"You started it.... You invaded Poland!" - BBC censors Fawlty Towers

I took this photograph about 1986.... just before it was demolished or caught fire, don't now remember which?
This was somewhere in Hampshire/Berkshire. Sadly the only one I've got.

 

I think that having a sense of humour by pass is a world wide phenomenon - have you ever tried making an ironic comment on a London Tube train ?

Actually did anyone else think the "German" episode was one of the worst of 12, And I seem to remember, even at the age of 12/13, I thought that the waiter caricature was particularly ridiculous,and (in my view) not very funny.

The gourmet one was hilarious, I seem to remember. Giving his car a "thrashing" had our family rolling around the floor.

 

Wooburn near Bourne End, I think. Was a night club..

 

Actually did anyone else think the "German" episode was one of the worst of 12,

Heretic!

I mutter, "I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it" almost every day for various situations that occur at work.

 

Giving his car a "thrashing" had our family rolling around the floor.

That's because it was a BMC 1100 and deserved it !

 

Heretic!

I mutter, "I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it" almost every day for various situations that occur at work.

I'm RC if that helps me in avoiding me being burnt at the stake..i think i only watched it once when it was first on..

I think a "damn good thrashing" was the phrase Basil thrashes his car - Fawlty Towers - BBC - YouTube

( skip the adverts..)

 

Does anyone who knows anything about Cleese really suppose that he was endorsing racism?

 

... (we won't talk about the Spanish ancestry) ...

And indeed you shouldn't, that's abhorrent (says the PC Pork & Beans guy)

 

The Guardian... The Guardian .... Standing up for the original? <Thud> (That's me falling off my chair in surprise). Right, get ready for a statement from Liberty attacking the BBC. Or the Daily Mail (well, they'll just attack the BBC anyway!).

By the by... Basil is supposed to have fought in Korea... is it implied with whom? (Not the North Koreans, I assume... This... 38th Parallel. This smack on head...You're a waste..of...space...)

 

I used to love reading the scripts........Flowery twats indeed.

The Complete "Fawlty Towers": Amazon.co.uk: John Cleese, Connie Booth: Books

 

I haven't posted on the thread but I'm up for Alan's challenge. Come on chaps, insult me and see if I take offence. It's true that I'm more or less white (we won't talk about the Spanish ancestry) but I'm a working class, bald, grumpy old git who the Turks at work refer to as 'That f*cking Englishman' and I really don't care.:p

Societies that can't banter and p*ss-take are the ones that I worry about.
I'm a Kiwi, Rich (i.e., New Zealander), so out here we'd probably call you a Pom.

If we liked you we'd probably call you a Pommie Bastard.

If we disliked you we'd call you a Pommie Prick, or if we really had it in for you we'd call you a Whingeing Pom.

- Paul

 

I'm a Kiwi, Rich (i.e., New Zealander), so out here we'd probably call you a Pom.

If we liked you we'd probably call you a Pommie Bastard.

If we disliked you we'd call you a Pommie Prick, or if we really had it in for you we'd call you a Whingeing Pom.

- Paul

Best say nothing, then. :p

 

BORN BRITISH, WELSH BY THE GRACE OF GEOGRAPHY!

How racist can you get!!! Should we ban wtid45? That is just about how ridiculous this country has become. No intelligent person would seriously call wtid45 a racist on the strength of this signature line .... and anyone creating a great fuss over the likes of Fawlty Towers, has left it a bit late don't you think?

PS wtid45 has contributed an awful lot of good stuff to this forum, so I won't be signing any petitions or letters of censure!

 

I'm a Kiwi, Rich (i.e., New Zealander), so out here we'd probably call you a Pom.

If we liked you we'd probably call you a Pommie Bastard.

If we disliked you we'd call you a Pommie Prick, or if we really had it in for you we'd call you a Whingeing Pom.

- Paul

We don't differentiate Kiwi's, we just call you all sheep sh***ers!

All in jest...

Best,

Steve.

 

Politics next eh!

The People's Front - YouTube

 

It has joined the choir invisible.

One of the things that American fans LIKED about Cleese and the Pythons was their lack of any kind of prudishness. I suppose British people took that for granted about their television, but it was a delightful surprise to us. And now Cleese is allowing his work to be censored? In the 70's, he would have had a screaming radical fit if anyone had tried that, and quite rightly. What has happened to him since, and to the rest of us?

He got VERY rich. I think the rest of us are pretty much the same.

 

He got VERY rich. I think the rest of us are pretty much the same.
You need to be very rich to support three ex-wives and one current one!

 

Some confusion here, apparently; the excised portion of the episode has nothing to do with the main plot line about the German guests or the Second World War (which makes me wonder why this thread is here at all, incidentally), but involves a quite separate scene in which a well-known racial pejorative is used, and which I expect seemed a lot, lot funnier in 1975 than it does now.

No doubt the usual whingeing about Political Correctness Gone Mad will now break out. I wonder whether posters would maintain the same position if the pejorative in question was aimed at them, and not at others.


The "Colonel/Major" (cant remember his rank!)
spoke about a Nigger and a Wog....

Should this view be removed from the record?

In the 1970's many people who were young in the '30s spoke
of people of colour in this way, especially if they had an Army
life behind them

Is it offensive?

Only if you judge it by TODAY

back THEN, it was an expressed view

Should it be edited, purely to comfort today's namby-pamby's?!
Sounds a lot like re-writing history - something the BBC is best at!

I think it is better used as an example of how far we have ADVANCED
if we show where we WERE back in the day (of "love thy neighbour")

Someone at the (socialist) BBC is doing Winston Smith's (fascist) job
without even being ordered/asked to do it!! They just think it's BEST
for US to view history this way...and it's better if we dont question it

 

You need to be very rich to support three ex-wives and one current one!

And exceptionally horny!