Goodbye Basil | Standpoint

January 2009

No, what would cause a comedy commissioning editor to press "delete" and not even bother with a rejection email if its creators, John Cleese and Connie Booth, were to submit a Fawlty pilot script in 2009 would be the standard of the script. It would be unacceptably and inappropriately high.

Fawlty was, on the surface, slapstick, which disappointed many in 1975 because it lacked the cerebral - sometimes snotty - Oxbridge tone of Cleese's previous showcase, Monty Python. But the clowning and physical humour were underpinned by the most elevated dialogue heard in a mass-entertainment sitcom before or since. "Do you really think, even in your wildest dreams," says Sybil to Basil in one episode, "that a girl like this would possibly be interested in an ageing brilliantine stick-
insect like you?" "Now listen, you rancorous old sow," says Basil to Sybil in another scene.

Such lines would surely be too demanding, too lacking inclusiveness, for any mainstream comedy today. "Brilliantine? Will the kids know what that is? Rancorous? What's that?" Even if the more jarring bits of Fawlty could be ironed out without damage, it would fail to make it to the screen today simply because the writing is too good.

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MPR

January 9th, 2009
5:01 PM

It was certainly tongue-in-cheek writing at times. However, I believe it would be successful if released today. I say this because these days, especially in America, shows manage to find an audience with time. A good example would be the American show "Fraiser," a spin off of the even more successful show "Cheers." With jokes about Goethe, and dialogues that give notice to Kafka, Fraiser was one of those shows that required a bit more from the viewer. It even took on a "class reference" of sorts when it was implied during its' run that you must be upper-crust to understand that show. Even animated shows have a focused viewership at times. Matt Groening, creator of the comic strip "Life in Hell" and most notably "The Simpsons," had another sci-fi-based show called "Futurama" which aired on the American Fox network. After a couple seasons Fox noticed that it didn't have the same number of viewers as The Simpsons and was canceled. This generated a great deal of complaints, but Fox stuck to its' guns. Later, reruns started appearing on a couple of cable channels and has become a cult hit to this day. Futurama's audience was along the same lines as Fraiser in that its' jokes were not always understood by everyone. There were joke references to the Special Theory of Relativity, nods to Richard Feynman, and even to more obscure figures such as the French composer Olivier Messiaen. (One of the main character names, "Turanga Leela" [Leela for short], was in reference to a symphony entitled "Turangalila" by Messiaen, of whom Groening is a fan). I just feel that with today's vast amount of choices for entertainment there would be more room for acceptance for such a show as Faulty Towers. Whether or not it is "acceptable" would depend on the medium in which it was presented.

Have another vat of wine, dear

January 8th, 2009
1:01 AM

"The Vicar of Dibley" is surely what you mean. The writing is so lowbrow that no cultural reference more elevated than the Spice Girls or the Da Vinci Code surfaces. Which is why we have a library of DVD's from the 60's, 70's and 80's to watch instead of contemporary television.

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