John Cleese on the Dick Cavett Show, 1979, part 6 of 6

First off, sorry about the poor video quality. This came from an old Betamax tape, recorded at the slow speed and not stored in the best condition over the years...

In this final segment, Dick asks why Python wanted to film in Tunisia. This leads to discussion of his horrid stay in the Hotel Oasis (the only hotel in Gabes at the time); John's comic influences; Cambridge vs Oxford; the future of Python; John's short stint at Newsweek; his current plans and favorite Python moment of all time.

Category:

Comedy

Tags:

• John
• Cleese
• Dick
• Cavett
• Monty
• Python
• interview
• Life
• of
• Brian

[vilppi]

Thank you very much for sharing this. Definitely one of the best John Cleese interviews ever filmed.

[Dantemadison]

No problem. Just glad I was able to catch it in the TV Guide that day!

[pocketofore]

Great interview segment! Did the hotel in the story inspire Faulty Towers? Nod to the Goons. Thanks, fantastic bit of TV history!

[Dantemadison]

I thought so at first, but this interview was in 1979, and the first season of Fawlty Towers was in 1975. I think it was inspired by a similar nasty hotel they stayed in during the filming of the Holy Grail...

[CocoMac877]

this cavett guy is fantastic, im from uk n aint ever heard of him before, bt hes got a great interview style

[Problembeing]

Brilliant!! :)

[CardiffBoy1927]

Excellent stuff. It's a shame we don't get this quality of interviews anymore :(

[rikstar23]

One of those interviews you don't want to finish... give thanks for dodgy old Betamax tapes :-)

[stengel99]

Thanks for uploading this. Great stuff!

[sweetdictator]

Great interview, but it was too bad that Fawlty Towers wasn't brought up in a more of a positive light. The writing in that show was awesome, and is better than most everything written for television today.

[EverybodysDarlehen]

Very entertaining and also quite a bit inspiring. Many thanks for uploading.

[rednerp]

Just watched all 6 parts!

Two funny and intleligent men in conversation - a real pleasure to watch. This is what youtube is for!

[1stCainite]

today Cavett would probably have been sued for that comment about the telephone companies.

[darkpirategirl]

awwwww

[Picnicl]

The Oxford Pythons Palin and Jones are said to have been keener to bring History in to sketches. The Oxford people are also said to have been 'nicer', the Cambridge people more confrontational. Perhaps because of the Cambridge slant towards scientific logic they felt that there must be a 'right' way to do it?