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john cleese

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Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks clocks and watches

ministry of willy walks clock

 

 

You can buy clocks and watches themed on Monty Python s’s Ministry of Silly Walks. John Cleese’s legs and brolly form the hands.

 

 

In Kim “Howard” Johnson’s  The First 20 Years of Monty Python ,  we hear Graham Chapman recall how the ketch came about:

John Cleese and I were writing together one day, and John had been thinking of doing something about anger. He’s very good at it, and he likes that emotion very much indeed. I’d been noticing that there were all sorts of ministries for strange things that were likely to distract people from the main issues of the day, and make it look like the government was doing something. A lot of attention would either go to a drought or a flood that probably didn’t exist anyway, and there seemed to be lots of useless ministries. I thought, why not a Ministry of Anger?

It’s difficult to remember whether it was John’s or my idea, but I do know that the next stage was Silly Walks, which was more ludicrous and petty than an emotion like anger. My house was on a very steep hill, and we saw a man walk past, uphill, stooped very sharply backward, defying the laws of gravity! Well, we thought Silly Walks was a good idea, but we couldn’t quite think how to develop it.

As usual, we were supposed to be writing something else when this idea occurred—anything to prevent us from getting to that work! But we thought we’d better get on to writing what we were supposed to be writing. So we rang up Mike (Palin) and Terry (Jones)—to interrupt them from whatever they were supposed to be doing—and made them write the sketch.

 

ministry of willy walks clock

ministry of willy walks clock

ministry of willy walks clock

 

Make your own Silly Walk clock here – or buy one here. The Silly Walk watch is here.

Posted: 1st, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, The Consumer, TV & Radio | Comment


John Cleese attacks the bad press while talking to the good press

** FILE ** British comedian John Cleese reacts to "Sebastian" the Carpet Python putting the squeeze on him at Taronga Zoo in Sydney in this Jan. 6, 2006 file photo. A New Zealand city has unofficially renamed the local garbage tip after John Cleese following the British actor's comment during a visit last year that he hated the place. (AP Photo/Paul Miller, FIle)WHILE promoting his new Disney film – to the press – John Cleese decided to go on the attack… about the press.

Speaking to the Guardian in a video interview – which will be published tomorrow – Cleese unleashed his famous grump and sneer, while no doubt furiously folding those gigantic thin arms of his.

Discussing how Twitter and other types of social media had lessened his need to co-operate with newspapers to publicise his work, he suddenly went off on one about the British press.

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Posted: 4th, September 2013 | In: Celebrities | Comment (1)


The 8 worse acts of censorship in TV history

CENSORSHIP reared its ugly head again this week, as the BBC cut a line of dialogue from the classic comedy Fawlty Towers, in which the ‘old-fashioned’ major tells Basil about the time he took a lady to see India play cricket at the Oval:

‘The strange thing was, throughout the morning she kept referring to the Indians as niggers. “No, no, no,” I said, “the niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs”.’

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Posted: 25th, January 2013 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment


John Cleese slams Eric Idle over Monty Python money

PRETTY much everyone involved with Monty Python hates Eric Idle. Of the whole crew, it seems he’s been the most keen to vanish behind the velvet rope and right up his own arse. And now John Cleese has had enough, going openly hostile on his former colleague.

SPLENDID!

The Fawlty Towers star blasted Idle’s comments about the “millions” he has been paid for the musical Spamalot. Idle went public, complaining about the royalty payments he doled out to his fellow Pythons for the musical Spamalot.

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Posted: 15th, December 2011 | In: Celebrities | Comment


John Cleese Heads To Austria: Well, Where Else Do You Go When Humour Dies?

JOHN Cleese has finally turned into one of the arcane brigadiers he used to lampoon. So unfunny is Cleese that for years many wondered if it was all a joke on us. Can his haughty ex-pat be for real?

But where a can man who isn’t funny feel at home? The answer is Austria.

He’s in Austria, lamenting the UK’s fading class system. The British working class has all but vanished while an educated middle-class made good on hard work and ambition has swelled.

Says Cleese to Die Presse:

England changed much more than I did. We used to have some sort of middle class culture with an adequate amount of respect for education. It was a bit racist – not in a mean way though, but still racist. Some things have changed to the better, but it’s not a middle class culture anymore, but a yob culture, a rowdy culture.”

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Posted: 23rd, September 2010 | In: Celebrities | Comment