Fawlty Towers

Fawlty Towers (1975)

48 mistakes in season 1

(6 votes)

The Builders - S1-E2

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. (00:14:30)

Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: 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.

The Germans - S1-E6

Revealing mistake: 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.

David Mercier

The Builders - S1-E2

Continuity mistake: 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.

The Germans - S1-E6

Audio problem: When Basil has lost the key to the fire alarm he decides to throw the typewriter at it. The typewriter sound hitting the (hidden) floor is a sort of scraping sound. Surely the typewriter would have crashed down or smashed.

Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: 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).

UKFilmFan

The Germans - S1-E6

Deliberate mistake: When Basil asks Manuel to pull the hose on the fire extinguisher, the top of the hose falls off easily, resulting Basil to be squirted in the face. The bit where the hose is attached to squirts water out diagonally, but this would cause water not to go down the hose. This fire extinguisher was especially constructed to make sure the water was directed at Basil's face.

The Germans - S1-E6

Visible crew/equipment: When Basil runs from the restaurant and into the office, as the door opens to the hallway you can see a monitor in the office, showing what we can see. The director must be watching the action from in there.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Most places like this are likely to have CCTV and the office would be the optimum place for the manager to watch on the monitor.

CCTV was very uncommon in 1975. It wasn't until the late 80s it became more popular and even then it was of poor quality. Not like what is in the mistake.

Ssiscool

Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5

Visible crew/equipment: Just after Basil gets the duck from Andre, he tells Manuel to get the trolley. Basil then walks into the door, and the duck goes flying. You can briefly see the arm of the crewman holding the door closed. A few seconds later, Manuel comes through the door and stands on the duck. For about 5 seconds you can see the crewman's face.

More quotes from Fawlty Towers
More trivia for Fawlty Towers

Waldorf Salad - S2-E3

Question: Basil asks the American male guest (Mr Hamilton) if they have palm trees in California. The American replies that, "They say Burt Lancaster has one, but I don't believe them." The DVD then appears to cut prematurely to the next scene. Is there a hidden or subliminal joke here that I'm missing?

Answer: A possible explanation can be found here: http://tviv.org/Fawlty_Towers/Waldorf_Salad Quote: "This is, of course, sarcasm, as southern California in general and Los Angeles in particular is famous for its palm trees".

Mortug

More questions & answers from Fawlty Towers

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.