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

New York Magazine ^ | 9/17 | David Marchese

[CommerceComet]

The first time I saw the Lumberjack Song, the skit closed with John Cleese doing a voice-over as an outraged female viewer who sent a letter to the TV station. He concludes the letter by saying "that I've known a lot of lumberjacks and most of them were not transvestites." I laughed so hard that tears were rolling down my cheeks.

[TBP]

No, it’s not.

[TBP]

The Holy Grail was most definitely weird.

Yes, but it made a terrific musical.

[TBP]

I would say mine is influenced by the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, Bob and Ray, and the Firesign Theater.

[TBP]

Have you seen Wallace and Gromit? British claymation. Very funny.

[TBP]

Our three weapons...

[morphing libertarian]

no. I keep a list of what I want to see. I’ll add that but I have a long list I see that the BBC streaming service is having a free trial. I’m deep into masterpiece Mystery

[Kommodor]

Ping for lengthy later reading

[dfwgator]

One of the funniest scenes from Fawlty Towers....

[Maverick68]

“Baaaasillll!!!!”

[robroys woman]

I think Cleese is on a path. I think there is a lot of stuff that annoys him about Christianity in western civilization, but that does not make him hostile to the message of Christ. But I may be projecting, because that is the way I see it, more and more, the older I get.

Remember the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from The Holy Grail? That was not making fun of the bible or Christ. It was making fun of organized religion that calls itself Christian. I see a LOT of that in their comedy even from the 60’s.

But they have all gotten quite a bit older and, well, people’s positions on stuff change as they become older and more educated.

However, this also true: Tho with age comes wisdom, sometimes age comes alone.

[Skooz]

bfl

[Skooz]

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

It is impossible to imagine someone doing a better job. It is simply outstanding.

[Political Junkie Too]

Have you been following any of the controversies over free speech on college campuses? You’ve talked often in public about your frustration with the idea that political correctness has run amok...

Cleese: [T]he thing about political correctness is that it starts as a good idea and then gets taken ad absurdum. And one of the reasons it gets taken ad absurdum is that a lot of the politically correct people have no sense of humor.

Because they’re scolds?

Cleese: Because they have no sense of proportion, and a sense of humor is actually a sense of proportion. It’s the sense of knowing what’s important.

Cleese certainly gets this part right.

Rush Limbaugh always says that liberals have no sense of humor, take everything literally, and find offense in everything.

What we're seeing on college campuses today are students with no sense of proportion. Everything is *the most important thing ever* to them, and therefore worthy of extreme behavior to defend.

-PJ

[Alas Babylon!]

Get to da choppa!!!

[dhs12345]

Lol. I bet.

Few people know that the term “spam email” originated from MP. Or at least, that is my theory.

“Bacon eggs, and spam...spam...spam....SPAM, WONDERFUL SPAM.” Can I get mine without spam?

The clip from the Spam scene is my anonymous telephone ring tone.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

I was sitting in church one day in the sound room at the end of the sanctuary and the pastor said one day that we should follow him just because he was showing the path.

I said to myself, “But the shoe is the sign.”

A friend sitting on front of me turned around and said:
“Cast off the shoe and follow the gourd.”

We both had a chuckle on it and could not hear anything else after that without hearing a reference to that movie.

Still makes me laugh.

[nickcarraway]

Ping