# John Cleese to revive "Fawlty Towers" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [February 7, 2023, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455 "2023-02-07T22:48:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/21 "2023-02-08T13:23:23Z")
Cleese uses his twitter feed to whine about not being able to say certain things. And, he got pretty preachy at times even in A Fish Called Wanda, whining about how English culture makes you stifle everything. I’m concerned he’ll decide to be an edgelord in this. We’ll see, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/22 "2023-02-08T13:27:19Z")
Yeah, he’s moved into the stuffy old uncle who says slightly questionable things mode. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes with the show. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/23 "2023-02-08T14:42:57Z")
“Where’s the Generalissimo”? “Madrid”! ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/24 "2023-02-08T15:00:24Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Cleese also said that the reason they didn’t do more [episodes of _Fawlty Towers_] was that they felt it would be impossible to maintain the high standards for yet a third season. Good point! It was also the reason why Cleese, alone among the Pythons, left the _Flying Circus_ before the final season. So this latest venture feels like an uncharacteristic lapse of judgment. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/25 "2023-02-08T15:21:48Z")
Best case scenario: He has since come up with enough good, funny ideas that would be up to those high standards. I have no idea how likely that is to actually be the case. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/26 "2023-02-08T16:54:42Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Cleese uses his twitter feed to whine about not being able to say certain things. And, he got pretty preachy at times even in A Fish Called Wanda, whining about how English culture makes you stifle everything. I’m concerned he’ll decide to be an edgelord in this. We’ll see, I guess. Yep, he’s been channeling right-wingers who say you can’t be funny anymore and cancel culture is killing comedy. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/27 "2023-02-08T18:04:28Z")
> [@Chad\_Sudan](#): > > … So this latest venture feels like an uncharacteristic lapse of judgment. When one has celebrity-sized expenses and a post-celebrity-sized income, sometimes the judgment that matters isn’t artistic but rather economic. > [@ISiddiqui](#): > > Yep, he’s been channeling right-wingers who say you can’t be funny anymore and cancel culture is killing comedy. Not a promising sign. Perhaps he can collaborate w Scott Adams of _Dilbert_ fame, another latter-day convert to RW wacko-ness. Their joint output would suck even more but at least there’d only be one stream of it to ignore, rather than two. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/28 "2023-02-08T19:16:44Z")
Maybe all the guests will all be ‘canceled’ celebs. Louis CK, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Clarkson. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/29 "2023-02-08T19:28:58Z")
I know he’s a Brit, but maybe they could have the Jan 6 insurrectionists, at least those not in prison, appear on the show and perform a re-creation by taking over the hotel. Comedy gold. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/30 "2023-02-08T19:47:30Z")
I was not a fan of the original (a group of unpleasant and/or stupid people behaving in ways moronic and emotionally immature) so I have nothing to lose, but I am emotionally certain that this will be a complete and total bust. Something he found impossible to continue 40 years ago because they couldn’t uphold its “high standards” is going to somehow magically work again? Give me a break. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/31 "2023-02-08T19:50:46Z")
All I know is they better bring back the weird staircase that was 4 stairs up, a 90 degree turn, followed by 4 stairs down. It didn’t make a lick of sense except for the comedic possibilities. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/_UDx8XPHv10/maxresdefault.jpg "Fawlty Towers Stairs") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UDx8XPHv10) ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/32 "2023-02-08T20:07:24Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Maybe all the guests will all be ‘canceled’ celebs. Louis CK, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Clarkson. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? As long as they don’t mention the war. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/33 "2023-02-08T20:28:31Z")
I hope the new show does not turn out to be a Siberian hamster. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/34 "2023-02-08T20:49:05Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Something he found impossible to continue 40 years ago because they couldn’t uphold its “high standards” is going to somehow magically work again? Give me a break. I suppose another way to say it is they created a show that somehow magically became a formulaic hit. That put them in a stylistic straitjacket; the key to their popularity was delivering the same stuffy narrowness in slightly changed circumstances episode after episode. After a couple of seasons they’d done all they thought they could within the narrow world of possibilities their success had cornered them into. So the “high standard” is really 'High fidelity to our very narrow conceit". Comedians such as the Blue Collar Comedy tour get into the same crack. Folks want to see the old chestnuts, but real quickly they’re trapped inside their body of work and any change is viewed as deterioration. Nowadays successful shows do spin-offs as a way to explore the adjacent regions of comedic or dramatic space. If a spinoff works, they keep doing it. If not they kill it. All without wrecking the original franchise. Which may or may not have a lot of legs itself. Applied to this new incarnation, one of the goals will probably be to avoid the straitjacket. Will they succeed? We shall see. But whatever they’re coming up with, it won’t be a straight remake of the original. In light of the comments about Cleese’s “evolving” politics upthread, they may be envisioning something more like the old _All in the Family_. The Cleese character is an irascible RW type decrying wokeness. Meanwhile his wife or the guests are offenderati woke types and everybody ends up misunderstanding and frustrating everybody else. Shenanigans ensue. I could imagine a great comedian believing that could be played for laughs. But I have a hard time thinking it would sell well. Not enough people are willing to laugh at their side, nor to believe the other side is anything but pure delusional evil. OTOH, if this whole thing is to be set again in Britain for a British audience there might be space in Britain’s milder politics and slightly calmer culture wars to make this work. Just as _All in the Family_ worked in the calmer less tribal US 1970s. But if they go that way I bet it won’t travel well to the 2020s US. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/35 "2023-02-08T21:10:24Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I was not a fan of the original (a group of unpleasant and/or stupid people behaving in ways moronic and emotionally immature)… I really liked the original the first few times I saw it, but I started to notice other things in later viewings. As thoroughly unpleasant as Basil was, it seemed like he didn’t deserve quite the karmic beatdown he received. Even when he tried to do something nice, like an anniversary party for his wife, it still blew up in his face. It’s funny to see someone get their comeuppance, but I sometimes felt like Basil got a bit more misery than he was due, and thta took a bit off the humour away. > [@](#): > > …so I have nothing to lose, but I am emotionally certain that this will be a complete and total bust. Something he found impossible to continue 40 years ago because they couldn’t uphold its “high standards” is going to somehow magically work again? Give me a break. I think the problem with some sequels is that they have to get done. Think of a movie like _Deadpool_. That character had been around for years, and there were plans for a movie, but no rush. The producers and writers could think about it for a while, take the best bits of his history in the comic books, and when they finally had enough good ideas to make a movie, it happened. Then they had to make a sequel within a few years. They couldn’t just wait for good ideas and inspiration to come to them; they needed them fast. It’s possible that in the last 40 years John Cleese has seen and done enough things to provide inspiration for more good episodes off _Fawlty Towers_. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/36 "2023-02-08T21:21:52Z")
I have doubts. The thing that made _Fawlty Towers_ work was John Cleese’s madcap zaniness and frantic behaviour. He is now 83 years old, and not in the best of shape. We saw him about 10 years ago, playing to a small university hall of about 500 people. He was charming and funny, but he looked pretty old even then. On the other hand, when Betty White was 83 she still had 16 years of show business ahead of her, so who knows? I’ll be rooting for him. He should hire Eric Idle to play an older loopy character similar to Manuel. Seeing those two together in their dotage could be great fun. Throw in Michael Palin in guest bits. Terry Gilliam probably wouldn’t be interested. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/37 "2023-02-08T21:29:50Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > He should hire Eric Idle to play an older loopy character similar to Manuel. Seeing those two together in their dotage could be great fun I saw them together during their 2016 tour and there is no way an Idle character won’t completely overshadow a Cleese character. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/38 "2023-02-08T21:46:58Z")
I just tried watching season 1 ep 1 which is available on YouTube. I didn’t last 4 minutes. And I _like_ John Cleese. Simply painful. High energy, but annoying from one moment to the next. I can imagine how it may have caught the public imagination at the time. Not now. Which means any remake has to somehow catch the zeitgiest of 2023 and also deliver some of whatever folks think they remember of the old show. And I don’t see that happening even if we had a time machine to keep the lead actor(s) 50 years younger than they are now. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/39 "2023-02-08T22:13:53Z")
What really made _Fawlty Towers_ work was the dynamic between Basil, Manuel and Sybil — Basil was terrified of Sybil and took out all the frustrations on Manuel he couldn’t take out on his wife. Like all blowhards, Basil is also a cringing suck-up. Without an authority figure to either frighten him or trigger his status envy, he’s just a guy who shouts all the time. My worry is that the new series becomes a British-ified _[Last Man Standing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Man_Standing_(American_TV_series)),_ wherein the crusty, politically incorrect old man spouts off while his younger relations/employees roll their eyes. I think this is the likeliest outcome, given a) it’s a formula that’s known to work, and b) it neatly accommodates Cleese’s current old-man-yells-at-cloud comic persona. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455/40 "2023-02-08T22:31:09Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > Cleese’s current old-man-yells-at-cloud comic persona. Persona? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-cleese-to-revive-fawlty-towers/979455.md?page=3)