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,
The Gladiator March The Gladiator March "The Gladiator" is a march by John Philip Sousa, written in 1886 while Sousa was leader of the US Marine Band. The Gladiator was written as a tribute to Charles B. Towle, a journalist at the "Boston Traveler". The journalist introduced him to the Knights Templar. Speculation has long surrounded the title for the piece, but one hypothesis is that the title referred to Towle himself, a gladiator of sorts who used a pen instead of a sword. Another plausible hypothesis is that the piece may have been written about an article Towle wrote for the Boston