Java_Joe Fawlty Towers was the brainchild of former Monty Python member John Cleese. The Pythons were staying at a small hotel run by a man named Sinclair. He was, as John Cleese put it, "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever seen". The kind of man that loved the hotel business and would have been happy had none of the guests been there. There's stories of him berating Terry Gilliam for how he cut up his meat. And taking Eric Idle's briefcase, which he had mistakenly left behind, and threw it into the pool because there might have been a bomb in there. Needless to say the other Pythons left but John Cleese stayed to watch him and he based his character of Basil Fawlty on him.Basil Fawlty has been described as a lot of things. A wonderful human being is not one of them. He's rude, sarcastic and feels he's somehow better the everybody else around him. A typical episode would have him starting off well, if a little miffed, and have him slowly explode as the episode went on. They only made 12 episodes and John Cleese didn't want to go further than that because he was afraid the character would get too stale. And so we're left with 12 episodes of what is considered to be one of the funniest sitcoms of all time. Rounding out the cast was Cleese's then wife Connie Booth who helped him pen the episodes. By the second season they had divorced which was a shame but they were at least professional about working together. Prunella Scales played his wife Sybil who preferred talking on the phone than dealing with the hotel and finally there was Andrew Sachs as Manuel, the non-English speaking waiter from Barcelona. While some episodes are of course weaker than others, the rest of them more than make up for it. John Cleese's bit when dealing with the German tourists remains one of the funniest scenes in television history.If you have never seen this you owe it to yourself to do. And if you are familiar, then give it a watch again. You know you want to.

chinesexiaomin John Cleese is marvellous and is cute in this show

pietclausen I have never reviewed a film or series which I consider to be perfect. Fawlty Towers is another matter.My criteria for excellence is simple: The object watched must offer great value, be most enjoyable, good acting and clever in presentation. Fawlty Towers is a comedy series, but what is comedy? In my view it is not a collection of slapstick jokes, clichés, bad-mouthing, etc. Good comedy covers a wide spectrum of clever, but understandable subtle humor in speech and place, creating funny situations. This is happening in Fawlty Towers. You can watch an episode over and over again and still come up with something in the background, or what someone said, you had missed previously.Over the years I have enjoyed watching this series again and again and I still find some detail I had missed before. That is comedy par excellence and very funny! I have seen perfection and this series gets a true rating of 10 out of 10, the first I have ever given for any film or series.

Kingslaay Fawlty Towers is one of the greatest TV comedies of all time. In fact it is timeless, it never gets old. John Cleese is brilliant as a quarrelsome owner who constantly fights with his guests. His superb acting is equally matched by his co-stars who hit it out of the park. This show is one for the ages with memorable episodes and eccentricity you wouldn't believe. The bar has been set very high for TV comedies and very few shows have met or even exceeded the caliber of Fawlty Towers.Highly recommended.