The Thin Blue Line (TV series)

The Thin Blue Line is a British sitcom television series that lasted for two series from 1995 to 1996, starring Rowan Atkinson and set in a police station. It was written by Ben Elton.

Series One

The Queen's Birthday Present

Fowler: [about to demonstrate a pickpocket's technique] I'd like to meet the man who can get inside my trousers.

Robbery Victim: "What's been taken?" My self-respect, my peace of mind, my sense of well-being...

Goody: Could you describe these items please, sir?

Fowler: The point of Biggles and of Sherlock Holmes is to solve crimes and kill Germans, and by heavens, that should be enough for any man!

Fire and Terror

Habib: [tipsy, speaking to her fireman date] Are you not coming in for a coffee? I've got a packet of condoms...I mean, biscuits.

Drunk Man: I have the right to a lawyer and a bucket.

Honey Trap

[about a supposed local criminal]

Grim: He's slippery. Like an owl.

Gladstone: I was captain of a pub-quiz side once, sir.

Fowler: Were you really?

Gladstone: Oh yes! I remember telling the lads before our first match, "Memory and detail; let those be our by-words. Memory, memory, memory, detail, detail, detail!"

Fowler: Well, excellent advice, Gladstone. And how did your team fare?

Gladstone: I don't know; I forgot where the pub was.

(Habib staying in character for her Honey Trap operation)

Habib: Hello gorgeous, ooh I love a man in a uniform! *gasp* Is that a truncheon in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me? (blows Goody a kiss)

Goody: (almost unable to speak) Actually, it's a Mars Bar.

Rag Week

Fowler: I've always attempted to keep a mature outlook, but I cannot deny there have been lapses; I once possessed a whoopie cushion. I never deployed it, of course, but the capacity was there.

[Grim, having arrested a group of students on a Rag Week stunt, has asked Habib to process them. While she does this, Fowler addresses them.]

Fowler: Look at you. I can scarcely believe my eyes. The future of Britain, the cream of a proud nation. God help us! Do you honestly think that any halfway decent Japanese company's going to want to give any of you lot a job? When Mr Mitsubishi is asking himself, "Where shall I construct our new generation of small family hatchbacks?", do you think he's going to say, "I know. We'll go to Britain, where the academic elite are a bunch of idiots in tutus and gorilla masks?" Or will he go to continental Europe, where young people wear Benetton tops and respect authority? Did you ever think of that? Well, I suggest you buck up your ideas, or before long Britain's name will be mud, or worse it'll be Italy. You're not worth charging, just shove off. [they leave; to Goody and Habib] I weep for our country, I really do. Do you know that 12-year-olds in Holland and Belgium can already speak fluent English?

Goody: They're no cleverer than British children, sir. My niece is only 10, and she can speak fluent English.

Fowler: [berating Goody] Your head is just something you keep your hat on, isn't it?

Night Shift

[About the term "joy-riding"]

Fowler: "Joy-riding" is not a term I will allow in my station. Crime is crime, and should not be trivialised. What next? Are we to refer to grievous bodily harm as "fun punching?" Assault with a deadly weapon as "laugh and a stab?"

Dawkins: We are not the first, and we won't be the last, couple to have problems with our sex life.

Fowler: We do not have problems.

Dawkins: We do not have a sex life!

Fowler: In which case, I really don't see how there can be a problem with it.

Grim: Local delinquents nick the cars and flog 'em on to Mr. Big. He's out there somewhere - a fat cat spinning his web with his tentacles in every pie.

Kray: Shouldn't be too difficult to spot then.

Kids Today

[Fowler is discussing how teenagers could use their spare time]

Fowler: Completing a model of the Forth Bridge - that's what ecstasy is! It makes me sad to see these children today, with their drugs and sex and music, they'll never know the joy a young lad could have sitting alone in his room... With his tool in his hand... tightening his little nuts.

Gladstone: When I was a boy scout back in Trinidad, they taught us how to light a fire with a stick and a piece of string... I could never understand why, because I found it a lot easier to use matches.

Yuletide Spirit

The local amateur drama society's annual pantomime is approaching again and Fowler is putting up a poster

Grimm: "Gasforth Amateur Drama Society"? What's all that, then? Fannying about in tights?

Fowler: No, Derek. We only "fanny about in tights" when we do Shakespeare. This concerns the annual pantomime. "Robust singers required for the chorus". Interested?

Grimm: It sounds boring to me. I'd rather have a cup of tea in front of the telly.

Fowler: Of course you would, Derek. That is because you have the soul of an amoeba and the imagination of a Pot Noodle.

Fowler: Every year, I've gone to the Peter Pan auditions and buckled my swash till my timbers shivered, and every year, I've been presented with seven feet of green foam rubber and informed that my lines are "tick" and "tock".

Goody is showing off his Christmas present for Habib

Goody: Dead sexy, knickers and a bra. I was that embarrassed buying them, I had to say they were for me.

Kray: There's only one set of underwear a girl wants at Christmas: yours. You hitch up your boxers and say "There's the wrapping, doll. The present's inside!" (laughs and leaves)

Goody: I think I'm gonna be sick...

Gladstone: Oh it's alright, son. You know fellas that talk about it most do it least. I know. I talk about it all the time. And I haven't had any since the days of Harold Wilson.

Goody: I never knew you were in a gay relationship!

Gladstone: What are you talking about?

Goody: This bloke Harold Wilson that you were having it with.

Gladstone: Kevin, he was the Prime Minister!

Goody: Blimey! And you an ordinary copper! You did do well.

What to name a child born on Christmas Eve

Habib: Well it is Christmas. How about calling him Noel?

Goody: That is a great idea, because Noel Edmonds is the spirit of Christmas, isn't he?

Series Two

Court in the Act

Fowler: That used to be a decent little corner-shop, which sold string. Any day now, I expect to find my chocolate frog replaced by caramel private parts. Or a strawberry-flavoured lesbian.

Fowler attempts to prepare Goody for the tactics of an aggressive defence counsel

Fowler: You're lying, Constable! The evidence you have presented to support your case is so contemptibly slight and circumstantial, one is forced to think it may be no more than a tissue of lies. A corrupt concoction. Well? WELL?!

[Goody looks at Fowler, and bursts out crying]

Fowler: Goody, you are supposed to fix me with a steady manly stare, not snivel like a Frenchman who's caught his baguette in his bicycle spokes.

Goody: (tearfully) I can't help it, sir. You're being so mean!

Fowler: Look, this is an exercise. Do you know what an exercise is?

Goody: It's a running-jumping sort of thing.

Ism Ism Ism

Habib: Which came first: the chicken, or the egg?

Goody: I know, I know!

Fowler: Do you, Goody? Then what is the answer?

Goody: Because it wanted to get to the other side.

Grim does not like culture

Grim: Bleeding ballet an' opera. Especially when they spend lottery money on it; wasting the working man's bet on fat screeching old bags from Italy singing like they've got piles. Or some bunch of scrawny bints in tutus called Darcy and Tilda flashing their gussets at a lot of horny perverts. Art? Culture? Staring at posh bird's knickers, that's all Swan bleeding Lake boils down to! They should use all the money for kids with incurable diseases. When me and my Tina buy our lottery ticket, out of the goodness of our hearts...

Fowler: And in the hope of winning twenty million pounds.

Grim: Yes, and we want to know that, by winning twenty million pounds, we will be helping little kiddies, NOT haughty, hoity, stick it up your toity, high and mighty, tight-nosed, toffee-arsed, sun-dried-tomato-eating lah-de-dah-dy lah-de-daas.

Fowler is giving a PSA about political correctness and Grim disagrees

Grim: What 'ism' ever robbed a bank? What 'ism' ever mugged anybody? What 'ism' ever put a gun to somebody's head?

Boyle: Terrorism?

Grim: Yeah, alright. What 'ism' ever threatened the security of the state?

Boyle: Marxism?

Grim: What 'ism' ever hurt anybody?

Boyle: Sadism.

Grim: Boyle! D'you think they'd do a uniform your size?

Fly on the Wall

Gladstone: I suppose all mothers think their kids are beautiful, but the interesting thing is, Sir, I actually was. A GORGEOUS little fella. Big eyes, big smile, chubby little cheeks and the purest of pure soprano voices. I could curdle milk while it was still in the cow, Sir. Anyway, one day, Radio Trinidad advertised for a boy soprano. It was my big chance, Sir. The whole street turned out to watch me get on the bus. "Young Frank Gladstone going to be a star," they said, and I would have been but for two things.

Fowler: What were they?

Gladstone: My testicles sir. They dropped on the way to the auditions sir. I still believe if that road had been tarmacked I would have got away with it. I was going to sing "O For the Wings of a Dove"; I had to give them "Old Man River" instead.

[Goody is on the radio at a stake-out, talking nervously whilst being filmed for a BBC documentary]

Goody: Right. Standing to one side now. Purpose: to avoid scaring silly old sod to death if not pop-clogs already. [gets flustered] Tango... er, Gemma. Angels one-five, bandits at six o'clock - dive, dive, dive!

Fowler: (on the radio) Shut up, Goody!

Alternative Culture

Fowler: When I was an adolescent, my idea of a major sensory stimulant was sucking on a fisherman's friend.

Fowler: The problem with old copper tricks, Constable Boyle, is that old coppers know 'em.

Come on You Blues

Dawkins: Men! Tiny-brained, sexually-frustrated, emotionally retarded, inadequate, puerile, juvenile, drooling, leering, sneering, pointless bloody men!

Habib: Could be half the blokes I know.

Dawkins: [telling Fowler that the domineering mayoress, Dame Cristabelle, has arrived] The world's finest example of womanhood is at the front desk.

Gladstone: Gloria Hunniford!

[The force is practicing in anticipation of a riot at the football game]

Fowler: We wish to subdue the hooligan before he becomes violent. We can achieve this by setting up a rhythmic beating on our shields, such as to strike terror into the hearts of the enemy, as once did the Zulus - an adversary the British Army truly appreciated.

Habib: I'm not surprised - the Zulus had rhythmic beating, the British had field artillery. I bet they appreciated it!

Fowler: All right, Habib. Just because something is morally inexcusable does not stop it being a cherished part of the national fabric.

[After practicing beating their riot shields to the tune of pat-a-cake]

Fowler:Well done everybody, that should scare the socks off them!

Habib: And after we've subdued them with pat-a-cake pat-a-cake we should give them a chorus of Baa-Baa Black Sheep. That will really make them fill their trousers!

Fowler: Do you think we need to toughen up our chants?

Habib: Either that or hire ourselves out for children's parties.

Road Rage

Carlton: (After Patricia hits him with a log) So you finally bonked me, babe. Knew you would.

Cartlon: Whose is the Nissan Micra in the car park?

Grim: Who are you?

Carlton: Carlton, MI5.

Grim: Oh it's mine, as it happens. Grim, CID. It's a lovely motor, don't you think? D'you fancy a spin?

Cartlon: You dinged my Aston.

Grim: Do you drive an Aston Martin?

Carlton: A DINGED Aston Martin, dinged by you.

Grim: You dinged me.

Carlton: I did not! You dinged me!

Grim: No way, mate! You dinged me!

Carlton: Learn to drive, why don't you?

Grim: You learn to drive.

Carlton: GET SOME GLASSES!

Grim: GET...A HEARING AID!

The Green Eyed Monster

Fowler is planning to propose to Sergeant Dawkins

Goody: Oh, wouldn't that be nice! I love a wedding! Except for the bit where the vicar asks if anyone has any objections. Makes me so tense. I always think, "God, I hope I don't say something!" Because you easily could, couldn't you? You know, if you suddenly went mad or something.

Gladstone: You know, I did object at a wedding once.

Goody: You didn't!

Gladstone: Oh yes. I said, "The groom is a drinker and a philanderer."

Goody: OH NO! What did the groom say?

Gladstone: I just told you. It was the only way at the time that I could think of getting out of it!

Fowler's proposal was rejected

Goody: So she turned you down. Like an old duvet.

Fowler: I was so sure of my ground. It must have been something about the way I proposed to her.

Gladstone: It can't be any worse than when I did it. It took ten bottles of Guinness to get my courage up.

Goody: Do you go down on one knee?

Gladstone: I went down on all fours.

External links

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The Thin Blue Line (TV series)