At Home with John Cleese
Vinvin from Seesmic enjoys a tour of John’s Californian cottage.
Videography by Whit Scott.
Produced by Vinvin, Garry Scott-Irvine and Dean Whitbread.
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Comments
Hilarious, I love the deep smile in my spirit as I viewed, you know like a quiet belly laugh , almost.
Love the Pelican poem – as a native of Caribbean, I relate. Love all the yard art and the lion, the dog that won’t work. Oh the library – so cool an idea. Will have to borrow. Why on earth must you treat your daughter that way. Oh! I would’ve been p’d off.!
Oh and I just love your confidence in your compassion…so much so you can refer to the weak as ‘dregs of society’…or something like it. Now that is a sure sign of authentic ‘goodness’…not a word? But you get my drift?
Loved this wonderful reprieve from work. Like I needed one.
I so enjoy you and your work. Thank you!!
♥♥♥
Absolutely adored seeing you in your natural habitat. Your affinity with all things metallic and animalistic do you prove you do have a lovely Wild Side…oh wait…we already knew that…Such a lovely, simple life, for a lovely COMPLICATED man! What a joy! Thanks for sharing!
Sorry my words were jumbled in the excitement of the moment! I’m usually much more eloquent than that! LOL!
Loved this video! John Cleese, you are so lovely and charming but the girl wearing the blanket had the funniest lines of all.
John, you make even a garden tour entertaining.
Didn’t realize you were stateside now. Is California your primary residence now?
A fan, Joe Hage
Charming and funny. Loved the interview and tour. Makes me feel like John Cleese is a neighbor (even though I live in Boston) and makes me miss California too!
Oh, thank you for opening up your home! It looks wonderful and cozy! I really enjoyed the tour.
Thank you again!
Very nice cottage. I must say, I’m quite jealous of the art, books, and cats.
Your videos are fun to watch, and you are still very funny. Keep it up.
Thanks for the tour! Lovely place and pets! I’d love a couple of hours in your library to pour over those books.
Thank you so much for the tour of your California home. Love your library – something we have always wanted to have (we rent ugh!). Definitely love your kitties – have a black one (Dotsie) – a love muffin like yours.
And thank you for being so accessible (Blog, Twitter, etc). I love seeing “tweets” from you, Stephen Fry, and Wil Wheaton throughout my work day (and night).
HUGS
~ Barbara Eyre
Hiddenite, North Carolina
Watching this video, I have two requests, John. 1. Can I hang out with you and have fun with the kittens? and 2. Can you be my new Grandpa? Mine have died off and I have a few spots open…
And your library speaks volumes (badum ching!) of your intellect and wit.
Hilarious! Longtime fan, wonderful to get the inside view. The daughter was a great supporting actress in the making of the video 
Thank you for sharing on twitter!
If you could speak French, you’d love Vinvin post with this video. You must know he really loves you (and nothing related to any gay pride with lions !).
Thanks for this great time, John and Vinvin.
PS : Stop torturing your daughter !!!
I’m stuck between “A case of gay pride” and “Why don’t you read ‘The Odyssey’ now?” as my two favorite parts.
Nice video. Thanks for sharing John. I like cats and I can see that the cats you have just love you. Very few let you cradle them laying on their back like you did. Enjoyed the statues out in the yard.
As I told on twitter:
I’m not sure whether the “frog” was really embarrassed or just pretended to be. Hopefully he was. Funny, that thing!
And I liked the way you described your lion. It’s like “yes, the mouse problem”..How’s the bowel doing, you great buff?
It’s not right that you should be so funny, and the rest of us are so droll…it’s unfair, it is. I suspect the cat was tranquilized…you should guest star on, “The Office”.
Is this the “reality television” everyone’s talking about? Frightening, really, but good fun. How is the plumbing?
So happy to see that what most American homes would turn into the dressing room has been turned into the library. Keeping priorities straight. Does the library have a borrowing policy? I’m a little light on biology books right now. However, I do have a great edition of The Odyssey you could borrow. I’ll even throw in the Iliad.
What a totally charming home! Thanks for letting us in. The cat in my lap right now particularly enjoyed all the cat-friendly features.
Now I must build a library … and an international film star dressing room.
@Frank Abel : I’m sure the frog was a bit embarrassed as when you are willing to talk more fluently with someone you like but your English is not fluent enough to catch every word nor to respond to jokes in real time
Being a fan of John Cleese myself and being a frog too, I can only sympathize. But I definitely prefer the giraffe over the lion.
Very enjoyable, thank you all! The trained cat made me smile, as did the dressing room – very “Cribs” 
I’m going to have to dig out the photo of me at Mister Cheese’s 65th birthday breakfast, where said birthday boy pretended to punch me on the face and almost actually did…the look on my face is quite hilarious…
Looking forward to more videos!
Lovely, and just how I would have pictured Mr. Cheese’s living quarters: eclectic, quietly bizarre, and perfectly cozy. I totally lust after that library — I wonder if I could remodel my guest bathroom?
How on earth did you manage to buy the house of my dreams?
Library – check.
Dressing room – check.
Writing room – check.
Inanimate zoo – check.
You lucky, lucky b……
To Steve, about houses in America being made of wood….
The East Coast has many brick and stone homes. But build them that way in the West, on the San Andreas Fault, and, the first good earthquake, you’ll be living on (or, worse, under) a big pile of rocks. Wood works best out here.
Great video. I’m so jealous of that library. My whole apartment could fit in there… cats and all.
~A~
Wonderfully charming video! Loved the animal garden so much that I will steal the idea and claim it as my own.
Wonderful video! Brought a smile to my day. The cats were wonderful too! Mine don’t perform that well for the camera here!
Thanks, sir, for the tour of your California cottage.
There’s something about that Southern California light that was captured particularly well in the interior shots… congratulations to the crew for that.
Special thanks, too, to Vinvin, who’s becoming a rather skilled straight man (so to speak).
Most of all, though, I appreciated your generosity in sharing the artwork. The Searle animals are wonderful, and was that a Macaulay of the city scene with the theatre?
Lovely, lovely work.
Thanks, again!
-Linda
Vinvin, I love these segments with Cleese, keep them coming!
Mr. Cleese I would love to spend and afternoon with you discussing politics and poetry.
Best,
-Bry
Dear John,
I knew somehow that you would have to be a cat lover. Loved seeing your home, warm and charming, like yourself.
Thanks to Vinvin for bringing it to us! Hope your daughter is not plotting her revenge…
Kindest Regards,
Bette
Dear John,
Somehow I knew you’d be a cat lover. Loved your home, warm and charming,like yourself.
Thanks to Vinvin for bringing it to us. I hope your daughter is not plotting her revenge!
Kindest Regards,
Bette
Dear John,
I´m a fan since ages & this smart “inside report” is a wonderful gift, thanks alot from Germany!
Regards,
Thomas
P.S.: when I´m in some kind of bad mood, I just watch your webinar for Livefault´s backup at http://tinyurl.com/5kr8ym . Lovely little gem! 
Lovely, and near perfect.
Do let me know if you ever need a house/cat sitter, Mr. Cleese. I’m very reasonable and a surprising bargain, even when doing it pro bono.
Very fun! A lovely house and a bathroom that doesn’t make me want to set mine on fire, by comparison.
Great fun! JC is one of my favorite actors. So cool to see a bit of his life, though I am unsure about that lump under the blanket.
Love your video and I too have cats who seem to own my home. You have brought much laughter into my life and have taught me the value of wit!
This was the funniest home tour I’ve ever seen. It’s home to fit the man if ever I saw one. John and his daughter seem to have a relationship worthy of one of his films/shows. Now if I only had a business manager in my house…
I could listen to John Cleese for days. He is such an interesting character.
Great video. Is there a part two?
I just hope for John and his family that this house we saw in the video did not burn down in the fire in montecito last night.
This is like watching a tour of my father in laws home, just replace the cats with Mini Cooper memorabilia, and the stuffed lemurs with trains. No wonder we love John Cleese so much, I think he may be related to us.
Wonderful, loved all the animals, a lemur, who knew, the reluctant lion, those cats have some ham in them.
To the commenter who asked if all American homes had to be made of wood: No. Some are made of wood, others… well, actually those are made of wood as well.
Am I the only one who expected him to correct Cleese with “S. Frog, sir”, to see if Cleese would reply with “Shut up”?
A great video about a great man’s surprisingly small (well, relatively small) home. Thank you for making it!
Love the library and the cats, it is refreshing to see your closet, it is almost as small as mine and I am not an “International Movie Star.” My bathroom is also smaller, but very easy to clean. I ma envious of your pet assistant, where can i get one? Is he nutured or still in his natural state?
[...] sicher nicht in irgendwelchen Büchern versteckt wäre. Ne, dann seh ich mir lieber nochmal dieses Video an, in dem John Cleese einem Frosch sein Haus zeitg, das ist nämlich überaus [...]
I would have been disappointed if a tour of the fabulous Mr.
Cleese´s home hadn´t turned out the way it did.
I know that I am late to the party, but I did so enjoy this. What a wonderful thing to encounter on a lazy day. Thank you.
Your house was a pleasure to visit. Thank you. And as usual, I enjoyed your energy, passion, humor and wit.
Thank you.
From a fellow cat-lover,
Sheila
What a wonderful video. John Cleese never ceases to amaze and amuse. Love the poem on the pelican, btw. keep them coming, frog
John Cleese is an absolute legend. Fawlty Towers beating that old car with a stick, “I’m going to give you a damn good thrashing!” lol
Alright, I said it already, but will state it once more: it’s a fabulous video.
I loved it, I loved every minute of it, and John Cleese is absolutely hilarious. I wonder what it is to live around him, if you’re not a cat though.