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The Complete Fawlty Towers: The Remastered Collection of the Best British Comedy Ever



He is intimidated by his wife Sybil Fawlty. He yearns to stand up to her, but his plans frequently conflict with her demands. She is often verbally abusive (describing him as "an ageing, brilliantined stick insect") but although he towers over her, he often finds himself on the receiving end of her temper, verbally and physically (as in "The Builders").




The Complete Fawlty Towers




The second series was transmitted three-and-a-half years later, with the first episode being broadcast on 19 February 1979. Due to an industrial dispute at the BBC, which resulted in a strike, the final episode was not completed until well after the others, being finally shown as a one-off instalment on 25 October 1979. The cancelled episode on 19 March was replaced with a repeat of "Gourmet Night" from series 1. In the second series the anagrams were created by Ian McClane, Bob Spier's assistant floor manager.


Three attempted remakes of Fawlty Towers were started for the American market, with two making it into production. The first, Chateau Snavely starring Harvey Korman and Betty White, was produced by ABC for a pilot in 1978, but the transfer from coastal hotel to highway motel proved too much and the series never was produced. The second, also by ABC, was Amanda's, starring Bea Arthur, notable for switching the sexes of its Basil and Sybil equivalents. It also failed to pick up a major audience and was dropped after ten episodes had been aired, although 13 episodes were shot.[62] A third remake, called Payne (produced by and starring John Larroquette), was produced in 1999, but was cancelled shortly after. Nine episodes were produced of which eight aired on American television (though the complete run was broadcast overseas). A German pilot based on the sitcom was made in 2001, named Zum letzten Kliff (To the last cliff), but further episodes were not made after its first series.


The complete and unexpurgated scripts of one of the most celebrated comedy series ever. Published in its entirety for the first time and illustrated, "The Complete Fawlty Towers" will appeal to the millions of fans who have suffered through endless PBS fundraisers waiting for the next episode--and anyone who has survived a package holiday tour. Fawlty Towers is the hotel of every traveler's nightmare. Basil Fawlty--ill-tempered, henpecked, and conniving--tries in vain to be master of his house under the disapproving and ever-watchful eye of his wife, Sybil. The hotel offers service by Manuel, the incompetent Spanish waiter whose feeble grasp of English makes for hilarious misunderstandings, and Polly, the unflappable chambermaid who is Fawlty Towers' only sane employee. Meals are scorched in the kitchen while adulterers consort upstairs and chaos reigns all around. For countless fans, Fawlty Towers is the best-loved bad hotel in the world, and with publication of "The Complete Fawlty Towers" they will all have a chance to relive its outrageous awfulness.


The Complete Fawlty Towers is a four VHS boxset in the UK by BBC Video on 1st October 1984, 5th October 1992 and 12th October 1998. It contains the complete two series of the 1975-1979 hotel-themed comedy programme "Fawlty Towers" which is written by John Cleese and Connie Booth and which stars John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Andrew Sachs and Connie Booth on four video cassettes with all twelve episodes of the entire show in three episodes on each videotape and the 1998 versions of these videos feature an exclusive interview with John Cleese.


When Fawlty Towers, that infamous Torquay hotel, opened for business in 1975, comedy took on a whole new madcap meaning. Those infamous catchphrases resounded on every street and so one could mention waiters or Barcelona in the same sentence without sniggering. 17 years later, the comedy is as fresh as ever, so book in once more with the complete collection of five star Fawlty Towers in this special boxset, available only at W. H. Smith. And whatever you do ... don't mention the war ...


When Fawlty Towers, that infamous Torquay hotel, opened for business in 1975, comedy took on a whole new madcap meaning. Those infamous catchphrases resounded on every street and so one could mention waiters or Barcelona in the same sentence without sniggering. 17 years later, the comedy is as fresh as ever, so book in once more with the complete collection of five star Fawlty Towers in this special set. And whatever you do...don't mention the war...


Welcome to the most celebrated hotel in television history. An established run by a guest-hating owner and his dragon-like wife with the hindrance of a confused Spanish waiter. With resident guests as mad as hatters, visitors guranteed to infuriate and a maid desperate to find sainty in the situation, the resulting farce produces more laugh per minute than was thought possible in a situation comedy. This complete edition features memorable episodes from both remarkable series, such as The Kipper and the Corpse, Basil the Rat, The Germans and The Psychiatrist. Including special interview footage with John Cleese himself, The Complete Fawlty Towers reveals the secrets and antics behind the creation of one of the funniest British comedies ever shown.


John Cleese, he of the Monty Python troupe, plays Basil Fawlty, the high-strung, vindictive and emotionally repressed owner of a small hotel in the British seaside town of Torquay. Henpecked to within an inch of his life by his passive-aggressive wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), Basil takes most of his frustrations out on either the guests or his hapless Spanish bellboy Manuel (Andrew Sachs). Meanwhile, a few long-term eccentric guests putter about while the hotel maid Polly (Booth) attempts to be a calming force amidst a variety of ingenious comedic premises-often involving mistaken identity and miscommunication--that keep threatening to upend everything. Devotees of the show-- which slowly built a huge following in reruns after its 1975 premiere and waited four more years to deliver a second six-episode season--will no doubt point to any number of favorite programs. Each one depicts Fawlty being pushed toward ever more embarrassing actions or revelations, most of which involve a build in his frustration that often culminates in half-mad tirades and Cleese's signature physicality, his gangly body twisting and stiffening with rage. Two tried and true fan favorites happen to be the season-enders of both runs of the show. "The Germans," which closes season one, involves Basil getting a bump on the head and making horrifyingly inappropriate remarks about World War II to some visiting Germans, complete with Nazi goose stepping. "Basil The Rat," which concluded the series, finds Manuel's pet rat (which he insists is a hamster) getting loose in the hotel during a health inspection. This episode was Cleese's favorite because, as he puts it in the commentary track, the confusion and frenzy was at an all-time high.


Through the ages of Britain, from the 15th century to the 21st, Edmund Blackadder has meddled his way along the bloodlines, aided by his servant and sidekick, Baldrick, and hindered by an assortment of dimwitted aristocrats. Now the complete history of Blackadder is collected together, including the four TV series: The Black Adder, Blackadder II, Blackadder the Third and Blackadder Goes Forth.


The dapper, mustache-twirling little Belgian with the egg-shaped head and curious mannerisms has solved some of the most puzzling crimes of the century - and, in his own humble opinion, is "probably the greatest detective in the world". In this complete collection of more than 50 stories, ranging from short tales to novellas, Poirot faces violent murders, poisonings, kidnappings, and thefts - all solved with his characteristic panache. Only Agatha Christie could have devised cases worthy of Hercule Poirot's skill and "little gray cells".


The complete BBC Radio collection bringing together two full-cast dramatisations of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently novels. In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Dirk Gently has an unshakable belief in the interconnectedness of all things, but his Holistic Detective Agency mainly succeeds in tracking down missing cats for old ladies. Then Dirk stumbles upon an old friend behaving bizarrely - and he's drawn into a four-billion-year-old mystery that must be solved if the human race is to avoid immediate extinction....


Welcome to Fawlty Towers, the best loved bad hotel in the world, and to "the definitive volume of sit-com perfection. Required reading. "-Punch. What did Basil Fawlty fail to avoid mentioning? Why did Sybil keep snagging her cardies? Where was Polly on the night of the great wedding anniversary disaster? And what is the Spanish word for "donkey"?The answer to all these questions can be found in this, the complete and unexpurgated scripts of Fawlty Towers the most celebrated "Brit-com" of all time, and the show was voted the top UK television series ever by the British Film Institute. The snobbish, manic Basil...his over-coiffeured, domineering wife Sybil...the hopeless but ever-hopeful waiter Manuel...the calm and capable Polly...and of course the steady stream of abused guestsall live again in the pages of The Complete Fawlty Towers. Gahan Wilson in the New York Times has called John Cleese "arguably one of the funniest people now living. " And as one British periodical ( Literary Review ) put it, the book is "superbly well written. If you're on a bus and can't see Basil Fawlty thrashing his car with a large branch, it is some compensation to read it happening." Or as one anonymous fan put it on-line: "Yes, it's all here, all the comedy, the frustration, the dead body, even the rat. " 2ff7e9595c


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