Are You Right There Father Ted?

"Are You Right There Father Ted?"

"Are You Right There, Father Ted?" was the 1st episode of the third series of the Channel 4 television sitcom Father Ted, and the 18th episode overall.

Plot

In the episode's prologue (a first for the series), Ted - ostensibly promoted for some reason - relaxes in a luxurious Dublin parish mansion, with a respected clergyman after an exhausting business trip to Paris, bartering over which masses the pair will tend to that day. Ted awaits his dinner of pheasant and optimistically muses over his immediate future. All of a sudden, a church accountant asks Ted about a discrepancy with church expenses... and Ted is promptly sent back to Craggy Island, to Dougal's delight.

As the episode proper begins Ted - after settling in - returns a borrowed copy of Stephen King's The Shining to a friend, Father Seamus Fitzpatrick, and is surprised by his sizeable collection of Nazi memorabilia. On Ted returning home Mrs. Doyle injures her back after falling off the roof. Because of this, Ted and Dougal are forced to assume her cleaning tasks, and quickly become very bored. To liven things up, Ted places a lampshade on his head like a coolie hat, and starts imitating a Chinaman. Unfortunately, he looks out the window and sees three Chinese watching him, and before long, rumours that Ted is racist are flying all over Craggy Island; most of his honest attempts to prove otherwise are blighted either by incongruous objects or downright ill luck.

After fronting a (laughable) presentation of cultural diversity on Craggy Island Ted resorts to wining the Chinese families and apologising for his mishaps, to a degree of success. Unbeknownst to Ted, however, Father Fitzpatrick had died in a medication mix-up a few days ago and had left his Nazi collection to Ted, instructing "Habit-Hat" (with whom Ted had ordered furniture recently) to mail the offensive collection to the Parochial House. Mrs. Doyle has already placed the collection on full display by the time Ted and Dougal return - with the Chinese - to the house for a nightcap.

In utter desperation Ted sends more alcohol to the Yin family the following day, with Father Jack providing a priceless intervention.

Father Jack spends practically the entire episode in small spaces, including inside a grandfather clock, which leads Ted to assume Jack is agoraphobic; which Dougal thinks is a fear of fighting.

Trivia

• The pub Ted visits is Vaughan's, a real pub in Kilfenora, County Clare.
• Ted's slides feature:
  • An unnamed black man who visited the island a few years ago
  • The Great Wall of China
  • Mao Zedong
  • Mr. Miyagi from the film The Karate Kid (Mr. Miyagi is actually Japanese, not Chinese)
  • A Māori man
  • Ming the Merciless, fictional character from Flash Gordon (Ming is often criticised as a negative Chinese stereotype)
  • Two photographs of groups of Chinese people
  • Ted himself
  • The words "NOT A RACIST"

External links

• Are You Right There Father Ted? at IMDb