This week, I spent some quality time with John Cleese.

Cleese had come to town to accept the Ernie Kovacs Award at Dallas Video Fest. The head of the festival said you may not have heard of Kovacs, but he was one of the first comedians to cater his act to television instead of radio. He says Pee-Wee Herman and Mike Judge cite Kovacs as an influence, so without him, Cornholio would never have found that TP.

I’m sure Cleese couldn’t have been less pleased about attending a media roundtable, but I was looking forward to it. In fact, during the discussion, he explained he had hurt his foot while on vacation about a year ago, so there would be no silly walks.

This year, the festival was marking the 45th anniversary of Monty Python’s Flying Circus making its debut in the United States. Cleese says he’s always had a soft spot for Dallas because it was the first city in the United States to air Monty Python. He developed that soft spot in spite of some hilarious misconceptions about the city:

He had pitched the show to WGBH in Boston, which brought us mainstays like NOVA and This Old House. Cleese first explained what “WGBH” means in the UK and also said Monty Python was considered “too rude.”

This new embedded audio tool is certainly coming in handy.

Monty Python even struggled to gain traction in the UK. Cleese says people didn’t get it. Even now, he shows Monty Python at theaters occasionally and says people still don’t understand the style of comedy.

So the station manager at KERA was taking a big chance. Monty Python had struck out in other major markets and was just gaining traction in the UK. They addressed those concerns during the roundtable.

I bring all this up because Cleese talked about how popular Monty Python had become in Eastern Europe. People in Hungary and Yugoslavia found Monty Python subversive and anti-establishment, but they were still allowed to be shown in Soviet countries. Cleese found it interesting that Monty Python was considered acceptable in the Eastern bloc, but people in the United States couldn’t handle it.

Cleese also talked about Fawlty Towers:

I didn’t know this, but the actor who played Manuel was actually German. His family moved to London to escape the Nazis in World War II. He said Andrew Sachs was a “totally sweet person.” Cleese says his favorite episodes were “The Anniversary,” “Basil and the Rat” and “The Kipper and the Corpse.” But now, when I go back and watch, I won’t be able to buy Manuel as a lovable dunce.

He mentioned at one point that as we all get older, we’ll find out no one in charge actually knows what they’re doing [I knew I was onto something].Now that corporate entities control so much of our entertainment, there are no more good writers. He says writers are now focused on something that’ll be easy and popular, like sex, alcohol and gambling.

Instead, he said he wants to do a move called, 1776 and a Half. Since Britain had hired thousands of German soldiers to fight in the revolution, he thinks it’d be funny to do a movie on how German soldiers would try to talk their way out of fighting when American or French troops would pass them by yelling, “I’m not British!”

And this exchange has led to some goals for my future: I shall try to represent freedom, represent our way of life, by being more insubordinate and difficult to work with.