Thanks to Netflix I am finally watching what was polled as the most popular British sit-com of all time, starring John Cleese. I'm two episodes in, and this is completely unfunny and not clever at all. I'm flummoxed. Why is this show so popular? And don't get me wrong I absolutely love Brit-coms. Even the older ones. Are You Being Served is much better than this, as broad as it is...
Yeah, the critical praise is deserved, it's some of the most brilliantly constructed half hours ever on tv. But, tastes in humor are highly personal.
It's odd, normally I hate humor involving rude people (especially Seinfeld), but John Cleese does it so masterfully in Fawlty Towers. Maybe it's a British thing, but I'm not British.
Funny to see this thread! I've just been re-re-re-watching some episodes after coming home from work. Just watched "The Builder" today! I love the remastered DVD collection. Great interviews and commentary by John. I don't know if broad is the right word for it, but John Cleese has often described it as a farce, so the ridiculous situations and crazy antics *could* be described as broad. I just find it funny as hell and never get tired of watching it. The little snide comments like "drive carefully, dear" are my type of sarcasm.
I'll probably get used to it eventually, but I have a hard time watching the remastered episodes on Netflx Instant, it just doesn't look right. If I want to watch a "Fawlty" episode I go to my DVDs with the familiar part video, part film look I grew up with.
FT is one of those rare comedies where I can never watch an episode uninterrupted. The situations Basil regularly gets himself into are so embarrassing, and getting even more so with each attempt of his to get out of them, I quite often need to put the episode on pause and take a few seconds to calm myself before continuing. It's a brilliant show, but also quite exhausting.
Personally I think the first episode is pretty weak, so I could understand you not liking that lthe BBC bosses didn't either) but surprised episode two seemed as bad to you...
one of my favorite shows! there is so much going on. I loved checking out the changing anagram sign out front (Farty Towels)--Basil and Sybil were both bizarre characters (Oooh, I Knoow!) and poor Polly tried to save Basil from himself and also to protect poor Manual. I think my favorite was the hotel inspector episode with Basil the Rat.
Basil the Rat was a great episode! Have you ever heard of the bubonic plague, Manuel? It was very popular here at one time.A lot of pedigree hamsters came over on ships from Siberia.
Maybe the funniest show ever, as far as I'm concerned. My favorite bit, though is the whole fire drill sequence in "The Germans." Seems to get funnier every time I see it.
One of my favorites, too. And my favorite part of it is so small I didn't notice it for a while, but it makes me chuckle just thinking about it: The Major has become convinced that there are burglars about, and tells another guest that's what the commotion is, but everyone ignores him. Then Basil is demonstrating the difference between the alarm bells. When he says "This is the burglar alarm," the Major lets out with a very self-satisfied "Seeee!" Bless you, Ballard Berkeley. Just wonderful.
One thing I've always wondered about one ep of FT. Remember the one with the 'Lord' who was really a con-man. The same episode had an uncouth guest, constantly flirting with Polly, of whom Basil was disparaging, calling him an ape etc. In the end up, he turns out to be an undercover cop and arrests the conman. Does anyone else think that in the original script, the character might have been written as black, hence Basil making the 'ape' comments? After all, if you remember the episode where Basil sees the black doctor in the hospital, he jumps back, startled. Politically correct he's not. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I've always wondered if the derogatory comments and the way he scratches his armpits like a chimp (and promptly gets caught) were originally race-based and then maybe Cleese and Booth decided it made Basil look too unpleasant (after all, bad as he is, we generally are on his side - this might have put the audience off him, even in the 1970s). Anyone ever hear anything about this?
^ Weren't the ape jokes directed at Mr. Johnson in "The Psychiatrists" who was trying to sneak a woman into his room? Not the detective, whom Basil just treated bad because he thought he was working class.