This Week In Non-House Hugh Laurie

When you say the name Hugh Laurie to 99% of the people in the U.S., the first thing they'll think of is House. And for good reason. It's a great show and Laurie plays dark, dry humor better than almost anybody.

But what I didn't realize for a long time is that Laurie's career goes back almost 30 years in the U.K., and he usually plays the clueless, screwball antithesis to Gregory House. And that's the Hugh Laurie I'd like to make sure that everyone knows about. That's why I'm going to show you a snippet of screwball Hugh Laurie every week until I can't find anything new. It may be a quote. It may be a video clip. Honestly, I'm making this up as I go along so I'm not sure what it might be from week to week. But it will be Hugh Laurie, so it will be great.

This week, I bring you some of Laurie's earliest work with Stephen Fry, a man you'll probably be seeing a lot more in this segment. It's from a special called "The Cellar Tapes," a broadcast put together by The Footlights Revue. The Footlights, as far as I can tell, is the British answer to Second City. The group has produced a large number of British comedians, including Laurie, Fry, Emma Thompson, Eric Idle, and Peter Cook.

In the clip below, Fry actually has a lot of the best lines, but I think it's a perfect example of Laurie as the clueless idiot that you never get to see on House. I doubt, after all, you'll see House ever try to gather his voice from his buttocks (watch the clip and you'll get that, I promise).