Paying the bills: John Cleese Nov 14, 2009
Or, perhaps, an especially droll outtake from his tenure as Basil Fawlty, the famously ill-tempered innkeeper on the TV series Fawlty Towers, which debuted in 1975 and has just been released in an expanded DVD package. Guess again. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
Almost the Truth Oct 30, 2009
The outtakes discuss such topics as the genesis of Fawlty Towers, the Hendon sketch and the seventh Python, among many others. Finally, fans are treated to an extensive gallery of Terry Gilliam's wonderfully bizarre artwork. (IGN FilmForce)
ORIGINAL MEMBERS: They remain Pythonesque Oct 15, 2009
Projects and releases: Tuesday's release of the remastered Fawlty Towers DVD (favorite scene: Fire Bell sequence in the "Germans" episode); a musical version of A Fish Called Wanda he's writing with daughter Camilla; a movie script with Lisa Hogan. IFC. (USA Today -- Life)
Starr report Oct 9, 2009
18-23), celebrating the show's 40th anniversary, BBC Video is re-releasing Cleese's masterpiece, " Fawlty Towers," on DVD. It's been digitally re mastered, and has new inter views with Cleese and co-stars ... 18-23), celebrating the show's 40th anniversary, BBC Video is re-releasing Cleese's masterpiece, "Fawlty Towers," on DVD. It's been digitally re mastered, and has new inter views with Cleese and co-stars Connie Booth, Prunella Scales and An drew Sachs. (New York Post -- Entertainment)
Intense rivalry Oct 5, 2009
Page last updated at 16:47 GMT, Sunday, 4 October 2009 17:47 UK. US interstate rivalry hits new lows. (BBC News -- Americas)
Grief and anger Oct 5, 2009
Page last updated at 08:09 GMT, Monday, 5 October 2009 09:09 UK. Haunted by horrors of Paddington. (BBC News -- UK)
Play TV god and fix the mix Sep 19, 2009
Seven is better endowed for this option - it owns such classics as Fast Forward, Fawlty Towers, The Naked Vicar Show, Kath and Kim, Acropolis Now, Will and Grace, The Norman Gunston Show and Hey Dad, plus American quirk they've shown late at night such as 30 Rock, Family Guy, My Name is Earl, Ugly Betty, American Dad and Scrubs, plus recent failures such as TV Burp and Doubletake. What would you add. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Opinion)
No laughing matter Sep 17, 2009
in a sitcom that is regularly described as the best since Fawlty Towers. I'll go one further and say that its first series is better. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
Wild and wacky at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Aug 15, 2009
2:30 p.m.: Get lunch at B'est restaurant for some good old fashioned British hospitality brought to you by "Faulty Towers," a comedy based on the John Cleese TV classic "Fawlty Towers." Basil, Sybil and the bumbling Manuel serve up a lunch time classic. Three-course meal included. (MSNBC -- Travel)
Television's skit stirrers Jul 21, 2009
As far as comic influences go, McDonald cites Fawlty Towers ("I think I have seen it more times than most people have seen their own children"), Marx Brothers films, Friends ("It was very commercial but really delivered") and Seinfeld. Kalowski's taste is a little more esoteric: Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Will & Grace and Scrubs, plus Fawlty Towers and Seinfeld. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
