Trivia / How to Irritate People

• Executive Meddling: John Cleese and Graham Chapman had disagreements with executive producer David Frost over the latter's insistence that all the sketches should be clearly structured and end on punchlines. In fairness, Frost was apparently thinking of the special's intended American audience, as the type of surreal, free-structured humour embodied by the eventual Monty Python team hadn't quite yet caught on in the U.S., but it helped convince the Pythons not to bother with punchlines in the future.
• The Other Marty: Connie Booth originally just agreed to play a small part in one sketch, but took on several more roles after Jo Kendall, who had originally been cast to play most of the younger female characters, pulled out at the last minute.
• Throw It In!: John Cleese's tie is noticeably off-centre in many of the hosting segments. Apparently he did it up that way by accident, but decided to leave it like that, wanting to see how many viewers he could irritate into writing to the network to complain — which no-one actually bothered doing, much to his great disappointment.
• What Could Have Been: Jo Kendall, who had played most of the secondary female characters in At Last the 1948 Show, was originally going to do the same here, but ended up being unavailable (and wanted to move away from comedy and into drama, in any event). John Cleese's wife, Connie Booth, stepped in to fill the role in rehearsals, and did well enough to actually be cast in the finished product, marking the start of Booth's screen acting career.
• Write What You Know: The Car Salesman sketch was based on an experience Graham Chapman had with a used car salesman who flatly refused to admit that a car was broken.

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