| John Cleese once remarked that he did as much with "Fawlty Towers" in 12 episodes than Lucille Ball did in several years of "I Love Lucy". When I first heard that, I thought Cleese was being as crass as Basil Fawlty. But you know something? He came darn close. This volume of "Fawlty Towers" contains three of the best episodes, and it is the one tape out of the four-tape collection that I play the most. "Hotel Inspectors" shows Basil at his most fawning, his most insincere. Ditto for "A Touch Of Class". But the real show-stealer is "Germans", perhaps the single most funny half-hour in sitcom history. Most people speak about the famous scene where Basil goose-steps around his German patrons, after he's repeatedly admonished the help not to mention the war. But everything in this episode is pure comic genius: Basil's griping with Sybil and the orderlies at the hospital; the exasperating attempts at hanging up the moose's head; and the Major's senile non-sequitors are hilarious. As the Germans ponder how the British ever won the war, the obvious answer is: If every English soldier was John Cleese, the Third Reich would have laughed to death. |