A New Zealand Town Named a Garbage Dump After John Cleese Out of Spite
Warning: This article contains descriptions of self-harm.
While Monty Python remains beloved to this day, John Cleese isn’t without his share of adversaries — including one of his oldest friends and collaborators and the family of the World War II hero that he turned into Basil Fawlty. But topping all of those feuds was the time Cleese angered an entire city in New Zealand.
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Back in 2005, the George of the Jungle 2 star visited New Zealand for his “My Life, Times and Current Medical Problems” tour, which he promoted by getting into bed with a female newscaster, as is New Zealand custom, I guess?
But during his trip, Cleese wasn’t too enamored with the city of Palmerston North, and he didn’t hold back while expressing that opinion in a podcast he recorded for his website. Cleese called the town the “suicide capital of New Zealand” and suggested “if you ever do want to kill yourself but lack the courage, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick.”
Cleese also complained about his accommodations, the “grotty” weather and the theater he performed in, which he claimed was “a nasty shape,” with an audience that was “very strange to play to."
He later explained the rationale behind the random municipal attack, telling an interviewer, “Occasionally when you’re on a tour, you get a town that’s particularly depressing. The best thing to do is to hate it and to enjoy hating it because then you don’t get depressed.”
You know who wasn’t happy about this? The people in Palmerston North. Mayor Heather Tanguay said of Cleese, “Obviously he still has trouble with his medical problems and may need some more medication.” And the town eventually decided to get their revenge by renaming a local landfill “Mt. Cleese,” inspired by a comment made by New Zealand comedian, and Palmerston North native, John Clarke.
At first, the designation was unofficial. A sign just “popped up overnight and nobody “said to pull it down,” the city’s water and waste manager told a local paper in 2007, adding, “People just smile and leave it there."
But Mt. Cleese subsequently became a landmark of some notoriety, so much so that Cleese’s fellow Python (and future frenemy) Eric Idle visited the dump in 2016 while touring New Zealand with John Cleese. Idle even scaled the modest mountain, then surprised Cleese by playing footage of his expedition at their show later that night.
Idle commended the city for its sense of humor in a mock travel article for an in-flight magazine. “For a recycling center, Mount Cleese is well worth the visit, because it’s in a beautiful park,” Idle wrote. “So take your recycling, your garbage and your old cars and then have a picnic where you can legitimately leave your litter behind. … And bravo, Palmerston North: the irony center of New Zealand.”
It’s unclear whether or not the dump has gained sentience and started raging against cancel culture.
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