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Gumby Brain Surgery is a Monty Python sketch featuring the entire cast as Gumbies. It is perhaps the best known Gumby sketch, and is frequently mentioned by the tabloid press in regard to the perceived incompetence of the NHS.

The sketch begins with T.F. Gumby (Michael Palin) entering the office of a brain specialist. He bangs on the desk's bell in order to get the specialist's attention, and when the specialist fails to arrive Gumby starts banging on the desk harder and harder until he totally destroys it. At that moment, the brain specialist (John Cleese) arrives, and turns out to be another Gumby, wearing a doctor's jacket over the standard Gumby attire. Doctor Gumby greets T.F. Gumby, who asks to know whether he's the brain specialist. Doctor Gumby thinks it over, before telling T.F. Gumby that he isn't the brain specialist, before remembering that he actually is the brain specialist a few moments later. T.F. Gumby then complains that his "brain hurts," which prompts Doctor Gumby to try and diagnose him by opening his trousers. When T.F. points out that he actually means his brain in his head, Doctor Gumby "diagnoses" him by slapping him on the head a few times, then decrees that the brain needs to be removed.

T.F. is rushed to a brain surgeon (Graham Chapman), who initially appears intelligent. He starts to put on his gloves, then his glasses, then his moustache, and finally his handkerchief. Now looking and acting like a Gumby, the surgeon leads his team to operate on T.F. Gumby. The team (who seem to share Doctor Gumby's belief that the brain is located somewhere in the abdomen) briefly work on him with a variety of power tools before T.F. wakes up and happily greets them. The team realise they've forgotten the anaesthetic and call out for the anaesthetist (Terry Jones), who swiftly arrives by crashing through the wall of the operating theatre. The anaesthetist informs T.F. that he's come to anaesthetise him - which he achieves by smacking T.F. on the head with a gas canister.