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.
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. (00:29:35)
Suggested correction: The sound isn't glass as you can see just as he goes to smash the picture there is no glass on the picture.
The Builders - S1-E2
Revealing mistake: When Basil smashes Manuel against the wall where the dining room is meant to be, we can see it is made out of cardboard. Notice how it begins to fall off, even though it is meant to be sealed and covered in wallpaper. (00:16:05)
Suggested correction: Perhaps this was due to O'Reilly's shoddy workmanship?
You could say that but Fawlty towers had wobbly sets all the time. I would say this would be covered under "mistakes".
Where is the 'codswallop' as you so euphemistically put it? To me it looks like O'Reilly cut corners by shoddily placing a sheet of plasterboard in the doorway without attaching it well then shoddily wallpapering over it. Hence the reason for it falling out.
The Germans - S1-E6
Character mistake: When the first German guest enters reception, he asks Polly, in German, if she would tell him what time lunch is served. She replies in German "at 9am, in five minutes." Which would be a strange time to be serving lunch! Actually her pronunciation of "9" sounds more like the German word for "no", so could be mistaken for "at no time. In 5 minutes."
Suggested correction: He asks what time lunch is being served. Lunch would not be served at 9am, it would be served around midday. Polly's response is "In no time. In 5 minutes" is absolutely correct. She does say "nein", not "neun" but it is not a mistake.
Visible crew/equipment: When Basil enters the "Private" room, the camera is reflected on the glass door pane.
Suggested correction: This is way too vague to be accurate. The office (which has private on both doors) is visited by Basil on innumerable occasions throughout this episode and so needs to be more precise.
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 ★