User Reviews

I'm quite partial to reviewing a show after I've watched it, when it comes to Fawlty Towers I feel I know them almost too well, where do I even begin?

The Germans is one of the most iconic pieces of British television, Fawlty Towers is totally iconic, it's ageless. It is utterly hilarious from start to finish, John Cleese puts in one of his best shifts as Basil Fawlty, it is amazingly madcap, it's so politically non correct, it could never be made now.

My German friends that have seen this and contrary to preconceived ideas they all love it as much as I do.

Thirty of the funniest moments of comedy ever made, I think my personal number 1 is The Kipper and The Corpse, but the Germans is still a perfect 10/10

Don't mention the War.

Although it isn't my personal favorite, "The Germans" is arguably the most 'classic' of the 12 episodes. It's the one everyone seems to know or remember. Sybil is laid up with an ingrown toenail (Basil: "I wish it was an ingrown tongue"), but meanwhile she has to make sure the hotel doesn't fall apart, demanding even more things from Basil and calling him every few minutes to make sure things are getting done. There are many hysterical moments to be had, including the whole moose-hanging sequence, replete with The Major thinking that the stuffed concoction can talk. The German guests obviously don't know what to make of it all, but we see Basil at the upper bound of his own insanity. The best part comes at the end when the African doctor shows up at the hotel - I won't give it away for anyone who hasn't seen it.

More and more over the last few years I find myself watching television shows that I either never tried or that it has been decades since I last watched properly. The thing I normally end up noting is that many shows seem to take some time to bed in. Curb Your Enthusiasm is certainly better after the first season, likewise Battlestar Galatica, Always Sunny and many other shows. It is a compliment to the quality then to come back to shows like Yes Minister and Fawlty Towers and find that they pretty much hit the mark from the very first episode of the very first season – indicating that they knew what they were about and were able to find their targets from the start.

With Fawlty Towers the "target" is the creation of Basil himself. Basil is a great comedy character because he is a character we can easily laugh at because he is quite unlikeable but not so unlikeable or victorious that we feel bad that he exists. Basil is irritable, smarmy, intolerant and exaggerated – in short, funny. Season 1 nails this from the very start with the episode that makes the class system the focus. In it of course we see Basil treat people differently based on his perceptions of them only for them to change again as he finds himself to be incorrect. As a device it is simple but it works and is repeated several times in different forms with the episode with the hotel inspectors and the one where everyone appears to be "at it". He is a tragic clown who is arrogant, unable to admit he is ever wrong and also self-destructive to a fault, with his frustrations building up inside him as he goes. In short he is about the last person you would want to have in a role that involves dealing with the public in any capacity, far less being at their beck and call.

Cleese delivers this perfectly from the very start and his exaggerated reactions really draw the laughs. He is well supported by a cast that don't get the credit they deserve for letting him play off them as he does. Booth in particular never gets enough of the credit that her joint writing credit should give her. OK she has much less time to shine but she acts with Cleese very well. Scales has more comedy material and her intolerant and bullying Sybil is a simple but effective character that feeds Basil more. Sachs' "Spanish" is an easy joke but his physical timing is great and again he is best when allowing Cleese to react around him. All of them are very funny in this first season and they are all part of the show not even having a "settling in" period of a minute.

Watching it in full rather than in clips shows (which is how most of us have probably seen it in the last few years) the effect is to be more impressive. It is a very well delivered show that has great physical humour built around a wonderful comedy character in the shape of Fawlty. That he is so well delivered by Cleese while the others help him do it just makes this stronger. I'll give it a minute but I'm looking forward to properly watching the second season for hopefully more of the same.

This is it . The best remembered episode of probably the greatest comedy show Britain has ever made so do I really need to comment on it ? I will say in the 21st Century everyone associated with the show claims this episode is meant to be ironic , that is the episode is making fun of people who have to bring up the second world war every time Germany is mentioned in any context . Hmmm if I remember correctly people claim the same about LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR and are we to seriously believe 20 million people tuned in to that show to hear a black character make equally racist remarks about his rabidly racist white neighbour ? I don't think so . Let's not forget even for people in Britain like myself who were born over twenty odd years after the war had ended it was impossible not to think of Germany as being a land of Stukas , Panzers and goosestepping soldiers

There is much more to this episode than German tourists and includes Basil putting up the stuffed head of a moose on the wall and a fire alarm . Of course the episode becomes ingrained in to television history once the Germans turns up and ... well you know what happens next . There's so much to remember and laugh at in this episode but my favourite line is when Basil is taking the tourists order and replies " I'll just get you hors d'oeuvres - hors doeuvres that must be obeyed at all times without question " . And so ends season one of FAWLTY TOWERS which will always win my vote as the greatest comedy Britain has ever made

I have watched Fawlty Towers numerous times and this is my favorite. It is pure slapstick fun and John Cleese is outstanding in it. Andrew Sachs (Manuel) & "The Major" are comedy gold. I roll with laughter every time I watch it. Is it politically correct? Absolutely not and thank god!

This is what I call the funniest episode of Fawlty Towers by far. I mean it truly is classic and an unexpectable masterpiece!!! I've never heard nobody say that this episode is such a flop! To me they say it a lot of times but to me this is the very best of Fawlty Towers ever. When I watched this episode i began to totally love Fawlty Towers as my completely favorite show on earth!! Doctor Who gets Dethroned as once my favorite show on earth but now Fawlty Towers leads it!! I totally love Ocarina Of Time game the Zelda Game for Gamecube and 64 they are so cool!!! But this is a series that i'll never forget!!! GO FAWTY TOWERS (TITTIES)HAHA:>

Cybil is nagging Basil from her hospital bed as he presides over a series of disasters..

This episode is crammed with humour from start to finish. So much so it takes repeat viewings to catch it all. There are no weak moments or let ups as the punchlines fly at you from every angle.

Cybil in hospital with Basil hoping she suffers. The debacle of the moose head. The shambolic fire drill. Basil in hospital with an oversized head bandage. The classic scene with the Germans. It all works fantastically well.

The episode has been accused of racism, but it's not. The Major is being ridiculed as a bigoted old relic of the upper classes and Basil is not far off certifiably mad in his treatment of the Germans.

A brilliant half an hour of BBC comedy and an incredible performance from John Cleese.

I like the bit where the moose fell on his head and caused him to act daft

I've noticed that the top rated episode of many a series - comedy, drama, horror, science fiction - often appear to owe their positions to featuring a much loved actor or including a scene that became famous. This can count for more than the quality of the script. Sorry, but I do think The Germans is the weakest one, it's popularity probably due to Basil goose stepping in front of his German guests.

Fawlty Towers is by a country mile my favourite comedy series, and my lack of enthusiasm for this episode has nothing to do with political correctness. Indeed, Basil's most hilarious trait is rudeness to guests, and there is no reason why Germans (or Krauts as Major Gowen would say) should be exempt. Needless to say it has some good laughs. However in most episodes (for my money The Psychiatrist is the best) different strands and characters intertwine to make a coherent whole. The plot of The Germans is essentially four largely unrelated sketches cobbled together: Sybil's toenail operation, the fire alarm drill, Basil's head injury (would he have been noticeably less manic without it?) and the offended Germans.

Nothing is more guaranteed to provoke lots of not helpful votes than criticism, even if nuanced, of a popular film or episode. C'est la vie, as the Frogs say.

I write this at a time where this episode is being removed from some stations due to the nature of the comedy.

Now, I would never say I was a massive fan of 'Fawlty Towers', I appreciate it despite finding John Cleese quite annoying BUT it is very much a piece of its time, comedy was different then, and it's certainly deserving of praise as an example of a high quality sitcom episode.

In the days before video was widely available, one relied on occasional repeats, but mainly on many conversations with one's friends discussing and reminiscing about great TV. The Fawlty Towers episode where the Germans visit was an instant classic - I remember as a boy at the first broadcast being in helpless hysterics. Thereafter one relied on memory - "do you remember the one with the Germans?"

Only with the advent of video and DVD technology could we properly appreciate that not just one, but three classic Fawlty Towers sequences are crammed into these 30 minutes. This is the episode that also contains the moose, and the fire drill - each of which would have supported a perfectly good half-hour sitcom in its own right. But these were not three separate shows, as imperfect memory suggested; they were woven together to create a perfect piece of comedy, a fugue of chaos as Basil struggles to cope with Sybil's absence (and attempts to micromanage from her hospital bed). Several deathless scenes - Basil's sympathising with Sybil's ingrown toenail, the Major's conversation with the moose, Basil's frustration with the guests assembled in the foyer for the fire drill, and then of course the beautifully timed and choreographed dinner with the Germans, with its sublime climax - will remain absolute classics.

This is the episode most people remember. And it is certainly one of the funniest in the series. Sybil is in the hospital for an operation, leaving Basil in charge of the hotel. Disaster strikes, of course, in the form of a moose's head falling on Basil. The next morning, the hotel is to conduct a routine fire drill, when an actual fire breaks out in the kitchen. Refusing to believe there is really a fire, Basil locks Manuel in the burning room. When he won't stop screaming and pounding on the door, Basil finally unlocks it and sees the blaze. After evacuating the guests for a second time, Basil goes for the fire extinguisher, which promptly explodes in his face. That lands him in the hospital with a concussion. Meanwhile, back at the hotel with Polly now at the helm, things are running very smoothly. That is until Basil unexpectedly shows up after bolting from the hospital. When he begins to interact with the German guests who have arrived, things really start to get funny, as he can't stop "mentioning the war." If you're looking for non-stop laughs, this episode certainly delivers!

Basil suffers from concussion when an ornamental moose head falls on him. When he gets home from hospital, still suffering from the effects of his accident, he cannot help but insult his latest guests, a group of Germans.

Even though The Germans features some of the most frequently quoted Fawlty Towers dialogue ("Don't mention the war!"), I do feel that it is a rather uneven episode: the first act features some great gags involving the stuffed moose head (love the Major's conversation with the moose!), but it also suffers from a drawn out and not very funny scene about a fire drill.

Thankfully, the second act—the part with the Germans—is all-out hilarious, with John Cleese giving us some of his greatest comedy ever, making numerous references to the war ("So that's two egg mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Herman Goering and four Colditz salads"), and performing a brilliantly funny walk as he does his Hitler impersonation.