THE PHARMACIST
Jim Coyle and Mal Sharpe were a comedy team known as 'The Original Imposters'
back in the 60's. They would stalk the streets, a hidden tape-recorder their
preferred weapon, and trap unsuspecting innocents into conversations that
they'd never expect - not even in their wildest dreams. What follows is a
direct transcript of one of their funniest put-on's yet, now famous as
'The Pharmacist'. It starts with the comedy duo walking into a pharmacy...
Jim Coyle: Say, what do you have here in your drugstore that we can use to
sterilize with?
Pharmacist: Sterilize what?
JC: Well, it's a long story. Uh...
PH: What do you want to sterilize? Before I became a pharmacist I was a
chemist for quite a few years, so maybe I can help you.
Mal Sharpe: Operating equipment-
JC: Let me say this right away: I'm not a doctor, but I'm going to perform
an operation or what you'd call an operation on this man [points to Mal].
I think I've read enough about it so I can do it-
MS: -And I've agreed.
JC: The only problem now is getting the stuff sterilized.
PH: I'll tell you this much: LEGALLY, whether you agree or not, you could be
in trouble.
JC: Why?
MS: If anything should happen, I'm not going to press charges.
PH: But if anything should happen to him, it'll happen to YOU, too...I
won't ask any further. I wouldn't depend upon chemical sterilization. The
only thing to use are autoclaves, otherwise you could get serious infections.
MS: I've had amazing resistance in my life to all sorts of germs. I'm not too
worried about COMPLETE STERILITY of equiptment.
JC: I'll eplain it to you: I'm going into his chest; he's got a pain there.
And frankly speaking, he isn't of such an economic posture that he can go
to a doctor. I'm just gunna go in and look. We have equiptment to light it up...
P: May I ask you a question?
J: Sure.
P: Wouldn't you qualify for a county hospital?
M: I don't want to have anything to do with the city or the state or anything.
He's a good friend of mine. We've got quite a few books from a medical
library; we've read up on the subject. And I really feel he's competant to
handle it.
P: How high is your education? masy I ask you this question formally?
J: Yes - third year high school. I HAVE FINISHED the third year on high school.
P:...in this particualrcase, I would a thousand percent advise you against it.
A thousand percent. A thousand percent. Really.
J: Well, we're just gonna do it now, we're gonna do it in the statuon wagon
and just get the thing over with. He has a pain in his chest that's been
bothering him. He's ust located the area; I'm gonna open the area up and
probably, just by looking at it, I'll be be able to see something wrong.
I have enoguh equiptment to light it up, and then I'll just press something
one way or another. I have pretty good sewing equiptment.
P: You are looking for trouble. I don't know - you both SEEM intelligent,
reasonable and rational, and I don't know where to get the guts to do this!
M: Well, that's why we feel we're capable of doing it. If we were two
IGNORANT guys...
P: You ARE NOT capable of doing it! Let me tell you somehting. Even with
mediacl do-it-yourself: the first tme you do it, it's rough, it's tough and
there's problems. After the second or third time, you know what you're
into. There is nothing like EXPERINCE. Look! I'm gunna show you something.
Here. I made this today...
M: That's a clear plastic model of the human body.
P: That's right, and it comes apart, too. I'll show you something. One thing
that this doesn't show is the blue of the lungs-the heart's back there.
You've got veins, you've got arteries-
J: Can't you see them when you go in?
P: Yes, but sometimes they're hidden by mesenteries which are - a mesentery
is like a connective tissue.
M: [to Jim] You remember - I quizzed you on the mesenteries.
P: I mean...believe me...
M: I quizzed him on the mesenteries and he had that right.
P: [to Jim] If you're a friend of his, do the right thing. People today,
J: I forgot about the mesenteries. That thing, uh, that layer-
P: You can't tell, can you? - LOOK, it happens to the best of surgeons.
Wait a second - let's not go any further! I lived in Southern California
for quite a few years. I knew this Culver City hospital. What did Jeff
Chandler go in for? You remember? It was very minor.
M: A bad back?
P: And he died.
M: Well, this isn't minor, but then again it's something that-
P: What have you got against college assistance?
M: I just don't want to have anything to do with the city or the state.
That's all.
P: Why?!
J: It's a matter of principle with him; I've tried to convince him. He
doesn't want to do it - he doesn't have the money for a doctor. So I'm gonna
take the thing into my own hands. I think I can do it! I've read enough
in the last two days.
P: Let me ask you a question. What makes you think that the pain in his chest
is of a surgical nature?
J: Let's just go in and see!
M: It's a stab in the dark, but I'm willing to take the chance. He's done
two operations..
P: Now let's play games. What do you feel? This pain in the chest - does it
travel?
M: Ahhh...sometimes I feel it beginning in my stomach, then it juts up into
my chest. Then I feel it kinda swirling inside.
J: You said it was localised on the left side, though.
M: Well - last week it was. This week it seems to have moved...
P: Now does eating or anything else like that have any effect on it? Does
it get better if you eat? Is there pain after meals sometimes, an hour
after meals - something like that?
M: Sometimes, about fifteen or twenty minutes after a meal, I faint.
P: You just pass out completely?
M: Yeah.
J: I just throw water on him. That's no problem.
P: You've been there when this has happened?
J: Sure! I was going to operate on him once - I had all the equiptment
ready - and his mother came in. I forgot about this sterilisation business.
P: [to Jim] YOU like to play doctor - does his pulse rate change..have you
ever taken his pulse when he faints like that?
J: He seems to perspire a little bit. So I assume the pulse rate changes.
P: Now suppose it's some mild heart condition.
J: I don't think it's a heart condition.
P: How do you know?!
J: So what if it is! - maybe I'll be able to do something for that. There's
no telling-
M: -I haven't had a heart attack since I was a child.
J: I read about massaging the heart during some sort of operation; it was
in the paper. I thought if I just went in and, you know, massaged it,
it might help, even if the problem isn't the heart.
P: I'm telling you - DON'T!..I'm telling you this on a statistical basis:
I KNOW you're doing the wrong thing.
J: You think I'm gonna kill him?
P: I think you're running FANTASTIC risks for no reason.
J: He's willing to take the chance, and it would be very interesting for me.
P: Suppose for the sake of the argument - here's a perfect example: you read
about abortions all the time, don't you? And many times the guy who knocks
the girl up is the one who does it. She dies on the table, right? And he's
NOT operating on the chest or the heart, he's operating around down here...
which may be alot simpler, correct? No major arteries, right? And...he's
up for MANSLAUGHTER. I mean, PLEASE! You are going into something so fantastically
dangerous - you have no idea!
J: Well, if he goes, (and there's very little possibilty, as I see it,
that you'd go)-
P: How do YOU see it?
M: Not according to the books.
P: Forget the books! You don't know what is wrong!
J: I've read the books for two full days now.
P: For two days! Doctors go to medical school for four full years!
M: Yeah, but they're gonna operate on the whole human body.
P: What's the difference?
M: This is juts one little part of it.
P: Your body is connected!
M: I have a pain in my chest..he'll look, he'll see, he'll touch.
P: You're a very foolish man.
J: Can I just get some cleaning powder?
P: I wouldn't sell you a KLEENEX - I'm that much against it. Really.
J: Do you have any scissors or anything like that?
P: NO! I wouldn't encourage you in any which way. Matter of fact, I'll tell
you this much, if there was an officer of the law nearby, like out there,
I would call him...I feel THAT strongly you're doing something wrong.
J: But how do you know I won't help him?
M: Look he's done two operations: one on a dog, one on a pussy cat last week.
Both of them came through pretty well.
J: For a day or two. How about some antiseptic powder?
P: I won't advise you. I won't even mislead you or lead you one way or
another.
J: Bandages?
P: I won't do a thing for you!
M: Asprin?
P: I'm against this!
J: How about I park the station wagon across the street, and if anything
comes up, I'll-
P: I'M AGAINST THIS!
J: -I'll just come in and tell you?
P: If you're across the street, I'll call the police.
J: Really?
M: Shouldn't we get some colour film to take pictures?
J: No, no. I don't want to do that.
M: No, I want to have pictures taken of us.
J: But supposing something went wrong - no, nothings gonna go wrong. I
don't want to take any pictures. That's stupid.
M: I'd really like some film.
P: You're making a big mistake.
M: Could we get some film?
J: I'll sell you film, this is not medical. But believe me, I am SO much against
what you are planning - look, ask yourself one question. Why am *I* against it?
*I* have nothing to gain. Look at it in the materialistic sense, right?
What have I got to gain by being against it?
J: Do you think I don' have sharp enough equiptment?
P: I don't think you have the training.
M: He's done it twice.
P: I don't care how many times he's done it; you don't have the training. This
requires the highest degree of training.
M: He took a correspondence course one time through a magazine.
P: I don't care what you did.
J: It wasn't a medical course.
M: Well, it's still training.
P: This is dangerous. This is dangerous. LOOK - this is not, what should I
say, the Dark Ages. You say you are against the city and state and you
don't want anything to do with them. But in a case like this, why should
you have such a preconceived notion? Really, in other words, you can be
against them, you can be an anarchist-
M: I AM an anarchist.
P: Fine!
M: And that's why I don't want to have anything to do with the city or the
state.
P: All right, fine. Then let's use the word - you're an anarchist. But still,
you're a HUMAN being and there are people who are trained to do work on
you. You'll have the best of medical care. Why should you throw that away?
J: You don't think that my medical care would be good?
P: NO! I do not! I do not!
J: Can I show you the equiptment I have?
P: I wouldn't look. No.
J: Sewing equiptment and everything to sew it back?
M: What if we just wrote up the procedures we gonna go through in the operation,
and you read it?
P: NO! Becuase first of all, I'm not a physician myself, and second-
J: Let me ask you this: would you just have something I could use to knock
him out?
P: NO! I won't even touch that. I just want to give you one last piece of opinion.
Before I owned this drugstore, for years I was a biochemist. I was on the
outside of hospitals and doctors; I was associated with them for fifteen
whole years. But I wouldn't do surgery...
M: Do you know somebody, then, who could come out to the car and do it? In that field?
P: NO!
J: Well, I'll do it, don't worry.
P: You will NOT do it! I'm gonna try and talk you out of it if I possibly can. Anyway,
I would go into the coffee shop in a hospital and I'd see a surgeon and maybe I'd say,
"Hello", and he'd look like the last rose of summer - he just lost a
patient. Top surgeon, and he lost a patient. See? A top man can lose a
patient!
J: [pointing at Mal] I'm not going to lose you.
P: What do you mean: you're not going to lose him? You can't guarantee that!
M: He guaranteed it. He put it in writing. He said there wouldn't be any
chances.
J: I did write something out for his mother.
P: You go to a doctor, a surgeon, and ask, "Will you guarantee this?". See
what the doctor says. Se if HE'LL guarantee it.
M: Ah, doctors...
P: You're making a fantastic mistake. Fantastic. Are you an anarchist? Well - have
surgery anyhow! I believe in free speech and free enterprise and free everything else;
I'm not against your political viewpoints. But for a man to actively try to
encourage himself and his friend..you're doing two things. You're endangering yourself,
and look what you're going to do to this guy if something goes wrong. And I'll tell you
something else. Let's say you don't die, but you need help and you have
to call a doctor. You'll be in jail, little fellow. You'll be a prisoner
for several, several years...
J: That's why we wanted to park the car right across the street from your
store. If we needed any help, you could prescribe-
P: No, I can't! NO!
J: -to at least stop the flow of blood.
P: No! This is illegal for me. I would just call the doctor.
J: How about I bring him around the back?
P: No! No! Leave this alone.
M: Could we do it at your house?
P: Are you joking? Go get yourself to - you know in Shakespeare they said, 'Get thee to a nunnery'?
Get thee to a surgery. Really! You may not even NEED surgery! I'll give
you a 'for instance': you might have an ulcer. You know how they treat
ulcers? Well, they don't treat ulcers surgically...I admire your confidence, but I
don't admire what you're going to do. And don't do it!
J: You don't think I have the guts to do it?
P: GUTS to do it? It doesn't require guts. Hold-up men have guts, but it
doesn't mean they have brains. Sometimes the biggest war heros have a lot
of guts, but they have no intelligence. And the only reason I'm talking to
you is that you're literate people - you SEEM to be intelligent, and yet
you're willing to run a mutual risk to the both of you that's needless! That's foolish!
M: There's no risk!
P: No risk? Of course there's a risk!
J: We've started, we're read, we'll do the operation.
P: The human body is very complicated. I'll give you a 'for instance' that'll
give you chills up and down your back. I had a '49 DeSoto. I brought it to
the DeSoto distributor in Los Angeles; it had transmission trouble. They
tore the damn thing down five seperate times, couldn't fix it properly, and
they finally said 'We give up!'. That's on a car. They couldn't guarantee
it; they're the distrubitor and they had mechanics and it's only simple
replacement parts, right? MECHANICAL. Now, if you damage his heart, do
you realise what's going to happen?
J: What?
P: There's no replacement part for a heart. You can't go to a hardware
store and get one. So forget about it, and go away!
END
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