Fawlty Towers / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Maybe Basil is the way he is because of the stress of trying to run a business with little to no help from his inattentive wife? She mostly scoffs that he's not doing enough, while never doing any work herself.
- Perhaps Sybil's general lack of interest in helping out isn't from an inherent laziness on her part, but rather being fed up after so many years of Basil's disgraceful customer service undermining any work she did to make the hotel be successful.
- Manuel's exact level of English fluency is something often debated by fans, especially seeing how in certain episodes — most notably "The Builders" and "The Germans", albeit it's played as more of a plot point in the latter — he goes from being unable to understand the simplest instructions, to speaking a reasonable level of conversational English (if not always being able to understand the situation around it), and then back again within the space of a couple of minutes.
Aluminium Christmas Trees: You certainly can keep rats as pets (though adopting them from the wild is not recommended). There is also such a thing as a Siberian hamster, but it looks absolutely nothing like a rat... funnily enough, it looks like a hamster.
Base-Breaking Character:
- Mr. Hamilton, the American guest in "Waldorf Salad". Some viewers - including John Cleese himself - feel that he gave Basil a well-deserved verbal beatdown throughout the whole episode. Others find that since he demanded the chef keep the kitchen open after his shift had just ended and expected to be served an elaborate meal and drink that weren't on the menu, he comes across as over-entitled. That being said, when he has his salad, he insists that Basil not worry himself further. He was willing to let things slide until Basil pushed the matter, including the farce of pretending Terry was still present in the kitchen and insulting his intelligence.
- It's possibly a bit of both, Basil, often something of an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, is deceptive in trying to provide Mr. Hamilton with the titular salad and deserves to be chewed out. However, the extent of said chewing out goes into extreme territory when he rallies all the guests against Basil. This is the trend with most comedic customers in the show, who are petty and difficult, but get what they give against Basil in terms of Jerkass behaviour, however Mr. Hamilton is one of very few that Basil is cowed by from start to finish, and never directly fires abuse back at to balance the sympathy (or lack of) in the dynamic (he explodes at everyone but Hamilton in the end).
Catharsis Factor:
- The ending of "The Kipper and the Corpse" where Basil escapes his usual comeuppance and Sybil is left to deal with all the consequences.
- Following Mr. Hutchinson's superior attitude, rudeness towards Polly, and physical abuse of Basil, his receiving a pie in the face and briefcase is extremely satisfying, and one of the few times Basil shows affection towards Manuel.
Crosses the Line Twice:
- The Major's cheerfully casual racism really shouldn't be funny, but... yeah.
  I took her to see India at the Oval... and the strange thing was that throughout the morning she kept referring to the Indians as 'niggers'! No, no, no, I said. Niggers are the West Indians. These people are WOGS!
- Basil's entire bit of dunking on the German guests after his head injury, which culminates in him goose-stepping about while doing an Adolf Hitler impression. What especially makes it so funny is the German people's entirely real reaction to it rather than acting like the same comical and stereotypical buffoons Basil and the rest of the hotel staff normally act like: they're horrified, one poor lady keeps bursting into tears, and the rest do their best to try and put up with it before finally angrily demanding he stop.
- Basil not noticing Mr Leeman is dead initially when he brings him his breakfast, followed by him then celebrating when it's clear the kippers weren't responsible after his concerns that they were gone off. Followed again by his rant to defend not noticing the man was dead after being asked by the doctor if he really hadn't noticed.
Ensemble Dark Horse: David Kelly appears in "The Builders" for six minutes, as the builder O'Reilly. Andrew Sachs claims that those six minutes of David Kelly are just about all that fans of the show ever talk to him about. The six minutes also follow David Kelly more than anything else he's ever done.
Fight Scene Failure: Mr. Hutchinson beating up Basil Fawlty in "The Hotel Inspectors". Seriously, it looks like William Shatner choreographed the fight.
Friendly Fandoms: Fans of that other show John Cleese was on are almost always fans of this show as well.
Harsher in Hindsight: One of the best scenes in the whole series is where Manuel sets fire to the kitchen during a fire drill in "The Germans". The real building (for exteriors, anyway) burned down in 1991.
Heartwarming Moments: In "The Anniversary", Basil displays some out-of-character thoughtfulness by arranging a surprise party to celebrate Sybil's and his 15th wedding anniversary. Not only does he invite six mutual friends of theirs to the party, he also asks Manuel to prepare a proper Spanish paella for the anniversary meal. Of course, Sybil drives off in a huff to spend the day golfing before any of this can happen, but still...Basil showing respect for both Sybil and Manuel in the same episode is quite something.
Jerkass Woobie: Basil. He's an unquestionably horrible human being to be sure, but he's married to an equally horrible (if more socially adept) woman, many of the customers he acts so put upon by really are obnoxious and irritating, and the universe just enjoys watching him suffer.
Memetic Mutation:
- "Don't mention the war!"
- "I do apologise, he's from Barcelona."
- "Qué?"
- Man hits car with branch.
Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales:
- Despite O'Reilly being a bit of an Irish stereotype, he's beloved by Irish fans.
- Torquay has embraced the show as part of its legacy. When the renovated Gleneagles re-opened in 2006, Prunella Scales attended the ceremony as a special guest. When the Gleneagles closed and was demolished in 2015, another Torquay hotel took on the name Fawlty Towers. The Gleneagles was replaced by a retirement apartment complex named Sachs Lodge after Andrew Sachs, and there's a plaque noting the connection to the show.
Misaimed Fandom: The climax of "The Germans" and indeed most of the show is actually making fun of racist attitudes. Hasn't stopped the former from being popular among people with those views, which alarms John Cleese.
Once Original, Now Common: The use of broad humour based on obnoxious behavior, slapstick, and shock has been so influential that the series may seem a bit stale to some modern viewers. Of course, just as many will argue that, while often imitated, nobody could hope to do better.
Retroactive Recognition:
- The Sister from "The Germans" is played by Brenda Cowling, who would later be best known for playing Mrs. Lipton in You Rang, M'Lord?.
- Mr. Leeman and Mrs. Chase from "The Kipper and the Corpse" are played by Derek Royle and Mavis Pugh, who would later be best known for playing the second LeClerc in 'Allo 'Allo! and Lady Lavender in You Rang, M'Lord? respectively.
- Terence Conoley (Mr. Wareing), Trevor Adams (Alan) and Geoffrey Palmer (Dr. Price) all became regulars in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
Signature Scene: The tree branch scene, which is considered to be a television classic.
Special Effects Failure: In "Basil the Rat", most of the shots of Manuel's pet "filligree Siberian hamster" used a real rat, videotaped separately from the main action and edited in. In a scene where the rat scurries across the floor it's obviously a model pulled by a nylon cord, but the main effects failure occurs in the final scene in which the rat pops its head out of a biscuit tin that Polly is presenting to the health inspector. In this scene the rat is a very unconvincing puppet with a rotating head which is operated from beneath the tin by Connie Booth. In a way, the bad effects only make the scene all the funnier.
Testosterone Brigade: Polly has quite a few admirers for her beautiful blonde hair, and Adorkable Girl Next Door personality.
Tough Act to Follow:
- John Cleese and Connie Booth were already reluctant to do the second series because they were afraid the expectations would've been too high to satisfy, and refused to do any more episodes after that for the same reason.
- Writer Richard Curtis claimed that the only reason Blackadder was conceived as a period piece was because of his belief that any sitcom just set in modern times couldn't hope to follow up this one. Tropes Are Not Bad indeed!
Unintentional Period Piece:
- The show is timeless for the most part, except for occasional references to Prime Minister Harold Wilson and General Francisco Franco. Basil's obsession with social class also has a distinctively 1970s vibe, as the neoliberalism and dismantling of traditional working-class industries of the 1980s majorly changed the way the British class system worked.
- The telephones with dials on the reception desk, which the guests have to use, rather than a telephone in every bedroom as in more modern hotels.
- Briefly seen in "Communication Problems": the green bath in Mrs Richard's room. Nowadays, bathroom suites are almost always white: coloured suites were fashionable in the 1970s and earlier, and are now vintage.
- Just take one look at the wallpaper in the lobby as well as the front desk. Similarly, "The Germans" depicts a fire drill in which the bell is just a ringing bell (no flashing lights or sprinklers) as well as a burglar alarm.
- Sybil getting annoyed about Basil spending £40 on a newspaper ad in "A Touch of Class" seems strange until you consider that's something like £320 in today's money. Also Mrs Richards' declaration "I am not paying £7.20 per night plus VAT for a room without a bath".
- In "The Germans", one of the younger female guests spots a floral shirt and green pants.
- Basil reading Jaws at the height of its popularity. Now, the book has been totally eclipsed by the film released in the same year as the episode, 1975.
- In "The Germans" Basil keeps talking about how "we're all in this together now," as the UK had just joined the European Common Market.
- At least half of the episodes depict Basil and the Major complaining about British car industry strikes that they read about in the newspapers, which were an almost daily occurrence in 1970s Britain.
- In "The Psychiatrist", Johnson reads Melody Maker (a newspaper which folded in 2000) covering that hot new band The Pretenders.
Values Dissonance:
- The Major's conversation with Basil about explaining the difference between "wogs" and "niggers" to his ex-girlfriend. These slurs are seen as far more inappropriate than they were when the show first aired and would probably never fly on any modern show. Indeed, by 2013, the BBC started censoring the scene on re-airs, causing some backlash from purists. They're uncensored on the DVD and on Netflix though, fortunately. Even in-universe the fact he's so matter-of-fact about it is the entire joke, along with several other moments throughout the series that make fun of racist attitudes.
- Sybil comes across even worse to modern audiences due to the lack of work she actually does around the hotel. In The '70s, she wouldn't be expected to take much of a role in the business beyond helping out occasionally. To modern viewers, she comes across as incredibly lazy and irresponsible.
- In "A Touch of Class", both Sybil and Basil compare Manuel to a trained monkey. Unlike the examples above, which are based around mocking or subverting such attitudes and stereotypes, this one goes unchallenged and is genuinely rather uncomfortable.
- Raylene the pretty Australian guest in "The Psychiatrist" is remarkably blase about Basil groping her and sneaking into her room while she was asleep (granted, the first time he groped her it was pretty clear to her that he'd done it accidentally, but the second time....)
Vindicated by History: The first season had a mixed reception. There were some critics who did not find it inspired or funny at all, and fretted over how conventional it was compared to John Cleese's Monty Python work. Gradually it became a cult series and eventually the most popular, critically acclaimed and often repeated British sitcom of all time. In 2000, the British Film Institute TV 100 rated it as the greatest British TV programme (of any genre) of all time.

YMMV / Fawlty Towers

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