We Have Ways of Making You Laugh

Welcome to the We Have Ways of Making You Laugh guide at TV Tome. Producer Humphrey Barclay was very enthusiastic when he helped establish London Weekend Television (LWT) in 1968. He had been the producer behind the successful children's series Do Not Adjust Your Set, which was to be revived on LWT within a year. Barclay believed the novel way to start LWT would be with a novel merging of two television formats. Barclay envisioned doing We Have Ways of Making You Laugh as an innovative combination of comedy scenes and interviews. He lured in two of the Do Not Adjust Your Set crowd, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam. While Frank Muir, the host of We Have Ways of Making You Laugh, carried on with the interviews, the camera would look over Gilliam's shoulder as he drew a caricature of the guest. Eric Idle performed in sketches, as did a number of other comedians Barclay thought were at or near their peak. The result: According to Idle, "We Have Ways of Making You Laugh was