In the Biggles Dictates a Letter sketch, Gilliam played Ginger; wearing, if I remember correctly, sequined shorts and heavy makeup, but explained that he was not a poof.
Gilliam tended to take on the exaggerated, flamboyant bit parts.
He plays one of the guests in the guest house where Mr Hilter, Ron Ribbentrop and that nice Mr McGoering were planning their Stalingrad vacation.
Gilliam was the guy dressed up in the suit of armor who appeared occasionally. He’s one of the guys who dies from the “Killer Joke”. You can see him more in the later episodes, but none of his roles were particularly memorable until the movies…
I love his Daffy Duck-esque exit in the movie writers sketch.
How uncomfortable is his costume of as a naked guy?
Well I, for one, am sincerely glad that he didn’t prove to be an accomplished actor, because I value his contributions to popular culture as a Cinematic Director far more than anything else he’s done.
I mean, geez. I can express it in one word:
Brazil
Depends on how cold it is in the studio.
He also took on parts that involved getting into costume but didn’t have lines, simply because they had to have someone there on the stage: the dead body in “It all happened on the 11:20 from Hainault to Redhill via Horsham and Reigate, calling at Carshalton Beeches, Malmesbury, Tooting Bec, and Croydon West.”
I recall he was one of the Gumby brain surgeons. That’s also the only Flying Circus sketch I’ve seen that had all 6 men in it at once.
“Splunge” for me, too!
[ Cleese] Well, that quite depends on what he’s sitting on, doesn’t it? [ /Cleese ]
Bested, I am.
There’s the aforementioned movie writing sketch.
There was an episode where, during the intro, the various characters are pre-occupied with press interviews instead of doing their jobs of playing organ nude (Terry Jones did it in the intros), saying “And now…”, etc.
Later, as an animation begins, Gilliam can be heard describing his technique before realizing he’s missed his cue. He sticks his head into the animation (still in stop-motion), and apologizes.
In the TV version of “Argument Clinic”, he is the hand that appears in the doorway last, at the very end, when they are arresting people under the provisions of the Strange Sketch Act.
In “The Visitors” (succession of horrible people bursting in on couple trying to have a romantic evening) Gilliam is the “poofy friend” whose wife has just died.
[death]
You Americans you talk and you talk, you say “let me say this” and “I just want to say that”, well you’re dead now. So Shut Up!
[/death]
But I didn’t eat the salmon.
After hearing him as Patsy and the Old Man from Scene XX, I find his American accent rather unconvincing.
He was a Viking in full regalia (including horned helmet) who broke into Graham Chapman’s sentence during the “Killer Sheep” sketch.
(Graham) The only clue we have is this wolf pelt that one of the killer sheep…
(Terry G as Viking)…wuz wearing…
(Graham) when the crime was committed.
I’m recreating the sketch from memory, so sorry if I got some of the dialog wrong.
It’s really kind of pathetic that I know stuff like this…
He also sang “I’ve got two legs”.
Which is funny, because Gilliam is American.
Waitaminute waitaminute waitaminute… Patsy spoke?