Author Archives: howardjohnson1985

Stay Cleesey, San Diego! …

JC Book cover

As I mentioned earlier, the first volume of John Cleese’s autobiography will be out in November, and he’ll be doing some pretty extensive traveling across Britain and much of Europe, as well as the U.S. and Canada, to promote it. He’s planning loads of TV, radio, and bookstore appearances, so there’s no point in hiding–he’s coming for you. I’ll give you more details as they become available, but I’ll start out by noting that San Diego fans can see John live on November 20. More details here.

Sports Sunday!

Thought I’d take the sting out of the Bears loss watching the White Sox, or maybe the WNBA Finals. Bad day for Chicago…

Roy Leonard

There aren’t too many Chicago radio legends left, and we can’t afford to lose the ones we have. Unfortunately, we’ve lost Roy Leonard, one of the nicest, most decent gentlemen to ever pick up a microphone. 

 
There are plenty of tributes to him all over the web, so I won’t try to summarize his career or write anything lengthy. In addition to reviewing movies for many years, he even took over for Frazier Thomas on Family Classics. He was even nice enough to interview me on occasion and help me promote my Monty Python books, and I’m happy to say that the difference between the on-air Roy Leonard and the off-air Roy Leonard was non-existent.
 
Need more? Well, he was one of John Cleese’s favorite interviewers. John once said “Any actor who says he enjoys publicity is a Goddam liar. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed a small number of interviews in the last 15 years and most of them were with Roy Leonard.”

Thank you Roy, and condolences to his family.

Joan the Improviser

The national tributes that have gone out with Joan Rivers’ passing have not made much of the fact that she was once a Second City performer. Of course, neither did she.

Del & Joan
Del Close, without much prodding, often told tales about performing with her in the same Second City cast. He talked about improvising a scene with her as a married couple in which he asked “But what about the children?” She responded “But we don’t have any children!” So much for “Yes, and…”
 
Del often described performing with her when she would essentially turn her back on her scene partners, step to the edge of the stage, and begin a monologue about her marriage, husband, etc. Although the others didn’t know it, she was building a stand-up act, albeit at the expense of her fellow improvisers. 
 
In an interview many years later, when asked about Second City, she said something to the effect of “I don’t think they care much about me there.”
 
All told, she was not much of an improviser. Fortunately for her, she was able to find something else to fall back on… 

Book it! …

I’ve been busy for a little while now helping my old boss research the first volume of his upcoming autobiography. I haven’t written about it yet because, well, frankly, it was still being written. But now, to the best of my knowledge, the manuscript has been turned in, and the countdown to publication has started. Don’t worry, I’ll be giving you a few reminders before it comes out, but in the mean time–what do you think of the cover?

JC Book cover

iO again! …

iO alums

Although I wasn’t at the grand opening of the brand new iO theatre (at 1501 N. Kingsbury in Chicago), it was not through lack of desire, and more because we have a new house of our own that we’re gradually getting ready to move into. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check it out. I got an eyeful last weekend at the grand opening of the Mission Theatre, and it’s an amazing place, with more improvisation going on in one building than there was in the entire country when I first started doing this. Don’t believe me? Take a look here…

Python Mash-ups…

Monty Python Live featured a number of Python mash-ups–sketches that didn’t end quite the way we’re used to. Cheese Shop and Dead Parrot are perfect examples of this. And so is this one. If you’re one of the few that still hasn’t seen the show–live or in theatres–and you’re waiting for the DVD, here’s the end of the vocational guidance counselor sketch…

Dead Bird in the Hand…

For those wondering how that 50-foot dead parrot came to be:

The iO Trap…

Dave Pasquesi and I have been friends since the first night he walked into one of Del Close’s improv classes at Crosscurrents in Chicago, and I (filling in for the absent Charna Halpern) shook him down for payment for his first series of classes.

I can (and probably will) write several lengthy blogs involving David and I, but the most pertinent information is this: Dave is still improvising, and, unlike so many others, has never really stopped improvising after all these years. A few years back, he started working with TJ Jagodowski at the iO Chicago, and in the subsequent years, TJ and Dave have become improvisation icons.

But that wasn’t enough for them. When Charna announced that she would be opening a brand new theatre building, with four theatres and a numerous classrooms, Dave and TJ told her “Excuse us, but we’d like one of those.” And that’s how the Mission Theatre came to be. It’s part of the new iO Chicago at 1501 N. Kingsbury in Chicago, but it’s separate, because it belongs to Dave and TJ. They will continue their TJ and Dave shows there most Wednesday nights, but will use the other time slots for a new sketch comedy show with a talented bunch of actors.

new iO

Saturday night was the opening night for the Trap (which is what it’s called, for reasons that will be revealed when you see the show). It is very funny. I sat with my old friend Leo Benvenutti, and after the first few sketches, I noted “They’re not really going very dark, are they?” I needn’t have worried. There is plenty of darkness, enough to please Del himself, along with some terrific acting and directing, and the audience loved it as much as I did.

Afterward, I had the chance to catch up for the first time in a long while with my old pals Frances and John Judd, Meg and Pete Burns, Jeff Michaelski, Diane Alexander, and many others, including, of course, Michael McCarthy, Charna Halpern, and Noah Gregoropolis.

The Trap is just the first show to officially open at the new iO (forget the label on the photo–the future is here!), and they have set the bar high; if the others come anywhere close, it’s going to be a spectacular success. See you there.

The Last of the Last Night of Monty Python

 The scene after the show ended on the Last Night of Monty Python was–well, it was chaotic in a good way, but chaotic nevertheless.

 
My son and I made our way backstage very slowly, weaving through the crowd and making our way through the hallways. Camera crews were everywhere, blocking any convenient access, so we made our way back into the Green Room. It was packed with people I didn’t know, many of them apparently from the same group that was there for the live TV pre-show broadcasts, and a small band was setting up. They began playing very loudly in the rather small room, and I quickly realized that there was no way that John Cleese would ever, ever show up in this room. 
 
We waited a few more minutes, during which time I saw Eric Idle enter and wade through the crowd. The crowd showed no sign of letting up, so we decided to take our chances in the hallways. 
 
There were apparently several levels of backstage passes. We wore VIP passes, which were apparently second-highest only to the coveted AAA (all-access area). But it was difficult to discern what they actually meant. We would walk down one hallway and be turned away, and be welcomed when we came back two minutes later. We tried to enter what was apparently a small pub inside the larger pub in search of John Cleese, but were told it was over capacity and we would have to wait until some people left. So, we walked down to the Family Hospitality Suite, where Terry Jones was greeting everyone (and, appropriately, his family was in attendance; and I caught up with his son Bill).
TJ Bill HJ
We had drinks and visited, meeting new friends and old. The crowd didn’t seem to dissipate, so we walked down to the pub-within-a-pub to say hello to John. He had apparently left, but the Gilliam family was well-represented, and I walked past Terry to say hello to Prof. Stephen Hawking. I introduced myself to him and explained my Python connection to him and his assistants. Then, I said hello to Maggie Gilliam, who was astonished at the size of my now-19-year-old son, and I re-met their son Harry, who was just as tall as my son. As Eric Idle told me, “You’ve got to stop feeding him!”
 
I had a chance to catch up with the always delightful John Goldstone in the hallway, and he mentioned that the Pythons had all been called away for a final round of photos. It was getting late, and it was perilously close to the times for the last trains, so we reluctantly said goodnight and headed out. As we were walking around the darkened O2, heading for the exits, we heard some talking behind a partition that was now blocking the huge dead parrot from the public areas. I knew those voices, so we walked around in time to see the Pythons leaving, their final photo obligation finished. John called out to me and we all had a few minutes together before we had to leave. We missed the last trains of the Last Night of Monty Python, of course and had to pile into the buses, but it was worth it.