Today is the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Prunella Scales (Sybil) who is married to actor Timothy West. Sadly she is now suffering from dementia. Their series when they toured the canals of the UK is wonderful TV.
@@MeganRuth I saw recent photos of her with a friend in Rye, Sussex (where she'd co-starred in Mapp & Lucia), she looked happy, so fingers crossed. She and Timothy were very touching in Great Canal Journeys, mentioned above, one of my favourites too.
Unmarried couples weren't aloud to stay in the same hotel room in the old days ("We run a respectable place!"). Think the beginning of "Psycho", though by the '70s, I don't think it was enforced much. So technically it wasn't legal, here it's Basil being a dick.
@@MeganRuth Unless the original comment was completely rewritten since you posted your reply, it was talking about the doctors. Basil Henson is the name of the actor.
@@MeganRuth It's also interesting that the male doctor and the young-man-showing-off-his-chest were both played by people called Henson. Another comment mentioned that Henson was only a little younger than Cleese. I was confused till I realised they were talking about Nicky, not Basil. (I don't think they are related.)
All 12 episodes are gold, but there are a couple that are non stop funny. There is not really a big through line ( although a couple of things that have continuity ) so watching one out of turn won't spoil anything. It is great to see people watching these for the first time 50 years after they were made and the show still working perfectly.
I remember, years ago, when Fawlty Towers just came out on video. A shop in Oxford Street in London, was playing it on a TV in their window, and the crowd became so large watching it, they caused an obstruction of the pavement and road.
@@thedavestation2185 I've lived in Germany, and that has been said to me many times..The Germans love that episode. That line, and "I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it" and "yes you did, you invaded Poland" are just classic lines. And who can forget the walk?
Even for the time, Basil was prudish. John Cleese was born in 1939, but Basil is clearly considerably older than that, having served in the Korean War. He's an unhappily married man who's jealous of single people's freedom, so he chooses to restrict it in his hotel.
Hi Megan. I'm a child of the sixties. In the seventies rooms tended to be charged by occupancy, hence Basil's preoccupation with a "smuggled" person staying in the room. Nowadays the shysters charge extra for a single occupancy room, it costs more not to take your partner with you even though there is only one breakfast to be consumed instead of two ..... I really protein load for the day and make sure I get my monies worth when staying alone😆
Don’t forget that a lot of people were still very prudish about people “living in sin”, i.e. not married. It was common for people to give false names at guest houses and B&Bs so they wouldn’t, at the very least, get disapproving looks, and often magically no vacancies.
Some really great character actors appeared in Fawlty Towers. Basil Henson was in a great series called When the Boat comes in. Luan Peters, who plays the Australian girl was in a few Hammer Horror films. Great reaction.🤩
Hi Megan, the idea that no visitors are allowed in the rooms after 10pm is not just a 70s phenomenon. When booking a hotel room, they do ask that you specify the number of occupants (fire regulations), so even today you would not technically be allowed to bring a guest into the room as it contravenes said fire regulations
It's always been commonplace in real life as well as fiction for men to have much younger partners. Youth is a highly sought after asset in a woman, but of no value in a man. For example, an average-looking 20-y-o waitress would have many admirers; an average-looking 20-y-o waiter would have none.
You've clearly don't know, or have never been out with, a bunch of middle aged women- they love the young male waiters - attraction to the young transcends gender or orientation. For better or worse...
I live in Monaco, and not only are there (much) older men with younger women, but also older women with younger men. And although this has to do with money in many cases, there are many couples here where money is not the reason they are together. In general, it's very accepted here by the residents, and no one is bothered about it, although tourist tend to comment on it.
there used to be laws called "co-habitation" laws that made it illegal for 2 adults of the opposite sex to occupy the same hotel room, apt or home. there were laws, usually misdemeanors, against pre-marital sex and "living together" out of wedlock. these laws were rarely enforced but hotels would enforce these laws themselves. and no, that dude's open-front shirt with all the necklaces was silly even back then. it was more of a weird 70s "disco" era style. john cleese is the master of frustration. few could display exasperation for comedic effect as well as he could. thanks for the video.
@@FloridaMugwump ... but this guy wasn't dressed for the beach. do you remember dan akroid and steve martin's "2 wild and crazy guys" from snl? that's how this guy was dressed. like a disco dork.
@@cjmacq-vg8um Yes, when they went to a club. And their shirts were not open to the navel. She didn't mention the medallions. Or the style of shirt. I didn't say beach. I said a waterfront resort town on a hot day.
@@FloridaMugwump ... you're still defending that dorkie disco style? next to hoodies, backward baselball hats and wearing your pants so low your underwear shows over the top with your butt hanging out the disco look is the worst style ever concieved by man.
@@FloridaMugwump ... YT keeps refusing to post my comments! here's my original post to you for the 2nd time - you're still defending that dorkie disco style? next to hoodies, backward baselball hats and wearing your pants so low your underwear shows over the top with your butt hanging out the disco look is the worst style ever concieved by man.
Basil makes up the rules for staying there at his whim. He's always trying to control what class of customers they allow to stay there. That's how everything goes wrong. 😂
Worth mentioning, Basil and the hotel was based on a real person by the name of Donald Sinclair. It was when the Monty Python team stayed at a hotel called the Gleneagles in Torquay in the early 1970's. Apparently, Donald was a lot worse than Basil.
@@tempsitch5632 I forgot about Rat Race..Interesting that his characters name was Sinclair. Presumably Cleese chose the characters name himself? The real Sinclair's middle name was William. Apparently (the real) Sinclair suffered a heart attack and died after some workmen he had upset painted his car and patio furniture grey.
She was talking about the doctors. There was a conversation before between Sybil and Basil about her age. That guy looks like 60, she wouldnt say that about John Cleese. He looks nowhere near 60
The English are great laughing at themselves, not so the southern Europeans. In Spain, they changed Manuel's nationality to Italian. Also, for those of you who remember ''Allo, 'Allo, In France it was dubbed into French and it was just completely bizarre.
To think I was 16 i think when that episode first aired. Your right the 1970s were a far different and I think in a lot of ways better times. People today seem to want to judge others for sneezing the wrong way. Male and female
This was a show that I used to watch a lot of the reruns. It is very funny. My favorite episode is the one with the rat. The Spanish waiter buys a rat as a pet, but was told that it was a Siberian hamster. When Basile finds out, he tries to get rid of it because they have an inspection coming up with a food inspector. So, the rat gets away and all the workers are looking for it trying to find it before the food inspector has a chance to see it. The whole episode is hilarious lol 😂😂
An extreme example of age disparity can be seen in the 1970 film "Lola" (AKA Twinky AKA London Affair). The protagonist is 38 (played by Charles Bronson) and his "wife" is 16. The marriage is setup for Visa reasons in Scotland. Though the actress playing the wife was really 20. While Bronson's real age was 49 at the time.
Just a question, what is wrong with an older man and a younger woman? The greatest love of my life was 13 years younger than me, and I miss her every single day.
Absolutely nothing! I was talking about tropes in film and TV as it’s not very often you see the age gap the other way around. I’m sorry you lost your wife.
You have to love Sybil. Prunella Scales is amazing. Ohhh, and you must watch the first episode of this series.Communication Problems. One of the best FT episodes ever! (but lots to choose from)
In the old days, 1970s and earlier hotels and motels especially owner run, did not want their places used as a location for adultery. Why? People might use false names, trash the room, be seen as a low class hotel, etc. Unlike today, hotels didn’t get a credit card for identity and for damages.
I used to know a guy who would just stand in the pub , with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist , to show off his very hairy chest. Even in the 70 s this was considered weird .
Bring it on Marvellous Megan. A pity you mixed up the sequence but at least you figured it out. They are best watched in order, but each episode stands alone so no real harm done. More please - as often as you can manage it!
As someone that lived though the 70's, I can tell you that the UK was a very different place, in a religious way. So having someone in your room, that you were not married too, after 10pm was looked down upon, and not good for your moral soul, as you were living in sin. The age difference thing in marriage, was a common thing at one time, more in rural areas, it was a way of passing on money and property, and not letting it go to the state or crown. The older man, say 45-50, would marry a young woman, after he had worked hard all his life. Then went he passed away, the young woman would inherit every thing, and if she had not had children from the marriage, she would marry a young man. And the cycle carried on.
The open shirt and gold chains was not at all in fashion when Fawlty Towers was made it had been the style of certain type of creepy man but even amounts the group who would have dressed like that it had fallen out of favour by this time. This was a deliberate choice for a sort of person who Basil would find the most objectionable, whilst Sybil would find him attractive.
John Cleese felt he had to apologize in advance to Nicky Henson for Basil being so rude to him in this episode, because they knew each other rather well. Cleese, always to his credit, was highly complimentary about the rest of the cast. But then, like a lot of performers, it's tougher watching themselves than watching everyone else.
Young women marring older men is quite common. Some women like dating men their own age, but these women are often emotionally immature...Not just a TV thing.
This episode is a classic 'farce' and who better to cast in it than Mrs Brian Rix (Elspet Gray/Mrs Doctor Abbott) who had been playing these parts for 16 years in The Whitehall Farces.
Even in the early 80s the established view was no sex before marriage. Hotels did not want to get a reputation for allowing “that sort of thing” on their premises.
I grew up in the 70’s. That exposed hairy chest and medallion style was real. But what you don’t get here is the likelihood that he was also doused in cheap cologne.
Check out the age gap between Madonna and whatever you call her boyfriend. Age gaps are a money and power thing. Once women get money, they're as keen for younger totty as any rich bloke.
Fawlty towers was amazing program. Shame they only made 12 episodes across 2 series. Btw I remember going to Ibiza in the 90's with a good friend. There was 2 young ladies in the room above ours in the hotel and because no unregistered guests were allowed in the rooms I saw more than once young men shimmering down the drain pipe in the morning! 😁
Of course they allowed guests in the 1970s! It's just that Basil doesn’t. But Basil is not representative of the 1970s. When this show first aired on TV in eth 1970s, Basil was seen as a figure of fun. I know, I watched it first time round. His hair, his clothes, his attitudes, his priggish morality - everything about him is out of date in the 1970s. Basil is a throwback to the 1940s/50s, and much of the comedy derives form his stilted mannerisms and outdated prissiness, which are sharply at odds with the permissive 70s. Leather trousers man is a typical young bloke from the 1970s, and, yes, chokers, medallions, and exposed hairy chests were everywhere, along with crotch hugging low cut flared trousers, wing collars, sideburns, and plastic platform-soled shoes and boots. It was also normal for working class young women to lech at, and grope, men - way more so than today. The 70s was a wild decade, it’s this century which is prudish and buttoned up. The 70s was the decade when the 60s went mainstream.
You are exactly right: free, open and far less judgmental than today. I find it rather amusing that so many younger people today think that they invented behavior that has been around for decades. Theonly
6:05 had nothing to do with the 70s. The 70s in Europe were extremely promiscuous (unlike the US!!!). Being a comedy show this was taking the **** out of the attitude of older people chiefly in far out provincial areas.
Basil was designed to be very out of touch even by 1970’s standards to be fair, pretty much designed like a person still living like WW2 was still going
We have new prudery.Horrible,, Basil was in his late 50s at this time .. That style makes men look older I suppose, Wiomen like men who have achieved something and have a good income , Women have children best befor thirty , These things always have reasonable reasons and are very oftem more the womans will than man´s.
Ah. You mean Basil Henson, the actor. I thought you meant "Basil Fawlty", the character. I reread it several times, because I couldn't work out what you were saying..
Today is the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Prunella Scales (Sybil) who is married to actor Timothy West. Sadly she is now suffering from dementia. Their series when they toured the canals of the UK is wonderful TV.
I'm sorry to hear she's not well! I hope they had a lovely anniversary.
@@MeganRuth I saw recent photos of her with a friend in Rye, Sussex (where she'd co-starred in Mapp & Lucia), she looked happy, so fingers crossed. She and Timothy were very touching in Great Canal Journeys, mentioned above, one of my favourites too.
6:01 This might have been just Basil Fawlty being Basil Fawlty: a stupid rule that he made up for his hotel, rather than a general thing.
Unmarried couples weren't aloud to stay in the same hotel room in the old days ("We run a respectable place!"). Think the beginning of "Psycho", though by the '70s, I don't think it was enforced much. So technically it wasn't legal, here it's Basil being a dick.
Basil Henson (Dr Abbott) was born in July 1918 and Elspet Gray (Dr Abbott) was born in April 1929 making them 60 and 49 in February 1979.
@@MeganRuth
Unless the original comment was completely rewritten since you posted your reply, it was talking about the doctors. Basil Henson is the name of the actor.
@@paulkennedy8701aha yes he was! How interesting how the actor that played the doctor was also named Basil…
@@MeganRuth
It's also interesting that the male doctor and the young-man-showing-off-his-chest were both played by people called Henson. Another comment mentioned that Henson was only a little younger than Cleese. I was confused till I realised they were talking about Nicky, not Basil. (I don't think they are related.)
@@paulkennedy8701 that would be confusing! 😂
All 12 episodes are gold, but there are a couple that are non stop funny. There is not really a big through line ( although a couple of things that have continuity ) so watching one out of turn won't spoil anything. It is great to see people watching these for the first time 50 years after they were made and the show still working perfectly.
I remember, years ago, when Fawlty Towers just came out on video. A shop in Oxford Street in London, was playing it on a TV in their window, and the crowd became so large watching it, they caused an obstruction of the pavement and road.
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
Dixon’s ?
@@tempsitch5632 No, it wasn't Dixon's, I can't remember the shop but I seem to recall that it was an independent store, not a chain.
You absolutely have to see the Fawlty Towers episode 'The Germans'...
Amazing. “Don’t mention the war”
@@thedavestation2185 I've lived in Germany, and that has been said to me many times..The Germans love that episode.
That line, and "I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it" and "yes you did, you invaded Poland" are just classic lines.
And who can forget the walk?
Even for the time, Basil was prudish. John Cleese was born in 1939, but Basil is clearly considerably older than that, having served in the Korean War. He's an unhappily married man who's jealous of single people's freedom, so he chooses to restrict it in his hotel.
John Cleese was 35 years old and Prunella Scales was 34 years old during the filming of "Fawlty Towers".
The character Sybil was 34, but Prunella was 43 at the time, a good 7 years older than John Cleese.
This is the second series so he's more around 40-41 here, and indeed Prunella is about 7 years older
5:51 I've lived in several houseshares. One of them banned guests (regardless of gender) after a set time in the evening & another charged for them.
Wow! That's crazy!
Glad you enjoyed this. Watched this so many times over the years
even today hotels are not very happy with guests who are not checked in. and a room for 2 is normally more expensive. cleaning etc.
Hi Megan. I'm a child of the sixties. In the seventies rooms tended to be charged by occupancy, hence Basil's preoccupation with a "smuggled" person staying in the room. Nowadays the shysters charge extra for a single occupancy room, it costs more not to take your partner with you even though there is only one breakfast to be consumed instead of two ..... I really protein load for the day and make sure I get my monies worth when staying alone😆
Don’t forget that a lot of people were still very prudish about people “living in sin”, i.e. not married. It was common for people to give false names at guest houses and B&Bs so they wouldn’t, at the very least, get disapproving looks, and often magically no vacancies.
5:23 - Brilliant timing!
My favourite series of all time. Every episode a gem meghan
Some really great character actors appeared in Fawlty Towers. Basil Henson was in a great series called When the Boat comes in. Luan Peters, who plays the Australian girl was in a few Hammer Horror films. Great reaction.🤩
Hi Megan, the idea that no visitors are allowed in the rooms after 10pm is not just a 70s phenomenon. When booking a hotel room, they do ask that you specify the number of occupants (fire regulations), so even today you would not technically be allowed to bring a guest into the room as it contravenes said fire regulations
It's always been commonplace in real life as well as fiction for men to have much younger partners. Youth is a highly sought after asset in a woman, but of no value in a man. For example, an average-looking 20-y-o waitress would have many admirers; an average-looking 20-y-o waiter would have none.
You've clearly don't know, or have never been out with, a bunch of middle aged women- they love the young male waiters - attraction to the young transcends gender or orientation. For better or worse...
I live in Monaco, and not only are there (much) older men with younger women, but also older women with younger men. And although this has to do with money in many cases, there are many couples here where money is not the reason they are together.
In general, it's very accepted here by the residents, and no one is bothered about it, although tourist tend to comment on it.
No matter how many times we watch faulty towers tears of laughter flow absolutely brilliant.
My late partner was 10 years older than me..I lost her to cancer after 24 years together...so almost the same thing..but opposite.
there used to be laws called "co-habitation" laws that made it illegal for 2 adults of the opposite sex to occupy the same hotel room, apt or home. there were laws, usually misdemeanors, against pre-marital sex and "living together" out of wedlock. these laws were rarely enforced but hotels would enforce these laws themselves.
and no, that dude's open-front shirt with all the necklaces was silly even back then. it was more of a weird 70s "disco" era style.
john cleese is the master of frustration. few could display exasperation for comedic effect as well as he could. thanks for the video.
But having your shirt open on a hot day in the summer in a waterfront resort community is not so unusual.
@@FloridaMugwump ... but this guy wasn't dressed for the beach. do you remember dan akroid and steve martin's "2 wild and crazy guys" from snl? that's how this guy was dressed. like a disco dork.
@@cjmacq-vg8um Yes, when they went to a club. And their shirts were not open to the navel. She didn't mention the medallions. Or the style of shirt.
I didn't say beach. I said a waterfront resort town on a hot day.
@@FloridaMugwump ... you're still defending that dorkie disco style? next to hoodies, backward baselball hats and wearing your pants so low your underwear shows over the top with your butt hanging out the disco look is the worst style ever concieved by man.
@@FloridaMugwump ... YT keeps refusing to post my comments! here's my original post to you for the 2nd time -
you're still defending that dorkie disco style? next to hoodies, backward baselball hats and wearing your pants so low your underwear shows over the top with your butt hanging out the disco look is the worst style ever concieved by man.
Mr. Abbott was about 61 and Mrs. Abbott was about 50 when this was made. This episode aired Sep 7, 1979.
Hi Megan it actually doesn't matter what order you watch these in they're all stand alone stories.💓👍🇬🇧
I assumed that was the case! 😊
@@MeganRuth "Great mind's"🤗💓😘
Basil makes up the rules for staying there at his whim.
He's always trying to control what class of customers they allow to stay there.
That's how everything goes wrong. 😂
Worth mentioning, Basil and the hotel was based on a real person by the name of Donald Sinclair. It was when the Monty Python team stayed at a hotel called the Gleneagles in Torquay in the early 1970's.
Apparently, Donald was a lot worse than Basil.
Donald Sinclair is Cleese’s character name in Rat Race.
@@tempsitch5632 I forgot about Rat Race..Interesting that his characters name was Sinclair. Presumably Cleese chose the characters name himself? The real Sinclair's middle name was William.
Apparently (the real) Sinclair suffered a heart attack and died after some workmen he had upset painted his car and patio furniture grey.
Basil basically sees himself as the arbiter of the nation's morals.
FT eps vary in length - this one's the longest of the 12.
Very nice Meghan! My favorites here by you, Black Adder and Fawlty Towers..always a treat! :)
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it 😊
I've been to hotels where they tell you no "guests". I guess they want to charge by the head and not by the bed.
John Cleese (Basil) was 40 when Season 2 of Fawty Towers was filmed. Prunella Scales (Sybil) was 47. So… she was 7 years older than him.
She was talking about the doctors. There was a conversation before between Sybil and Basil about her age. That guy looks like 60, she wouldnt say that about John Cleese. He looks nowhere near 60
2:30 Here they are at a waterfront resort community, I'm sure an open shirt would be acceptable there today on a hot day.
The English are great laughing at themselves, not so the southern Europeans. In Spain, they changed Manuel's nationality to Italian.
Also, for those of you who remember ''Allo, 'Allo, In France it was dubbed into French and it was just completely bizarre.
'Basil the Rat' available on Daily Motion.
They said on a documentary that they would get passed the censor with the name change on the intro's, they'd never check that
To think I was 16 i think when that episode first aired. Your right the 1970s were a far different and I think in a lot of ways better times. People today seem to want to judge others for sneezing the wrong way. Male and female
This was a show that I used to watch a lot of the reruns. It is very funny. My favorite episode is the one with the rat. The Spanish waiter buys a rat as a pet, but was told that it was a Siberian hamster. When Basile finds out, he tries to get rid of it because they have an inspection coming up with a food inspector. So, the rat gets away and all the workers are looking for it trying to find it before the food inspector has a chance to see it. The whole episode is hilarious lol 😂😂
The housekeeper called Polly was played by Connie Booth. She was John Cleese's wife.
2:28 You're right. Today it's women who wear the deep v-neck shirt with a hairy chest. Jk 😂.
An extreme example of age disparity can be seen in the 1970 film "Lola" (AKA Twinky AKA London Affair). The protagonist is 38 (played by Charles Bronson) and his "wife" is 16. The marriage is setup for Visa reasons in Scotland. Though the actress playing the wife was really 20. While Bronson's real age was 49 at the time.
It s unbelieveable how he could act all this /these scenes without getting a headache..
John Cleese was married to Polly, the maid\waitress❤❤
Apparently farty towels was based on an actual place John stayed in
Just a question, what is wrong with an older man and a younger woman? The greatest love of my life was 13 years younger than me, and I miss her every single day.
Absolutely nothing! I was talking about tropes in film and TV as it’s not very often you see the age gap the other way around. I’m sorry you lost your wife.
@@MeganRuth Prunella Scales is 7 years older than John Cleese so there's an anti-trope right here. 😁
@@TheZodiacz i think it was about the psychiatrists couple.
Basil just makes up rules as it suits him.
Basil makes up the rules as he goes.
Rigsby had the same rules, yes that was 70s Britain
At the time it was made Cleese was 40 & Scales 47. Henson was in fact only 6 years Cleese' junior. Appearances can be deceptive.
I was talking about the doctors :)
@@MeganRuth All 3 of them? 🤣
My favorite Fawlty Towers.
Shirt open to the waist with a medallion? The Bee Gees have a lot to answer for.😊
Honesty is always the best policy Megan
John Cleese was married to Connie Booth who played the housekeeper Polly.
This wasn't the norm in most Hotels, but remember Basil is different.
You have to love Sybil. Prunella Scales is amazing. Ohhh, and you must watch the first episode of this series.Communication Problems. One of the best FT episodes ever! (but lots to choose from)
In the old days, 1970s and earlier hotels and motels especially owner run, did not want their places used as a location for adultery. Why? People might use false names, trash the room, be seen as a low class hotel, etc. Unlike today, hotels didn’t get a credit card for identity and for damages.
I'm pretty sure Basil made up that rule about no guests of the opposite sex in the rooms.
I used to know a guy who would just stand in the pub , with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist , to show off his very hairy chest.
Even in the 70 s this was considered weird .
Bring it on Marvellous Megan. A pity you mixed up the sequence but at least you figured it out. They are best watched in order, but each episode stands alone so no real harm done. More please - as often as you can manage it!
As someone that lived though the 70's, I can tell you that the UK was a very different place, in a religious way. So having someone in your room, that you were not married too, after 10pm was looked down upon, and not good for your moral soul, as you were living in sin.
The age difference thing in marriage, was a common thing at one time, more in rural areas, it was a way of passing on money and property, and not letting it go to the state or crown.
The older man, say 45-50, would marry a young woman, after he had worked hard all his life. Then went he passed away, the young woman would inherit every thing, and if she had not had children from the marriage, she would marry a young man. And the cycle carried on.
LOST IN SPACE: June Lockhart was about 2 years older than Guy Williams.
The deaf woman is amazing
She go crasy!
LOVED FAWLTY TOWERS..ANDCMY SON AND I WENT TO SEE JOHN CLEESE IN 2000'S, HE WAS FUNNY AND FASCINATING👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Medalian man was the term for that guy back then
The open shirt and gold chains was not at all in fashion when Fawlty Towers was made it had been the style of certain type of creepy man but even amounts the group who would have dressed like that it had fallen out of favour by this time. This was a deliberate choice for a sort of person who Basil would find the most objectionable, whilst Sybil would find him attractive.
John Cleese felt he had to apologize in advance to Nicky Henson for Basil being so rude to him in this episode, because they knew each other rather well. Cleese, always to his credit, was highly complimentary about the rest of the cast. But then, like a lot of performers, it's tougher watching themselves than watching everyone else.
"Future Megan" is really well informed... Maybe she should do ALL the reactions from now on?
Given the immutability of the timeline, I expect she will have to. If past Megan hasn't done them by now she never will.
Young women marring older men is quite common. Some women like dating men their own age, but these women are often emotionally immature...Not just a TV thing.
This episode is a classic 'farce' and who better to cast in it than Mrs Brian Rix (Elspet Gray/Mrs Doctor Abbott) who had been playing these parts for 16 years in The Whitehall Farces.
Even in the early 80s the established view was no sex before marriage. Hotels did not want to get a reputation for allowing “that sort of thing” on their premises.
One of the funniest Fawlty Towers episodes imo.
That Nigerian Guiness packs quite a punch! Lovely taste though. Good video as well 😀
Hi from Derry, N Ireland! Love the Giants Causeway jumper
Thank you! 😊
erm prunella scales was 43 when they started filming cleese was 38 and he doesnt look in his 70s at all and she looks old
I grew up in the 70’s. That exposed hairy chest and medallion style was real. But what you don’t get here is the likelihood that he was also doused in cheap cologne.
Cant believe you missed the Bananas joke!
Hi Megan
Another great reaction
I bet your cheeks were hurting after that one
Your face cheeks I’m talking about of course 😂❤️
😂 indeed they were! Thank you 😊
You've never heard the phrase, "No sex please, we're British".
Please watch the episode entitled 'The Kipper and the Corpse'.
Check out the age gap between Madonna and whatever you call her boyfriend. Age gaps are a money and power thing. Once women get money, they're as keen for younger totty as any rich bloke.
A shame your edit removed Sybil calling Basil an "aging brilliantine stick insect".
Fawlty towers was amazing program. Shame they only made 12 episodes across 2 series.
Btw I remember going to Ibiza in the 90's with a good friend. There was 2 young ladies in the room above ours in the hotel and because no unregistered guests were allowed in the rooms I saw more than once young men shimmering down the drain pipe in the morning! 😁
aha oh my! 😂
That v neck didn’t fly in the 70s
5:30 Face goals.
fabulous
Of course there was no rule about having a woman in his room….it is a comedy about the absurd behaviour of Basil.
It didn’t fly then. It’s just comedy
Simon Cowell still sports a hairy chest along with King Kong.
9:18 Finally, an older woman with a younger man! 🥸👍
Brilliantine stick-insect!
Funny sitcom
Of course they allowed guests in the 1970s! It's just that Basil doesn’t. But Basil is not representative of the 1970s. When this show first aired on TV in eth 1970s, Basil was seen as a figure of fun. I know, I watched it first time round. His hair, his clothes, his attitudes, his priggish morality - everything about him is out of date in the 1970s. Basil is a throwback to the 1940s/50s, and much of the comedy derives form his stilted mannerisms and outdated prissiness, which are sharply at odds with the permissive 70s. Leather trousers man is a typical young bloke from the 1970s, and, yes, chokers, medallions, and exposed hairy chests were everywhere, along with crotch hugging low cut flared trousers, wing collars, sideburns, and plastic platform-soled shoes and boots. It was also normal for working class young women to lech at, and grope, men - way more so than today. The 70s was a wild decade, it’s this century which is prudish and buttoned up. The 70s was the decade when the 60s went mainstream.
You are exactly right: free, open and far less judgmental than today. I find it rather amusing that so many younger people today think that they invented behavior that has been around for decades. Theonly
6:05 had nothing to do with the 70s. The 70s in Europe were extremely promiscuous (unlike the US!!!). Being a comedy show this was taking the **** out of the attitude of older people chiefly in far out provincial areas.
Weĺ he was married to polly so
Basil was designed to be very out of touch even by 1970’s standards to be fair, pretty much designed like a person still living like WW2 was still going
Ahh I see!
Don't mention the war!
😊😊😊😊😊❤❤
Megan, can't say I think much of the editing on this one
The story was pretty much lost
Connie booth who is Canadian and played polly wrote faulty towers
Together with Cleese.....
Booth is American by birth. Indianapolis,Indiana.
We have new prudery.Horrible,, Basil was in his late 50s at this time .. That style makes men look older I suppose, Wiomen like men who have achieved something and have a good income , Women have children best befor thirty , These things always have reasonable reasons and are very oftem more the womans will than man´s.
Ah. You mean Basil Henson, the actor. I thought you meant "Basil Fawlty", the character. I reread it several times, because I couldn't work out what you were saying..
THE 70'S WAS WORST STYLES OF ALL TIME!!!👎👎👎👎👎👎👎😵😵😵😵😵😵👎👎👎👎👎👎
I love your reactions, but comedy casting is half of the casting inappropriate couples is part of the fun