A Sonnet by John Cleese

 

Have to share this first off:

Ode to Sean Hannity

Aping urbanity, Oozing with vanity

Plump as a manatee, Faking humanity

Journalistic calamity, Intellectual inanity

Fox Noise insanity, You’re a profanity,

Hannity

                                                by John Cleese:

 

       In the almost unthinkable case that the reader doesn’t know who John Cleese is, he is a diehard Trump critic for the last four years, a former Python, A knight who says “Ni,” an ascerbic innkeeper named Basil Fawlty, Tim the wizard, and the head of the ministry for the development of silly walks.

        Reading this, and laughing as I did, I was flooded with several thoughts at once (it could happen). The first was remembering being at weekend parties with Navy friends in the late 60s and early 70s. It mattered little whose house, what ranks/ratings were in attendance or what the occasion, but at 11:00 pm, the television was turned on and tuned to PBS to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

        As I said, this was the late 60s, very early 70s, and there was nothing even remotely comparable on American television at the time. the late Steve Allen and Ernie Kovacs had done some sketch comedy with zany premises, but neither were as outré and socially critical as the Pythons.

          Allen’s best shows ran from 1956 to 1961 and then in syndication several years later. The primary difference was that Allen, a genuinely funny man and TV icon, was always the host and left that role only briefly to do a sketch-based role. In the main, Steve was always Steve. To give props where they are due, he did have a cast of regulars, several of whom launched careers with his show. Allen was also a man who appreciated comedic talent and was the only mainstream TV host to give the stage to Lenny Bruce. For those who don’t remember, Bruce was the man who paved the way for Carlin, Pryor, Williams and many modern stand-up comics and paid for it with his life.

        Ernie Kovacs died in 1962 at just 42 years of age. In that shirt lifetime he, like Steve Allen, was a tv comedy pioneer. Ernie did characters which were closer to the Pythons in outrageousness, and occasionally pushed the envelope in doing so. His gay poet, Percy Dovetonsils, was hilarious, but sexuality was never mentioned (standards and practices censors). His Nairobi Trio (three guys in ape suits) was also innovative. Kovacs did sketch comedy on the edge much of the time and was instrumental in beginning to change some of what was allowable and wasn’t.

        That aside, America had never seen anything quite like the Pythons. First off, none of them ever appeared in the show as themselves, and the characters they did appear as in the show, which was completely sketch based, were often caricatures of British “types”. While it took some American viewers some time to adjust to “local jokes” which were only local if you lived in the UK, there were plenty of sketches so brilliant that it didn’t matter who or where the settings were.

     Only the Pythons could craft a sketch based entirely on Spam. (“We have spam,spam, spam, spam, eggs and spam”) American audiences were treated to grandmothers in drag, blustering Army officers, philosophers playing soccer, dead parrots, cheese shops with no cheese, and a government bureau devoted to the development of silly walks. Although the Flying Circus as a TV show only lasted for four seasons, it remains in eternal syndication. What followed were a series of three equally brilliant movies and, thanks to Python Eric Idle, an equally entertaining Broadway musical as well. While each remaining Python is still active to some degree, Terry Jones and Graham Chapman are gone.

         That however is all preface to a question which arose (for no related reason) while I was cleaning cat litter pans shortly after reading Mr. Cleese’s poem. I found myself wondering how much, if any, influence the Pythons, which aired in the US until 1973, had on a young Lorne Michaels, when he pitched Saturday Night Live to NBC management. As I think about it, I believe that there must have been some significant influence.

        Prior to SNL there were American shows which did sketch comedy, but not only sketch comedy.  More significantly, SNL, while showing all players in the opening credits, always had (has) them in character throughout the show. We never saw Dan Ackroyd performing as himself, but he cracked us up as Julia Child, Beldar Conehead, a Festrunk brother, or the Bass-O-Matic pitchman. Perhaps the only time real names were used was the “news” sketches, where real names were used, but still in character. Even the continuing inside jokes (Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” and the entire “Buckwheat saga” have a Pythonesque tone. Of course, once SNL showed that off the wall comedy works and the networks figured it out, we soon saw In Living Color, Second City TV and others. However, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam showed the way. And remember, always, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”