...but then they did snub his special

John Cleese has complained that Netflix rejected his live comedy special – while commissioning stand-up from a woman who ‘did a routine based on the fact she was so fat she couldn’t find her own pussy’.

Or at least the Python star believes his idea was rejected, because he never heard back from the commissioner he pitched to.

The lack of communication prompted Cleese to take to Twitter to complain abut the behaviour of executives over the years.

In a series of tweets, he wrote: ‘In December I visited Netflix to pitch the idea of a ‘Special’. They must have hated the idea because they never got back to me, or returned any of my agent's phone calls or emails !

‘Recently someone showed me one of the "Specials" they did commission. 

‘It was very original: a hugely likeable and jolly young woman did a highly original routine based on the fact that she was so "fat" that she couldn't find her own "pussy"

‘My only disappointment was that when I approached Netflix in December

I had not known the sort of material they were looking for.’

The 78-year-old also recalled another meeting where an unnamed head of comedy ‘behaved throughout like a teenage Mexican bandit on the run, throwing looks over his shoulder every few seconds, and wearing an expression of extreme terror throughout. Not an easy audience, I found.’

He added: ‘Still, I take heart from the fact that every UK and US studio passed on Life of Brian, 10 out of 11 Hollywood studios turned down Fish Called Wanda, and the man who commissioned Fawlty Towers told me, after the first episode, that I had to "get it out of the hotel more".’

And he offered another anecdote to support his idea that media executives are anti-intellectual.

‘One friend of mine wanted to make a film about Wagner, and was invited to Hollywood to discuss it,’ he recalled. ‘ The first question they asked him was "How are we going to deal with the Natalie Wood incident?"’

Published: 27 Mar 2019