1976: CLEESE on CLASS | Tonight | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive 

We need more quintessentially British extroverts 😭😭 lol 😂

What a gem video, in great quality. I love John Cleese, he and Michael Palin, just geniuses

Imagine if Cleese had become a lawyer we wouldn’t have the Brilliant Fawlty Towers

John and Tim's generation of Oxbridge writer/performers of the 50s and 60s are the best we've ever had I think. Lucky for us so many of them wasted their degrees. (Nice to see the old tube train too.)

Wonderful video, I love these archives of the Pythons, please upload more! I met Cleese in October last year, he was very cordial and pleasant. Definitely a special memory.

seen this a few times, keep seeing new stuff each time: at 3.00 mins, I laughed when I saw him tease the camera man trying to follow him from across the street!

Monty Python - the greatest waste of higher education ever! - Great, superb comedy that is still great today.

He was raised to believe in a life of incalculable tedium and modest riches, without ever pointing the fact out. When required, the same sensibilities marched into machine gun fire as though it were regrettable but entirely to be expected. John couldn't help cracking a smile at the prospect.

He seemed so happy and at ease.

He was 36 years old in the interview! These days everyone is so much younger - our adulthoods delayed by difficulty of affording a house and family.

Tim's contribution here is a constant reminder of another great comedy troupe, hell-bent on a certain path, with highly developed critical faculties. You wonder what percentage of modern comics - and comedy actors - make it to screen without that self-doubt today.

I can *smell* that Tube carriage.

Proof that student grants (not loans) were worth it.

R.I.P TBT😢🎩

Weird and Wonderful, good laugh at the end.😂😂😂

He takes the tube home for lunch. Look how few people are on the tube. Lovely times!

Even in a serious interview he manages to pull stunts during the intervening footage of him travelling, suddenly changing direction and then tripping over. Its boredom with the routine of interview protocol that fuels it and I can fully understand him doing it to surprise the viewer.

John Cleese is 36. However this is 1976 so he looks 56

Connie Booth "we both knew his father really well" ????

John Cleese is without a doubt one of the best comedians and social commentators of all time.

The best comedy actors! 😆☀️

You are a Genius Class.

"What's wrong with you... Don't they have dogs in Calcutta?" I would love to have witnessed the moment that line was born... I imagine Connie Booth being American was able to peer at the awful British class system and old colonials in a way that must have been a gift to Cleese.... a fabulous foil! 🇬🇧🏆🇺🇲 Edit: 'anyway' instead of 'in a way'

He's a cutie

John Cleese: the master of turning class anger into comedic gold! 🎩😂

What a great clip of television. Modern television reduces my brain cell count, and I didn’t start with many

Joe pasqualli did a version of that joke. Was a long time ago before the internet Tho.

36 👀

In nineteen seventy-six, a voice resounds, As John Cleese speaks, with depths profound. Trapped in a shell of lower-middle class, Reasonableness and politeness, a fragile mass. From the stage of Tonight, his words take flight, Revealing layers of anger, hidden from sight. A man of respectability, yet quietly seething, In the throes of societal constraints, he's breathing. Cleese, at his best, in roles well played, Navigating worlds where boundaries fray. As both everyman and patrician sociopath, He mirrors life's absurdities, in aftermath. His upbringing, strait-laced and prim, Yet beneath the surface, emotions brim. Abandoning the law for comedy's embrace, A leap of faith, into the unknown space. Connie Booth and Tim Brooke-Taylor, they see, The self-criticism, the depths within he. Basil Fawlty, a character close to heart, Reflecting Cleese's struggles, a mirrored art. In nineteen seventy-six, on BBC's stage, Cleese bares his soul, in words that engage. A glimpse into the man behind the mask, In the Weird and Wonderful, of the BBC's vast.

Seen this years ago when it was posted

Home for lunch on the tube?!

All the best intellectual comedians are overthinkers, self critical. Cleese and Gervais are both great observers of their time.

Benny Hill considered funnier than Monty Python by two TV stations --WOR and WLVI!

We need to investigate why people in the past used to be a lot funnier than they are now! Drugs?

I used to be so impressed by the BBC, the variety of programming they seemed to offer from an Americans perspective, how different there shows were from what you saw on US! The subtlety of the way things were , the way shows were edited, especially with the documentaries. The monotone yet personable sounding voiceovers. It breaks my heart though to hear that the network ha become so politically biased and agenda centric. Just what has happened to Doctor Who alone is a travesty!

Public high schools in England look like the private schools in the rest of the world!😂🤣😂 I wonder if they get hamburgers or pizza for lunch they are required to eat it with knife and fork😂🤣

Whatever we might feel about the elder Cleese, you could describe his path as two conflicting genetic inheritances. We know that his mother had very serious difficulties and I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that it contributed to what he became. And perhaps there's more than an element of that in his comedy heroes too.

Benny Hill considered funnier than Monty Python by two TV stations --WOR and WLVI!