Critic's Corner Weekend May 29, 2009
That has always been true; think of The Honeymoonersor Fawlty Towers. And it's even more true now in this age of downloads and DVDs. (USA Today -- Life)
Cleese reveals Fawlty pay packet May 7, 2009
The cast of Fawlty Towers from left, Connie Booth, John Cleese, Prunella Scales and Andrew Sachs are to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the show with a TV documentary "Fawlty Towers: Re-opened" ... Monty Python legend John Cleese has revealed how he was paid only $12,000 for the first series of Fawlty Towers ... Cleese, who started in Monty Python's Flying Circus and went via Fawlty Towers to success on the big screen including A Fish Called Wanda, recalled how, for the first series of Fawlty... (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
UK comedy picked for Royal gala May 7, 2009
Fawlty Towers re-opens after 30 years. Carmakers Porsche and VW to merge. (BBC News -- Entertainment)
Cleese rules out return of Fawlty May 7, 2009
The Fawlty Towers cast will never make another episode because they are "too old and tired", John Cleese has said ... The reunited cast of Fawlty Towers on the show's success ... " Sachs, 79, said that, when recording Fawlty Towers, "we only had one go with the audience". Basil and Sybil Fawlty are considered one of the great TV couples "Regularly I'd come in and think, 'oh, let's do it again one time' and I often feel when I watch it, which isn't often, I'm usually shaking my head. (BBC News -- Entertainment)
Blazing Saddles actor dies at 81 May 7, 2009
Page last updated at 12:06 GMT, Friday, 30 May 2008 13:06 UK. Harvey Korman is survived by his wife and four children. (BBC News -- Entertainment)
Virgin pilots 200Mbps broadband May 7, 2009
Fawlty Towers re-opens after 30 years. Great White survivor on attack. (BBC News -- Technology)
Actress Bea Arthur, Star of TV's Golden Girls, Dies at 86 Apr 28, 2009
In 1983, Arthur attempted another series, "Amanda's," an Americanized version of John Cleese's hilarious "Fawlty Towers." She was cast as owner of a small seaside hotel with a staff of eccentrics. It lasted a mere nine episodes. (Fox News)
A golden girl takes her leave Apr 28, 2009
After Maude, she returned to TV briefly in 1983 for Amanda's, the failed US spin-off of Fawlty Towers. But two years later she returned in triumph as Dorothy, the divorcee in The Golden Girls, which became an international hit. (Sydney Morning Herald -- World)
Bea Arthur: A one-of-a-kind TV star, and so much more Apr 28, 2009
There's a seven-year gap between the end of Maude and the 1985 launch of Girls (and a failed Americanized version of Fawlty Towers in between). But as Arthur herself often admitted, Maude Findlay and Dorothy Zbornak had much in common and how could they not. (USA Today -- Life)
Brand's charm offensive Apr 20, 2009
Brand played close to type in Forgetting Sarah Marshall but it was his outrageous memoir about his addictions to heroin and sex, My Booky Wook, that showed there was more to him than the infamous prank calls to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs that led to him resigning from his BBC radio show. On camera, Brand is often very funny but he can seem a bit of a hyperactive twerp. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
BBC fined for Russell Brand prank calls Apr 6, 2009
The calls during Brand's radio program to Sachs - best known for playing Spanish waiter Manuel in the 1970s program, Fawlty Towers - drew thousands of complaints. Brand resigned after the incident, and Ross, who has his own television program on the BBC, was suspended without pay for 12 weeks. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
BBC fined 150,000 over Sachs row Apr 4, 2009
Ofcom said the BBC broadcast explicit, intimate and confidential information about Georgina Baillie, the granddaughter of the Fawlty Towers actor, without obtaining consent either from her or Sachs. OFCOM FINES BBC Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader. (BBC News -- Entertainment)
Williams top turn at royal show Mar 25, 2009
BBC Radio 2 row actor Andrew Sachs appeared as Fawlty Towers' Manuel. Sachs, who was the butt of lewd jokes made in prank calls by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand on Brand's radio show last month, appeared in a short sketch alongside his former Fawlty Towers co-star John Cleese - the host of Wednesday night's We Are Most Amused show. (BBC News -- Entertainment)
Charles Laughton, scene stealer Feb 20, 2009
Fans of the TV series Fawlty Towers will spot Prunella Scales, who played Basil Fawlty's wife, as Hobson's youngest daughter. The bluster is malevolent in the Spanish-language Alice in Wondertown, Daniel Diaz Torres's 1991 Cuban satire of bureaucracy and authoritarianism. (Globe and Mail -- Entertainment)
What's turning kids off the BBC? Feb 11, 2009
First it was Men Behaving Badly masquerading as a puppet show, now it's Fawlty Towers getting a revival for the under-12s. There's no John Cleese, (although you do expect him to pop up at every turn), but otherwise it's all there the action in the lobby, the mad guests, the madder staff, even the bell on the reception desk. (Independent)
We aren't grumpy - we just prefer 'negative' humour and that's in ... Mar 10, 2008
The team from the University of Western Ontario say this might explain why the British enjoy irony, and sarcastic put-down shows such as Fawlty Towers, Blackadder and The Office much more than Americans, and why U.S. versions of those hit British series are generally far blander. One of those involved in the research, which involved studying 4,000 twins in Britain and the U.S., said: "It is possible that differences between these nations in their sense of humour may be the result of different... (Daily Mail)
Food and Wine Mar 8, 2008
Sign up now for FREESmartMoney. com Newsletters Enter your email address below. (SmartMoney)
You Stupid Boy! Compiling TV's Best Put-Downs Feb 28, 2008
Basil Fawlty - Fawlty Towers. Sybil: "Don't shout at me, I've had a difficult morning.". (Sky News)
TV's top 25 put-downs published Feb 27, 2008
Basil Fawlty - Fawlty Towers. To Sybil: "Oh dear, what happened? Did you get entangled in the eiderdown again? Not enough cream in your eclair? Hmm? Or did you have to talk to all your friends for so long that you didn't have time to perm your ears?". (BBC News)
Post a comment Feb 12, 2008
Just imagine the dirt the GOP will throw at Hillary Clinton and as she has Flip Flopped on the Iraq war she can t even mention the war( I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it said John Cleese in The Germans, Fawlty Towers). Obama can and will mention the war as many times it takes until McCain loses it , he will hammer it into the lime light. (International Herald Tribune)
The Tribal Mind: Our never ending stories Jan 13, 2008
In addition, the all-time 50 favourites include The Matrix, the Back to the Future trilogy, The Godfather Collection, The Lion King, Fawlty Towers Box Set, Seinfeld Seasons 1 and 2, Grease, Troy, The Notebook and Love Actually. It seems Australians enjoy a story in which a hero is summoned on a quest, learns from a mentor, meets friends, lovers and enemies on the road, fights a series of skirmishes before confronting the ultimate evil, goes through a form of death and resurrection, and returns... (Sydney Morning Herald)
Cleese splits from third wife Jan 11, 2008
Cleese shot to fame after appearing in hit British TV comedies including Fawlty Towers and Monty Python's Flying Circus. His American-born wife, Alyce Faye Eichelberger Cleese, is a psychotherapist and renowned for her work with children. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
Cleese, wife split after 19 years Jan 11, 2008
Cleese, 68, was previously married to Connie Booth, with whom he wrote the hit TV sitcom 'Fawlty Towers', before splitting in 1978. He then wed Barbara Trentham in 1981. (AZCentral -- Entertainment)
It's a proverbial film fest Dec 25, 2007
Next to it sits a VHS compilation of classic British farcical sitcom Fawlty Towers. There's also modern cult classic Napoleon Dynamite, bizarre Japanese children's import Gamera vs. Guiron and modern horror epic The Devil's Rejects. (Forest City Summit, IO)
'I'm not an interesting celebrity' Dec 4, 2007
Apart from Woody Allen and Tony Hancock, Dee's favourite influences are largely drawn from the 70s and 80s golden age - The Likely Lads, Fawlty Towers - but his tastes include The Office, The Royle Family and Alan Partridge. Compared with the gilded "alternative" Cambridge set who also emerged in the late 80s, or the later Bristol generation of comedians and comic actor/writers such as David Walliams and Simon Pegg, Dee is a comedy loner who doesn't crop up in pals' sketches. (Guardian Unlimited -- Media)
Home suite home Sep 13, 2007
Fiction's other well-known permanent hotel guest, Major Gowen in Fawlty Towers, seemed to while away his time with the fortunes of the England cricket team, casual racism and looking forward to his first drink of the day in the bar ... " No one knew why Major Gowen lived at Fawlty Towers Up until the 1980s the Crieff Hydro hotel in Perthshire did have a cadre of elderly, permanent residents, but now these hotel lifers have passed away. Some luxury hotels have apartment blocks attached where... (BBC News -- UK)
How I Chose the List Sep 8, 2007
So: but no Fawlty Towers; but no Frasier; but no Curb Your Enthusiasm; but no Newhart; but no thirtysomething. I did include both versions of because they were different achievements (the American is the better series, Ricky Gervais' the better performance), but also because all together now. (Time.com)
* Events & Entertainment Sep 7, 2007
The shows include The Office, Extras, Peep Show, Phoenix Nights, Father Ted and Fawlty Towers. - 49, Ln 308, Guangfu S Rd, Taipei (x__n30849). (Taipei Times, Taiwan -- Business)
Blacklisted: 4 travel companies people avoid Aug 21, 2007
Whenever I get an e-mail about their stay, my first thought is that Im reading a lost script from the classic TV show Fawlty Towers. Then I realize theyre not kidding. (MSNBC -- Terrorism)
Has Ricky Gervais stopped being funny? Aug 8, 2007
"The Office" suffers from the same basic fault as "Fawlty Towers"; there are just so many ways you can be an insensitive megalomaniac and scream at people. Once you have done those few variations, you either repeat yourself - or stop. (Telegraph.co.uk)
Doom, gloom and endless queues Jul 18, 2007
He marches to a window and thunders like a guest in Fawlty Towers: "This is the worst postal service I have ever encountered in my life. Goodbye.". The worker has his head down, counting coins or stamps or something. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Opinion)
Radio signs Douglas Adams sleuth Jul 14, 2007
Andrew Sachs, who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers, will also appear. Douglas Adams died suddenly in 2001 of a heart attack. (BBC News -- Entertainment)
UK boffins: extraterrestrial life will be discovered soon Jun 7, 2007
On the other hand, any residents of planets orbiting the dwarf star GJ 849 will shortly be receiving the first series of Fawlty Towers, according to El Reg's calculations, and they won't get the second one for another four years. That might easily motivate them to get cracking on their space programme. (Register)
The insiders May 22, 2007
Peter Salmon, chief creative officer of BBC Vision TV show owned on DVD: 'Fawlty Towers. Guilty TV pleasure: 'Darts. (The Observer)
Town names landfill after Cleese May 21, 2007
Cleese, famous for being a member of the Monty Python comedy group as well as the 1970s TV comedy "Fawlty Towers" and Hollywood hit "A Fish Called Wanda," drew local ire during a show last year when he called Palmerston North the "suicide capital of New Zealand" and that he hated it. Council waste manager Chris Pepper said officials did not erect the sign and the renaming was not official. (CNN -- International)
The Robinsons May 16, 2007
There's ultra-fussy Vicky (Abigail Cruttenden), who has a nice, sketch-length line in booking a theatre seat and enjoys seducing Peter (Anthony Calf) and wants him for a boyfriend until she discovers he didn't like Fawlty Towers. Bye-bye, Pete. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
- Zoe Williams Apr 4, 2007
But it's true that you would be unlikely to come away from watching Little Britain, The Office, Fawlty Towers, or any other seminal comedy in the history of television, with more respect for authority than you had before. Almost everything that's funny relies on slapping a sacred cow on the arse and making it run about in an amusing way. (Guardian Unlimited)
TV REVIEW: Ricky Gervais plays the fame game in 'Extras' Mar 16, 2007
Taking inspiration from John Cleese's classic series "Fawlty Towers," Gervais is limiting the entire show to only two seasons -- 12 episodes in total. While it's an unusual thing to do, it keeps the show from having storylines that just drag on without any resolution, as most things on network television do. (U-Wire.com)
Pegg, Frost Talk Fuzz Mar 15, 2007
Fawlty Towers' was one; 'Monty Python' another. Recently, 'Spaced' joined those ranks, recognised with BAFTAs and a multitude of loyal fans. (IGN FilmForce)
Little Britain Mar 8, 2007
John Cleese did it with Fawlty Towers and Ricky Gervais has done it twice, with The Office and Extras. Whether Little Britain's Matt Lucas and David Walliams can do it remains to be seen, but their refusal to rule out a fourth series is not a good sign. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
- The Goodies: We were far better than Python Mar 1, 2007
It may also be because the Goodies (unlike Python or Fawlty Towers) overstayed their welcome. In 1982, they took their final series to LWT, where one episode discussed the fact that they were too clapped-out to be Goodies any more. (Guardian Unlimited)
The Worst Week of My Life Feb 28, 2007
A comedy of stuff-ups and overreactions a la Fawlty Towers but without the wit ... A comedy of stuff-ups and overreactions a la Fawlty Towers but without the wit, The Worst Week should come with an advisory for anyone on blood pressure medication. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
Cherie Blair appointed 'celebrity ambassador' for penal reform group Feb 27, 2007
Ms Scales, known for her Fawlty Towers role, has organised fundraising lunches, participated in the citizenship programme and taken part in discussions at conferences and lectures. SEE ALSO 03 Nov 06 | Magazine 02 Aug 06 | UK 08 Sep 06 | Education 06 Sep 06 | UK. (BBC News -- UK)
Wooten: Bulldoze public housing Feb 16, 2007
you weren t goading me about the EU cup final - you were simply showing the usual pigswill ignorance of so smug many yanks who absurdly pretend to know about footy and like Manuel of Fawlty Towers you know nothing. on mex 000005A3 ican/illegal type gangbanging who does one believe a credible academic researcher like McDonald or a scummy liberal moron like you. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
