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 Ronnie Corbett. This series was so popular that in 1966 Cleese and Chapman were invited to work as writers and performers with Brooke-Taylor and Feldman on "At Last the 1948 Show", during which time the "Four Yorkshiremen sketch" was written by all four writers/performers (the Four Yorkshiremen sketch is now better known as a Monty Python sketch). Cleese and Chapman also wrote episodes for the first series of "Doctor in the House" (and later Cleese wrote six episodes of "Doctor at Large" on his own in 1971). These series were successful, and in 1969 Cleese and Chapman were offered their