John Cleese: Walking among the Pythons

On any given day in history, a diverse collection of people share a birth date. Among those born on Oct. 27: English explorer Capt. James Cook (1728), Isaac Singer (inventor of the sewing machine, 1811), Theodore Roosevelt (1858), Emily Post (etiquette expert, 1865), Lee Krasner (artist, 1908), Dylan Thomas (1914), Ralph Kiner (1922), Roy Lichtenstein (artist, 1923), H.R. Haldeman (1926), Sylvia Plath (1932), Maxine Hong Kingston (1940), John Gotti (mobster, 1940), Roberto Benigni (1940), Marla Maples (former Mrs. Donald Trump, 1963) and Kelly Osbourne (daughter of Ozzie, 1984).

My favorite, though, is John Cleese . One of the six founding members of the comedy troupe Monty Python , Cleese is familiar as the tall one — the bowler-hatted civil servant working in the fictional Ministry of Silly Walks. But Cleese is almost as well known for his tenure on “Fawlty Towers,” his starring role in “A Fish Called Wanda” and his performance in two of the “Harry Potter” movies: “Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone,” “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.”

I first began watching “Monty Python” in the early 1970s when I was still an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego. But I never really appreciated the series until 1975 when I made my first trip to England. While traveling through the Lake District, we stayed at a B&B. After dinner, I heard laughter coming from the communal television room. It was there that I encountered several Brits convulsing over the Pythonites and their strange blend of silly/intellectual antics.

I can’t remember what the episode was playing. But I want to think it included the “Dead Parrot” sketch, which features Cleese and Michael Palin, with Cleese playing a customer attempting to return a Norwegian Blue that is most definitely not resting but definitely demised. Click on the embed below and you’ll see.

So, happy 75th birthday, John Cleese.