Basil: Is something wrong?
German guest: Will you please stop talking about the war?
Basil: Me? You started it.
German guest: We did not.
Basil: Yes you did, you invaded Poland.
For one episode, the props guy spent ages building up the bottom of a frying pan with cotton wool and padding, then painting it black to look right. It was placed on a shelf just inside the kitchen door. Unfortunately, on the night, John Cleese reached around the door frame without looking and picked up the wrong frying pan. He then hit Andrew Sachs very hard over the head with it, almost knocking the poor man out. See more...
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Directed by John Howard Davies, starring Andrew Sachs, Connie Booth, John Cleese, Prunella Scales (add more)
Deliberate "mistake": When Basil is arguing with Polly and eventually decides to call O'Reilly, he trips over the gnome. However when we see Basil come out from behind the desk, he takes the gnome out of a side gap in the desk, perfectly out of reach of Basil tripping over it.
Continuity: Towards the end of the episode, a couple of scenes before Mr Stubbs arrives, we see Basil start up the tape player prior to hiding in the kitchen. The garden gnome on the desk is right next to the tape player at this point. When Sybil turns the tape off the player has rotated 45 degrees or so (despite nobody else having come into reception in the intervening time) and the gnome is now further along the desk towards the camera as we look on the wide shot. The gnome in the next shot is seen beside the checking-in book when Basil wanders out of and back into the office a couple of scenes later, yet when Mr Stubbs is asking about the lintel for the new door shortly after that and we see Sybil writing in the book, the gnome has moved out of shot altogether.
Revealing: In the scene where Polly brings Mr O'Reilly a cup of tea, it is obvious on several occasions that there is nothing at all in the cup. Not only does he hold it in such a way that you can see inside, but when Basil snatches it away nothing spills out.
Continuity: When Sybil catches Basil with the closed-off dining room and they start an argument, the door to the rooms upstairs is closed, two shots later it is open, but nobody came or went that way during their conversation.
Revealing: In the part where John Cleese is smacking Manuel's head against the place where the dining room doors are supposed to be, you can see very that Manuel is kicking the wall right when his head is supposed to hit it, creating the sound of his head hitting the wall. Check it out because it's very obvious and hard to miss.
You may also like: Blackadder | Only Fools and Horses | Friends | The A-Team | Twilight
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