Azaria/Cleese

The great Hank Azaria came out and apologized for being a white guy voicing the popular Simpsons character Apu. He acknowledged his depiction was probably racist:

"A 17-year-old, he’s never even seen The Simpsons but knows what Apu means."

Azaria went on to tell the Armchair Expert podcast: "It’s practically a slur at this point. All he knows is that this is how his people are thought of and represented to many people in this country.

"I really do apologise."

I'm sure he had good intentions in doing this, but overall it's just a weird thing.

And then John Cleese came out with:

"Not wishing to be left behind by Hank Azaria, I would like to apologise on behalf of Monty Python for all the many sketches we did making fun of white English people.

"We’re sorry for any distress we may have caused."

This was treated by fans as a big mic-drop/dunk on Azaria, which I'm not sure Cleese intended. But I'd say it's a bummer for Azaria. Any huge fan of comedy worships at the feet of John Cleese, and I'm sure Azaria's no different, so it must crush him to see this.  Ironically, it was just a few weeks ago that the same thing happened to David Tennant and Michael Sheen with Michael Palin via the great Staged, but of course that's fiction whereas the Azaria/Cleese thing isn't. Again, I'm just really bummed for Azaria.