Michigan couple encourages passersby to get silly and create a silly walk based on a classic Monty Python sketch
Michigan couple, Paul and Liz Koto, challenge passersby to create their own silly walk based on the sketch, The Ministry of Silly Walks, from the classic comedy series, Monty Python.
Video Transcript
LIZ KOTO: If I walked by a house that had a sign like that, I would do a silly walk. And I figured, well, if I would, then other people probably would, too. And they would have fun with it as well.
PAUL KOTO: So I think "The Ministry of Silly Walks" has been something that we remember from our childhood-- separately, of course. And the Monty Python movies-- you know, by the time I was in middle school, I could recite every line from every one of the movies. It seemed somewhat obscure, but to us, it's just sort of always been a part of the life. Out there on walks, if people can still go out on their walks, it seemed like a natural fit.
LIZ KOTO: I honestly think-- it's the most boring, like how'd you come up with this idea? I'm like, I don't know, I just was bored and walking. And so it took me like a week to get everything together, to get the sign, and find a post, and all of that. And then we got it up in early April.
And we would have people come by and do silly walks. And we'd post them on Instagram. And I had 15 followers, maybe?
And the number of followers just started going, started going. And I'm like, oh my god, we have 100 followers. And then it was like, we have 200 followers.
The vast majority of people are still-- that come by are still just neighborhood walkers. So they maybe have now seen this, and they've kind of taken some time to think about like, oh, maybe I'll put together a routine, or a this or a that. But most of them just come up to the sign, do their thing, and then just keep walking.
At best, we would have a handful of neighbors who would come by regularly and follow the page. And it would just be this little community sort of feeling. But this-- this out-- no, I did not expect this outcome.
Last night-- I think it was last night, when we were clipping and editing and posting, I received a direct message from somebody who said that he had had some health problems, and he had been recovering from them, and had been not emotionally feeling so well, and stumbled upon the page, and said that it made him smile and laugh, which is something he hadn't done in a long time. And to be able to know that this silly little thing we put out in our front yard has reached people on that deep of an emotional level, it's very shocking.
But it's-- it's very humbling, too. Because we did this to laugh at ourselves. And in laughing at ourselves, we got a lot of the world to laugh with us, which was really great.
