John Cleese post

2026 is starting off great

I was maybe eight or nine, watching PBS, when this strange show came on television. It got stranger and stranger. Then a guy in a soldier’s uniform appeared and said, “A local civic group will reenact a famous scene from history.”

My brother and I never stopped laughing. Monty Python’s Flying Circus instantly became my favourite show-and eventually my biggest influence. Every day I want my cartoons to be “The Batley Townswomen’s Guild Presents the Battle of Pearl Harbor.

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John Cleese was my favourite Python. The characters I draw deliver their lines in my head the way Cleese delivered his lines in almost everything he does.

I was lucky to see Cleese perform when he came to Halifax.

I’ve been fortunate to be shared by the likes of Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Woody Harrelson, Martin Luther King III and Jennifer Aniston. But being shared by John Cleese really hits home. Although for my 10 year old self, Mark Hamill is pretty close.