It's not until later that Gavin reveals that his friends are actually in Scandinavian Airlines, which also uses the same acronym.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Macho Max, the company that sponsors the bungee jump.
  • Mention is also made of Macho Maggie, a female range under Macho Max.
• And Here He Comes Now: Whilst trying to assist Julie through her childbirth in the leisure centre, Helen states that she wishes Brittas were there now. Cue Brittas entering the room planning to make a citizen's arrest (since they had broken into the centre in the dead of night).
• Balloonacy: Helen attempts to stop a promotional balloon from floating away after Tim and Gavin let go of it. She ends up getting airborne. She gets down by crashing into Brittas, and they fall into a pile of elephant shit.
• Clean, Pretty Childbirth: Julie has her baby delivered by Brittas, Helen, Colin and Carole in the centre's basement, and looks exactly the same after the birth as she did before.
• Cloudcuckoolander: What is Colin's solution to several piles of elephant poop left at the front of the leisure centre? Decide to become a "manure fairy" and manure the local neighbours' garden in the dead of night.
• Continuity Nod: Helen is just as afraid to do the bungee jump as Tim and Gavin, alluding to her fear of heights established two episodes prior.
• Covered in Gunge: Brittas and Helen end up covered in elephant shit, courtesy of them falling into a whole pile of it at the end of the episode.
• Crazy-Prepared: Brittas makes the staff do a fire drill everyday, even when it’s in the middle of a conversation with Drugget.
• Delivery Guy: Brittas and Colin assists in the delivery of Julie's baby and are given the honour of having the resultant newborn named after them.
• Faking and Entering: Helen wants to run the solarium and sauna, but unfortunately does not have the money to do so. To resolve this issue, she engineers a break-in of the centre with Julie so that she can take her fur coat so that she can claim it was stolen, and get insurance for it. Unfortunately for her, the plan is complicated by Julie giving birth in the centre.
• Footprints of Muck: Brittas notices some footprints made out of poop in the reception area and assumes that Councillor Drugget made them. However, Linda points out that the footprints are actually his.
• Foreshadowing: The end of the episode reveals that Carole's assertive side is still there, albeit not as strong as it was before, which gets explored in more detail in "Wake Up the Lion Within".
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Downplayed, as she doesn't do anything overly malicious, but after taking self-assertion courses in Nuneaton, Carole dons a pair of glasses, which coincides with her taking on a more assertive but aggressive personality such as telling her son Ben that he's invading her personal space, calling Brittas stupid, and shouting at several elderly ladies. The return to her more docile and kinder personality coincides with her ditching the glasses.
• Fun T-Shirt: The Macho Max t-shirt offerings, which depict very muscular (and naked) male abs.
• Fun with Acronyms: When Gavin points out that the new assertive Carole called Brittas stupid, Brittas responds with the management idea of "Management Accepts New Ideas And Criticisms" (a.k.a M.A.N.I.A.C).
• The Ghost:
  • Mrs. Edwina Harcourt, the woman Colin tries to marry, never makes an on-screen appearance.
  • Detective Inspector Thompson, who observes Helen running home in only her nightie, is never shown on-screen.
• Heist Episode: Helen and Julie break into the centre to steal Helen's fur coat and get Insurance Fraud money.
  Helen: And I brought a brick to break a window with... and a spare brick in case there's double glazing.
• Hilarity in Zoos: Colin decides to propose marriage to Mrs. Harcourt at a zoo. Unfortunately for him, he did it right beside the elephant house, and an elephant grabs his ring and swallows it, forcing him to purchase the poop of all the elephants in the zoo over the last three days to get it back.
• Insurance Fraud: Helen's plan to raise money so that she can get the solarium is to take her fur coat from the centre, report it as stolen, and claim the insurance of it.
• I Want My Mommy!: Julie asks for her mother whilst in the middle of labour.
  Julie: I want me mum!
  Mr. Brittas: Of course you do, Julie, and in the circumstances, I think we could offer her a free entrance to the centre.
• Lady in a Power Suit: Carole dons a suit after taking her assertion classes to show her dedication to work and more aggressive personality. When she eventually returns to her normal docile personality, she reverts back to her more casual and colourful clothing.
• Last-Minute Baby Naming: Julie named her child after Gordon and Colin, who helped assist with the birth of the baby.
• Lingerie Scene: Helen gets a scene of her in only her nightie once she stashes her coat away in a cupboard in the centre.
• Literary Allusion Title: The title is the same as the story "The Elephant's Child" from Just So Stories.
• Lost Wedding Ring: The entire reason that there's elephant poop at the centre is that the ring which Colin was using to propose to Mrs. Harcourt was eaten by an elephant, and she would not accept his offer unless he retrieves it for her. At the end of the episode, Brittas manages to swallow it after diving straight into the poop, and considering the fact that Harcourt is never mentioned again, he evidently wasn't able to retrieve it for Colin.
• Maternity Crisis: Julie gives birth right in the middle of the break-in.
• Meaningful Name: Subverted. Julie was about to name her child Dawn, since he came at the crack of dawn. However, she changes her mind once she's told that she has given birth to a boy rather than a girl.
• Misophonia Gag: Upon first hearing about the pile of dung left outside the centre, Linda mishears it as dong, the sound that a bell makes.
• "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Julie names her newborn child after Colin (who helped keep the baby warm) and Gordon (who assisted in the birth).
• New Baby Episode: The episode has Julie give birth to a child in the leisure centre during a break-in orchestrated by Helen to steal her own fur coat. She winds up naming the child after Gordon and Colin (who were present at the birth).
• Noodle Incident:
  • The franchise for the spa and solarium is up for grabs, confirming that Penny has left the centre, but why Penny left is not elaborated on. At the very least, it can assumed that she didn't die, as Brittas later tells Gavin that there have been no reported fatalities amongst the staff members.
  • Linda volunteers to do the bungee jump before Tim, telling him that she's done one before, but the context of this previous bungee jump is never elaborated on.
  • Helen tells Julie that the Brittas' family house is currently uninsured "after the second explosion", although she doesn't elaborate on exactly how these explosions came to happen.
• No Sympathy: When Gavin tries to tell Brittas that he's terrified of the bungee jump, Brittas doesn't seem to care that much and is still insistent that Gavin jump. Even when Gavin mentions that he has a Doctor's Certificate clearing him not to jump, Brittas just tells him that he can wave it during the jump.
• One-Shot Character: Gordon Colin Porter (Julie’s new child).
• Pink Product Ploy: A variant with Macho Maggie, Macho Max's female offerings which are in pastel (alongside a pocket used to store aprons). With this in mind, it's no wonder that Drugget is concerned about the company's impact on the female councillors and staff.
• Playing Sick: Tim tries faking being sick to get out of the bungee jump, including artificially raising his temperature. It doesn't work.
• Pretty in Mink: Helen tries to claim a £5000 insurance off of a fur coat given to her by her mother.
  Julie: Animals gave their lives for this coat!
  Helen: It was lemmings. They were only going to throw themselves off a cliff!
• Road Apples: Colin leaves a large pile of elephant dung outside the centre. Brittas and Helen eventually fall into it from a bungee jump platform.
• Shirtless Scene: Tim is sitting half-naked and shirtless when Linda finds him trying to give himself a chill.
• Shout-Out:
  • Carole decides to listen to Woman's Hour before coming into the centre.
  • Julie is seen playing Elvis Presley music to her unborn child.
  • To explain why she's at the centre in the dead of night, Helen lies to Colin that Patrick Moore said that there would be an eclipse of the moon that night.
  • Brittas, Colin, Carole, and Helen end up singing "Three Blind Mice" to assist Julie in her birth.
• Sleeping Dummy: Helen claims to have did this to sneak out of the house.
  Mr. Brittas: I thought you were beside me in bed.
  Helen: Oh, I did the old trick with the pillow.
  Mr. Brittas: I thought you were a bit unresponsive...
• Slipping into Stink: The episode ends with Brittas and Helen falling into elephant excrement. Even worse, Brittas manages to swallow a ring that had been swallowed by the elephant sometime before.
• "Walk on the Wild Side" Episode: Carole takes self-assertion classes in Nuneaton and becomes more dominating and assertive, but much colder as a result. However, she's back to normal upon getting involved in the delivery of Julie's baby.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Harcourt is never mentioned again after this episode, despite Colin's desire to marry her. Presumably, Brittas was unable to give Colin the ring.
  • Helen's side plot of wanting to set up a business in the centre is dropped abruptly after Julie goes into labour, having failed to destroy the fur coat beforehand. Later episodes focus on her new career as a psychologist in the centre, which might have been the business she wanted to run, but it's left unclear how she raised the funds to do so.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Both Tim and Gavin are revealed to have a fear of heights, and they both spend the episode trying to hide their fears from each other.

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