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[[File:FawltyTowers.jpg|frame]]
{{quote|"''Please allow me to introduce myself. I am the owner of Fawlty Towers. And I would like to welcome [[World War
{{quote|''"[[
A [[
{{quote|"NO!, No, I won't have that! There's a place in Eastbourne..."|The Major}}
One of the all-time classic TV shows, it benefited greatly from its cheerful willingness to create horrible human beings and let them act according to their nature at all times: Basil doesn't get a single [[Pet the Dog]] moment, ever. The series was intelligent, effervescent and daring, and the only complaint one can make is that there wasn't enough of it ([[British Brevity|only 12 episodes]] were [[Too Good to Last|
In 2000, the British Film Institute declared it the best British television programme ever made. A few years ago, it was voted best UK sitcom ever in a poll, and [[J. Michael Straczynski]] said in a book on screenwriting that if a writer watches ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'' and ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'', they will have had the best possible grounding in how to write comedy.
In 1999, [[CBS]] attempted to remake ''[[Fawlty Towers]]'' as a John Laroquette vehicle entitled ''Payne'' (after Laroquette's character, "Royal Payne"). It lasted even fewer episodes than the original (which lasted for
Came fifth in ''[[Britain's
{{tropenamer}}
{{tropelist}}
* [[Accidental Pervert]]: Basil Fawlty became this in the episode "The Psychiatrist", in which his efforts to prove that one of his guests broke the rules by sneaking his girlfriend into a room lead him into one [[Not What It Looks Like]] after another.
* [[All Just a Dream]]: subverted: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UwJHE282d8 "No, it's not a dream; we're stuck with it!"]
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* [[Annoying Laugh]]: Basil compares Sybil's laugh to "somebody machine-gunning a seal".
* [[Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other]]: Subverted in "Communication Problems":
{{quote|
'''Sybil:''' ''(pully her hand away)'' Yes, but not at the same time, Basil.
'''Basil:''' That's true. That was a warning, I guess. Should have spotted that, shouldn't I? }}
* [[Based
** In particular, Basil's treatment of his US guests in "Waldorf Salad" is based on Sinclair's treatment of Terry Gilliam. The man supposedly attacked Gilliam's accent and claimed his table manners were too American.
** He also apparently threw a timetable at a guest who asked about a bus, and tossed Eric Idle's suitcase over a wall because he thought it contained a bomb (actually an alarm clock).
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* [[Big "What?"]]: In "Gourmet Nights".
* [[Blatant Lies]]: Basil throws these around like confetti in the vain hope that some of them will stick. One of the best was in ''Waldorf Salad'', wherein he tries to charm the attractive lady at the desk while pointing out the obnoxious American tourist as typical of the "rubbish" they usually get. When the lady introduces the American as her husband, Basil acts like he was talking about a random piece of paper on his desk the whole time.
* [[Bratty Half
* [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick]]: The hotel's health and safety report is fairly squick all the way through, but the last item in the [[Long List]] is definitely the punchline:
{{quote|
'''Basil''': "Otherwise okay?" }}
* [[Brick Joke]]: In "The Builders", after Basil discovers the aftermath of O'Reilly's first botched job on the hotel lobby, he orders him to come straight back to the hotel to put his work right otherwise he will "insert [[Makes Sense in Context|a large garden gnome]]" in him. Later, after O'Reilly's attempt at fixing it is found to have left the hotel in imminent danger of structural failure, Basil is seen purposefully walking out the front door carrying said garden gnome.
* [[British Brevity]]: Twelve episodes. Which, of course, makes its continued popularity since 1975 all the more impressive.
* [[Brutal Honesty]]: Basil in "The Germans" due to his concussion:
{{quote|
'''Sybil:''' Basil?
'''Nurse:''' I'll... I'll get the doctor.
'''Basil:''' You need a plastic surgeon, dear, not a doctor. }}
* [[Bumbling Sidekick]]: Manuel.
* [[Busman's Holiday]]: "The Waldorf Salad" ends with Basil booking into his own hotel.
* [[Can't Get Away
* [[Carrying a Cake]]
* [[Catch Phrase]]:
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** "Oh, I knoooooow, I knooooooow."
*** [[Word of God|John Cleese said]] that they had little intention of creating catch phrases (Manuel says "¿''Qué''?" a lot, for instance, because... well, how could that not be the case?), though they did eventually realize that the "He's from Barcelona" line almost got funnier each time they put it in.
* [[Censorship
* [[Characterization Marches On]]: In the first episode The Major wasn't nearly the [[Cloudcuckoolander]] he became later in the series. Only from the second episode onwards--in which, for instance, upon hearing that "the dining room door seems to have disappeared" he takes the statement literally and reassures Basil that it will surely turn up somewhere, because after all "these things happen, you know"--does his status as a member of the trope really begin to emerge. By the end of the first season he has ''really'' wandered off into his own little world, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|thinking that the moose head is talking to him, and therefore must have been made in Japan]].
** There's a slight, but noticeable change in most of the characters in series 2. Basil becomes less obsessed with moving his hotel up a social status and more concerned with just managing the day-to-day running, Polly stands up for herself more and Manuel has more of a grasp of English (but still gets hopelessly confused by most situations).
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* [[Crying Wolf]]: Basil works so hard to set up a fire drill and gets into a spat about it (you have to see the whole conversation to understand), where Manuel is supposed to yell "Fire!" and then they all calmly walk out. Then Manuel screws it all up by starting not one, but two ''real'' fires in the kitchen. [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Basil then calmly ushers Manuel back into the burning kitchen as he tries to explain that it's just a drill]].
** Basil's compulsive lying also leads to a huge problem in both "The Anniversary" and especially "The Psychiatrist", wherein he actually is in rare situations involving maintaining a farcical-sounding position that happens to be the exact truth.
* [[Cut His Heart Out
** "No, no, I don't want to debate. If you're not over here in twenty minutes with my door, I shall come over there and insert a large garden gnome in you. Good day."
*** And at the end of the episode he walks off to do just that.
* [[Dead
* [[Disaster Dominoes]]: Happens just about every episode, even more than the [[Fawlty Towers Plot]].
* [[Drop What You Are Doing]]: In ''Communication Problems'', when The Major lets slip to Sybil that Basil has been betting on horse races behind her back, Basil drops the £75 antique vase he was holding.
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** In "The Kipper and the Corpse", Miss Tibbs becames hysterical when she sees the titular dead body. Basil tells Polly to slap her; she does, but Miss Tibbs faints instead of recovering.
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]:
{{quote|
'''Basil''': ...you'll have to sew them back on first. }}
** Another incidence happens during "The Gourmet", where the new chef Kurt is in love with Manuel. At first, Basil assumes the chef must be French. When corrected that Kurt is in fact Greek he responds "Well that's even worse. I mean, they invented it." Incase you didn't get it, "it" is "sodomy", also known as "Greek sex" or "the Greek way".
* [[Godwin's Law]]: This trope is older than the Internet: "[[Hypocritical Humor|You ponce in here expecting to be hand-waited on hand and foot, well I'm trying to run a hotel here]]! Have you any idea of how much there is to do?! Do you ever think of that?! No, of course not: you're too busy sticking your noses into every corner, poking about for things to complain about! [[Insane Troll Logic|Well, let me tell you something: this is ''exactly'' how Nazi Germany started!"]]
** RAUS! RAUS!
{{quote|
* [[Hotel Hellion]]: The kid who changes the sign.
** Also the kid who complains that his chips are the wrong shape.
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** Also the short woman in "Gourmet Night" and her husband the Colonel, who has a prominent facial tic, which makes things awkward when Basil introduces him to Mr. and Mrs. Twitchen.
* [[Jerkass]]: Mrs. Richards, Basil and Sybil.
* [[Last
* [[Metaphorgotten]]: "My dear woman, a blow like that to the head... is worth two in the bush."
** A rather brilliant case of [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]].
* [[Mistaken for Gay]]: Three times in one episode (The Wedding Party).
* [[My Car Hates Me]]: The very pinnacle of this trope.
{{quote|
* [[No Accounting for Taste]]: Basil and Sybil, frequently bordering on [[The Masochism Tango]].
** On the DVD, Prunella Scales recalls that after reading the pilot script, she immediately asked Cleese why Basil and Sybil got married in the first place. In "Basil the Rat", Sybil says that none of her friends understand how did they ever get together. "Black magic," my mother says.
* [[No Fame, No Wealth, No Service]]: Basil is like this. In accordance with sitcom rules, trying to attract a better class of clientèle never works for him. In fact, even the classist bias behind it backfires for him, allowing him to be {{spoiler|taken in by a con artist}}.
* [[Not-So-Imaginary Friend]]
* [[Not What It Looks Like]]: In "The Wedding Party", in which Basil is caught once with a female guest and twice with Manuel; Manuel was drunk the first time and had accidentally knocked him over, and Basil mistakes him for a burglar the second time. Meanwhile, Basil accidentally walks in on two of the wedding guests embracing (they're related), and discovers Polly hurrying out of the lovers' room after hearing some weird noises (Polly was trying on one of the girl's dresses; the girl was giving her boyfriend a massage).
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* [[Refuge in Audacity]]
* [[Running Gag]]: In 'A Touch of Class':
{{quote|
* [[Sarcastic Confession]]:
{{quote|
"Yes, well, one of the guests has just died!"
"You are wicked!" }}
* [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]: Mr. Hutchinson in "The Hotel Inspectors":
{{quote|
'''Basil''': Are you all right? }}
* [[Sexless Marriage]]: The one between Basil and Sybil, probably. They sleep in separate beds, and once, when he kisses her on the cheek (to throw her off), she tells him not to. In "The Psychiatrist", Basil claims that they [[Unusual Euphemism|"go for a walk"]] together two or three times per week, but he's probably lying.
** In an interview Cleese said that he reckons the last time Basil and Sybil had sex was somewhere around the time of the Second Punic War.
* [[Shout
* [[Sidetracked
* [[A Simple Plan]]
* [[
* [[Sleeping Single]]: Basil and Sybil, probably because they can't stand each other.
* [[Thanks for
* [[The European Carry All]]: In "Basil the Rat", where Manuel buys a rat from a pet shop under the premise that it is "a Siberian hamster."
* [[This Is Sparta]]: In "Communication Problems"
{{quote|
'''Basil:''' ''(Rather annoyed, having just seen £75 slip through his fingers)'' '''It's not! TEN POUNDS SHORT! Oh, My God! Don't panic! We'll have a whip 'round!'''
''Starts shaking out the charity collection tin'' }}
* [[Trans
** ''[[Newhart]]'' was also noted as having some similarities, but it's different enough to just be a coincidence.
* [[Truth in Television]]: John Cleese said that he based the idea of the character of Manuel on his own experience in restaurants where the owners are too cheap to hire anyone but desperate immigrants who don't speak one single ''word'' of English, "so that the chances of you getting what you've ordered are literally about one in six".
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* [[Unsatisfiable Customer]]: Ohh yeah.
* [[Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist]]: Basil.
* [[Values Dissonance]]: Ricky Gervais has noted that Basil Fawlty's obsession with climbing the social ladder was much more important in the 1970s than when ''[[The Office]]'' was made - when David Brent's preoccupation was becoming a celebrity.
* [[Visible Boom Mic]]: "The Psychiatrist"▼
* [[Vomit Discretion Shot]]. In the episode "Gourmet Night".
* [[We Named the Monkey "Jack"]]: Manuel names his pet rat Basil.▼
* [[Who's
{{quote|
'''Manuel''': "¿''Qué''?"<br />▼
'''
'''
'''
'''
'''
'''
'''Mrs. Richards''': C. K. Watt?? Who ''is'' C.K. Watt? Is he the manager?
'''Manuel''': Ah! Manager! Mr. Fawlty!
'''
'''Mrs. Richards''': You silly little man, what are you talking about?! (to Polly) [This man is telling me] the manager is a Mr. C. K. Watt, age forty.
▲'''Manuel''': No, no, ''Fawlty''.<br />
'''Manuel''': No, no, ''Fawlty''.
'''Mrs. Richards''': Faulty? Why? What's wrong with him?
'''Polly''': It's all right, Mrs. Richards, he's from Barcelona.
'''Mrs. Richards''': The manager's from Barcelona? }}
* [[
▲* [[Visible Boom Mic]]: "The Psychiatrist"
▲* [[We Named the Monkey Jack]]: Manuel names his pet rat Basil.
▲* [[Worlds Shortest Book]]: Johnson in "The Psychiatrist," says the guidebook about interesting things in Torquay must be "one of the world's shortest books," like "The Wit of Margaret Thatcher" or "Great English Lovers."
* [[You Get What You Pay For]]:
** Basil hired Manuel because he's cheap.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:TV Series]]
[[Category:Live-Action TV of the 1970s]]
[[Category:British Series]]
[[Category:Work Com]]
▲[[Category:The Seventies]]
[[Category:Britcom]]
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