Australia’s emu war: John Cleese outrun in race to shoot movie of how flightless birds thwarted army’s machine guns

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Admin

An Australian take on how the emu won the 1932 battle premieres this month, before shooting on the UK comedian’s film has begun

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A troupe of Australian comedians appears to have gazumped John Cleese to bring the bizarre story of the great emu war to the big screen.

In 1932, soldiers armed with machine guns were deployed in Western Australia to battle huge flocks of the giant native birds. Their annual migration from the arid interior to the coast had increasingly met the rapidly expanding wheat belt, to the delight of the emus and the horror of the farmers.

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Cancel Me: John Cleese to present Channel 4 show on ‘woke’ thought

Posted on August 23, 2021 by Admin

Comedian to interview ‘cancelled’ subjects while examining ‘all aspects of political correctness … there’s so much I don’t understand’

John Cleese will take on the topic of “cancel culture” in a forthcoming television series for the UK’s Channel 4.

The new documentary will reportedly explore “why a new ‘woke’ generation is trying to rewrite the rules on what can and can’t be said”.

Monty Python at 50: a half-century of silly walks, edible props and dead parrots

Posted on October 4, 2019 by Admin

In this rare glimpse inside the BBC archives, we reveal the exasperated internal memos, the furious letters from wing commanders – and David Frost’s bid to bring them down

In a memo sent in 1969, the BBC head of comedy seems to have lost his sense of humour. “Please will you have a word with the writers?” said Michael Mills. “I haven’t reacted to the funny titles that have appeared on the scripts so far. I hoped that they would cease of their own accord.”

The titles that irritated him included “Bunn Wackett Buzzard Stubble and Boot”, apparently a spoof legal firm, which came to be shortened to Bunwackett. The show, meanwhile, had the working title The Circus. Now, though, Mills had had enough: “The time has come when we must stop having peculiar titles and settle on one overall title … Please would you have words with them and try to produce something palatable?”

Terry Gilliam says he disagrees with John Cleese’s worldview

Posted on September 2, 2019 by Admin

Director says Brexit makes him ‘terminally depressed’ while fellow Python Cleese backs it

Terry Gilliam has said he disagrees with the way his friend and fellow Monty Python member John Cleese sees the world, following comments from the latter endorsing Brexit and criticising the makeup of London.

The Python animator and Hollywood director despairs of Donald Trump and Brexit, both of which make him “terminally depressed”. Cleese has previously faced a backlash for voicing support for the UK leaving the EU, and for saying London was no longer an English city.