In Conversation: John Cleese (legacy, Political Correctness, and the Funniest Joke He Ever Told)

New York Magazine ^ | 9/17 | David Marchese

[Artemis Webb]

The members of Monty Python get a lifetime pass from me for anything they say. Rarely does a day go by that I don’t think of some skit or scene from their movies or shows. Life is a little better (some days a LOT better) because of them.

[cdcdawg]

Cleese’s reading of C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters is highly recommended.

[CrazyIvan]

“Life is a little better (some days a LOT better) because of them.”

“No it isn’t.”

[NonValueAdded]

The story I then tell involves an American patrol boat in the Gulf of Mexico. The guy on the boat is cruising along, and suddenly sees two Mexicans going for the border. The guy says, “Hey, what are you doing?” And the Mexicans say, “We’re invading America.” And the guy on the boat says, “What, just the two of you?” And the Mexicans say back, “Oh no, we’re the last ones. The others are already there.”

[fhayek]

John Cleese is on my list of the ten funniest people of all time.

[Chainmail]

Ping for later.

[Thunder 6]

Sounds like John is pining for the fjords...

[teeman8r]

Ni!

[yuleeyahoo]

[Gay State Conservative]

Hate his politics...but apart from that he's a genius.As great as Python was Fawlty Towers was his best work.

By far!

[yuleeyahoo]

The Screwtape Letters (Narrated by John Cleese)

[NormsRevenge]

He made it to 78? with his sense of humour?

There may be hope for the rest of us yet. :-)

[dfwgator]

“No it isn’t.”

"Yes it is."

[GreenLanternCorps]

That’s just contradiction, not an argument.

[bluejean]

That was a good interview. Thanks for sharing!

[dhs12345]

She turned me into a newt!

Run away!

I grew up on MP. Back when it was on PBS. It was great for a teen boy going through puberty. My parents didn’t know. Wink wink say no more!

[dfwgator]

Heard Terry Jones isn’t doing well these days.

[dfwgator]

Yes, well, of course, this is just the sort blinkered philistine pig ignorance I’ve come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome, spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker’s cuss about the struggling artist. You excrement! You lousy hypocritical whining toadies with your lousy colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your bleeding Masonic handshakes! You wouldn’t let me join, would you, you blackballing bastards. Well I wouldn’t become a Freemason now if you went down on your lousy, stinking, purulent knees and begged me.

[Artemis Webb]

Back in the mid-70’s CBS had a regular late movie that they ran opposite Johnny Carson. Sometimes I would watch it (I was a teenager and they had a lot of good horror movies). One night the movie was Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I’d never heard of MP and in fact ALMOST switched it off. The opening credits you see were very messed up, surely a bad sign...