On the old “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” series, there were always a lot of jokes about someone named Reginald Maudlin (correct the spelling, if it’s way off).
Now, these references always cracked up the audience, but I never had a clue who he was. So, would some Pythonophile (they’re legion on these boards) tell us who Reggie was? Some British politician of the 70s?
Oh, I’m sure the jokes won’t be any funnier to me if I know, but I’m still curious. (Presumably, a latter day Englishman watching old 1980s SNL re-runs might have similar questions… like “Who is this Joe Franklin person supposed to be?”)
Did they invent the gumby? I.e., those fellas with the funny scarves on their heads who shout and act goofy. Is it a traditional thing to call somebody a “gumby” when they stand up to their knees in a brook and shout that they want to outlaw people whol stand in water? Just curious.
I’m quoting from memory here, so please bear with me.
From a video interview with John Cleese, he stated that the Gumby character developed from a character in a vox pop sketch whose most memorable line was “I don’t eat squirrels, now do I? I mean… BLIMEY! BLIMEY!!”. Present were the handkerchief and gumboots, but no glasses or pullover or stupid goofy voice.
From The Life of Python (the book from the 80s), a snippet that the Gumbies were formed from someone’s memory of a comic photograph of a man on vacation dressed in such a manner. Whether it was Palin or Cleese, or even one of the other three British Pythons, I don’t remember.
As for Art Clokey: another book I thumbed through many years ago stated that he got Gumby from an old family joke. “Getting stuck in the gumbo” was an ancestor’s slang for getting stuck in the mud during the rainy season. “Gumby” resulted from an inspired declension of “gumbo” according to Latin grammatical rules.