''How to Irritate People'' is a US

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began wi ...

filmed in the UK at LWT on 14 November 1968 and written by

John Cleese John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and ...

Graham Chapman Graham Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was one of the six members of the surreal comedy group Monty Python. He portrayed authority figures such as The Colonel and the lead role in two P ...

Marty Feldman Martin Alan Feldman (8 July 1934 – 2 December 1982) was a British actor, comedian and comedy writer. He was known for his prominent, misaligned eyes. He initially gained prominence as a writer with Barry Took on the ITV sitcom ''Boot ...

and

Tim Brooke-Taylor Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE (17 July 194012 April 2020) was an English actor and comedian best known as a member of The Goodies. He became active in performing in comedy sketches while at the University of Cambridge and became president ...

. Cleese, Chapman, and Brooke-Taylor also feature in it, along with future

Monty Python Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over fou ...

collaborators

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries. Palin w ...

and

Connie Booth Connie Booth (born 2 December 1940) is an American-born actress and writer. She has appeared in several British television programmes and films, including her role as Polly Sherman on BBC Two's ''Fawlty Towers'', which she co-wrote with her the ...

. In various sketches, Cleese demonstrates exactly what the title suggests—how to irritate people, although this is done in a much more conventional way than the absurdity of similar Monty Python sketches.

Notable sketches

Pepperpots

The recurring characters of the "Pepperpots," old British housewives who annoy theater-goers and quiz show hosts in these sketches, would go on to be a major part of ''

Monty Python's Flying Circus ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' (also known as simply ''Monty Python'') is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, who became ...

'', appearing in the majority of the show's episodes.

Job Interview

The "Job Interview" sketch, featuring Cleese as an interviewer who asks several unusual questions of Brooke-Taylor, the interviewee, was later performed, almost unchanged, in the fifth episode of ''Flying Circus'', with Chapman instead playing the interviewee.

Freedom of Speech

The "Freedom of speech" sketch, starring Cleese as the host/interviewer and Chapman as interviewee Dr.

Rhomboid Traditionally, in two-dimensional geometry, a rhomboid is a parallelogram in which adjacent sides are of unequal lengths and angles are non-right angled. A parallelogram with sides of equal length (equilateral) is a rhombus but not a rhomboi ...

Goatcabin, features a discussion about

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...

, in which Cleese's character repeatedly reformulates the subject's main question ("Do you believe there is freedom of speech in this country?") in so many ways as to start a

monologue In theatre, a monologue (from el, μονόλογος, from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes a ...

and not let Chapman's character speak. This increasingly annoys the interviewee to the point where he is forced to murder the host in order to express his opinion on the matter, only to be interrupted again by his spirit. This sketch bears some resemblance to Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses, and was originally performed on ''

At Last the 1948 Show ''At Last the 1948 Show'' is a satirical television show made by David Frost's company, Paradine Productions (although it was not credited on the programmes), in association with Rediffusion London. Transmitted on Britain's ITV network in 19 ...

'', with

having played the interviewee.

Indian Restaurant

This sketch, featuring Palin as a waiter in an Indian restaurant who is excessively – and somewhat violently – apologetic to his customers whenever anything goes wrong, may very well have laid the groundwork for the " Dirty Fork" sketch from the third ''Flying Circus'' episode. In 1980, the Python team recorded an audio version for their '' Contractual Obligation Album''. Although cut from the final album, it featured among the outtakes on their widely bootlegged '' Hastily Cobbled Together for a Fast Buck'' album.

Car Salesman

The "Car Salesman" sketch, in which Palin refuses to accept customer Chapman's claim that a car he sold is faulty, later inspired Python's "

Dead Parrot The "Dead Parrot Sketch", alternatively and originally known as the "Pet Shop Sketch" or "Parrot Sketch", is a sketch from ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' about a non-existent species of parrot, called a "Norwegian Blue". A satire on poor cus ...

" sketch, in which the malfunctioning car is replaced by an expired parrot.

Quiz Show

The "Quiz Show" sketch, where Brooke-Taylor, as a Pepperpot, annoys Cleese, a

quiz A quiz is a form of game or mind sport in which players attempt to answer questions correctly on one or several specific topics. Quizzes can be used as a brief assessment in education and similar fields to measure growth in knowledge, abilities, ...

show host, while appearing as a contestant on a show, was later adapted into another Monty Python sketch, "Take Your Pick" (or "Spot the Brain Cell," as it would be later called) in the second ''Flying Circus'' series, where

Terry Jones Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020) was a Welsh comedian, director, historian, actor, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy team. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones and ...

plays the contestant attempting to win the prize of a "blow on the head."

Airline Pilots

The "Airline Pilots" sketch is set in the cockpit of a commercial airliner, with Cleese (as captain) and Chapman (as copilot). The airliner is on autopilot. Bored, they start making reassuring intercom messages to the passengers telling them there is nothing to worry about – at which point, of course, the passengers get worried – aided by the flight attendant (Palin). These messages get continually more incomprehensible or mutually contradictory until eventually all the passengers bail out. The Monty Python sketch "Bomb on Plane" in episode 35 alluded briefly to this sketch when pilot Michael Palin told passengers, "Our destination is Glasgow; there is no need to panic."

Release

This film was directed by Ian Fordyce who also directed ''

'', and was made in the UK for the American market in an attempt to introduce them to the new style of British humour. For this reason the recording is made to the

NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...

colour standard. The idea for the show came from

David Frost Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer. He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme ...

. The show never aired in the UK but was broadcast in the United States on 21 January 1969 on

KYW-TV KYW-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate WPSG (channel ...

. Contemporary reviews suggest a broadcast slot of 60 minutes, including commercials, which would make the version broadcast between 50 and 55 minutes, at least 10 minutes shorter than the current video release. In addition, reviews refer to David Frost as appearing in the show, whereas he is absent from the video version. An audio track confirms that he originally introduced the show. The 1990 UK video release was overseen by Michael Palin, who explained: "I thought it had a few strengths and weaknesses, so we made a few cuts here and there and we put it out".Johnson, Kim "Howard" - ''Life Before And After Monty Python'', p.56, Plexus, 1993. The show has since appeared on DVD.

References

External links

* * {{Monty Python Mockumentaries British television specials 1968 television specials Quizzes and game shows in popular culture British comedy films Parodies