The leaping and creeping ritual in Gulliver’s Travels—where contestants jump over or duck under a stick held by the Lilliputian emperor, with the winner being awarded high office—is only a bit less absurd than the U.S. Electoral College. Anyway, here’s Peter O’Toole playing the Lilliputian emperor.

Peter O’Toole in a powdered wig as the Lilliputian emperor in the 1996 miniseries of Gulliver’s Travels. He’s holding a can. Two other men, one in another powdered wig and one in a tricorn hat, look on.