Fawlty Towers (1975) - 35 mistakes in series 1

Audio problem: In the first scene when Basil is trying to repair his car, when he tries to start the engine, the engine sounds are totally out of sync with Basil turning the ignition key.

Revealing: When the Major first meets Basil, the same shot is used twice of the Major twitching.

Continuity: When Basil brings in Lord Melbury's cases, they swap hands between the exterior and interior shots.

Visible crew/equipment: At the end of the end of the episode where everyone is cleaning up, there is a shadow of the boom mic on the wall.

Revealing: When Basil is turning the fire alarm on and off, he puts the key next to the red box and turns it. However, there isn't a slot for the key to actually go in; he's just holding it close and turning it.

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: When Basil goes to fetch the branch to give the car a thrashing after it breaks down, the car manages to move onto the pavement all by itself.

Revealing: When Basil goes from clapping his hands in the hotel reception area (just after the first hospital scene), he goes from standing completely still showing a clear 'action' cue.

Revealing: When Basil is out of the car and shouting at it after its final breakdown, you can see a crew member reflected in the right hand side of the windscreen giving John Cleese cues. It's not Cleese himself, as the reflection remains after he runs out of shot to get the tree branch, and the reflection doesn't mimic every action performed on screen.

Continuity: There appears to be a very obvious splice edit in this episode. When Basil manages to get Kurt off him after being pinned to the kitchen table, he pushes Kurt against the wall knocking him out. Before this Basil is lying flat on the table and we never see him get up to a standing position beforehand.

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.

Visible crew/equipment: After Basil has turned the fire alarm off, a boom mic is very clear in the top corner of the screen.

Visible crew/equipment: Near the start of the episode, after the guest has told Basil that he will only be staying until Sunday, Basil walks from the dining room to the office, and the shadow of the camera following Basil can be seen in the reflection of the studio lights in the picture above the Drawing Room door.

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.

Visible crew/equipment: When the bald hotel guest asks Basil for his drinks and slams his hand on the table, in the next shot a boom mic can be seen briefly as it is pulled away.

Continuity: When Manuel fetches Basil from outside, Basil enters the building first in the exterior shots, but Manuel gets to reception first in the interior ones.

Audio problem: Throughout the episode the picture Basil is distracted from putting up has no glass covering on it. However, when he smashes it at the end you can hear the distinct sound of glass breaking.

Audio problem: When Basil is pretending to be a duck and quacking, you can tell it is false because the quacking stops a second after Basil stops pretending to quack.

Continuity: When Basil's car breaks down for the final time after reversing away from the van, watch closely on the garden path of the house right next to the car. The garden gate is open, and you can see it swing shut (look at the black shape just above the hedge) just as Basil says "One, two three." The gate was shut when he first reversed around the corner, but was open again after the shot cuts back to the car (after it's moved to the right along the pavement).

Audio problem: When Basil impersonates the duck, the sound effect used continues when his mouth is closed.