John Cleese waiting to begin when Cleese's offer arrived. Palin agreed to work with Cleese and Chapman in the meantime, bringing with him Gilliam, Jones, and Idle. "Monty Python's Flying Circus" ran for four seasons from October 1969 to December 1974 on BBC Television, though Cleese quit the show after the third. Cleese's two primary characterisations were as a sophisticated and a stressed-out loony. He portrayed the former as a series of announcers, TV show hosts, and government officials (for example, "The Ministry of Silly Walks"). The latter is perhaps best represented in the "Cheese Shop" and by Cleese's Mr Praline character,
John Cleese character's daughter, Lorraine, was played by Minnie Driver. In the series, Lyle Finster briefly marries Karen Walker (Megan Mullally). In 2004, Cleese was credited as co-writer of a DC Comics graphic novel titled "". Part of DC's "Elseworlds" line of imaginary stories, "True Brit", mostly written by Kim Howard Johnson, suggests what might have happened had Superman's rocket ship landed in Britain, not America. From 10 November to 9 December 2005, Cleese toured New Zealand with his stage show, "John Cleese—His Life, Times and Current Medical Problems". Cleese described it as "a one-man show with several people in it, which