The Major is a legendary piece of comedy character writing, delivered perfectly by Ballard Berkeley. Good comedy stands or falls by its characters, even incidental ones. Beautifully crafted.
@joeoak8181 yes he was too. He was also in the archers on bbc radio 4 at one time too as many will know I am sure. But fawlty towers was his best known role for sure.
@@duffman7065Really? You're right, on its own, it is wonderful, but what about the stolen/lost £75 ; broken vase and the winning bet on the Horse race? The Colonel comes in and finishes Fawlty by remembering the money was from a Horse race. For me, that épisode, Communication Problems, was close to being perfect.
@@alanhayward8237 no ones ever rated this clip or any dialogues with the Major as comedy gold, the guy is an NPC we could put faulty towers as a whole in the top 30 or 50 best comedies sure
@ibrahim-sj2cr Anyone viewing this objectively realises that the joke was on the Major and at the time his antiquated views. It was the same with the Germans (krouts and bad eggs) and formed the basis of many of Cleese's Python skits and The Life of Brian - in that case the C of E misreading it entirely. Berkeley was portraying a man bordering on senility living in the past and was not to be taken seriously by the time Farty Owls or Twats was released. The series was and remains an icon in British comedy.
@@alanhayward8237 100% agree with everything in that comment. it was already my own opinion. however this very forgetable dialogue where cleese listens to Majors ramblings (racist or not) is a bad example of the shows comedy genius
@@michaelsandford1015Yes, you can. BBC dvds are available, repeats are shown on BritBox, owned by BBC Studios, and elsewhere. Dad's Army also aired on BBC1 last Christmas. There's nothing much to be done about stupidity. But laziness is a choice.
THE best joke on Fawlty Towers. The audience are about to cringe and tut-tut at his racism then they are relieved that he pulled back from the brink....only for him to go back into it even worse. A joke on the audience in my view, and a brilliant one. If you are in any doubt Cleese then shows the Major to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
Calling this racist actually demeans the what racism is. This is nothing more than excellent comedy. If you're offended by it, then that is your problem, you need to deal with it.
Well it was and it wasn’t, given that this was the seventies and the fact that someone of the Major’s and the actor that played him generation were for the most part “racist” That’s the part you have to deal with, and yes it’s funny and it was comedy and it is now, in the context of then! My dad spoke like that, no filter, no awareness of what he was saying when other people were around, yes it used to make me cringe and in later life he realized and knocked it off. It was a generational thing!
The major was a fantastic character, as was the builder and Manuel, all brilliantly cast. A show of it's time, a very different England, Elderly folks living out there days in Eastbourne, Torquay, Brighton, having done their industrial grind/ whack, fought for king and country, earned their retirement. Today's all walking sticks, notability cars, sick note and mental health, goodness knows how this is all affordable .😬😬😬
I lived and worked in hotels in Eastbourne in the late 1970s, I agree with your observation 100%. It was a lovely time with manners charm and respect. I really miss that.
One of the most important Fawlty Towers sketches - thank-you for sharing. Too often this part is censored because of it's overt racism. But that was the point - we are meant to be comically horrified at the Major's (and Basil's) laughably outdated attitudes (even when it was first broadcast, which was when I first saw it). My laughs were from the unbelieving of the characters commitment to their terrible attitudes with no semblance of doubt. Unfortunately this is comedy of subtlety and the modern media does not publicly admit to getting it - it is apparently not commercially astute to do so... Thus rather than confronting and evolving from these issues, we sink backwards into ignorance, censorship and fear.
Hardly outdated attitude. Look at Israel. And to think that seeing such comedy is a form of educating confontration that leads to improvement (evolution is in itself neither towards the good nor the bad) is as clichéd as the claim that history teaches us not to repeat our mistakes.
Laughing AT racism was what brought about the DEMISE of actual racism in this country. Until the left reintroduced it with all the Critical Theory toxicity
'winnie, i said - i called her that because that's who she looked like' 'black, was she major ?!' 'black !?, churchill wasnt black, old boy' comedy genius
I believe those old episodes were filmed ' live ' ? I may be wrong but if true then the chemistry between Cleese and Berkeley was sensational . Not any room for error and non taken !
They got on very well because they were both big cricket fans. While Cleese was performing Berkeley would often mime the latest Test score for him from behind the scenes. The cricket references are a bit of a private joke between them.
Yes, they were filmed in front of a live studio audience, like most UK sitcoms of the day. However, you can find bloopers and outtakes on TH-cam, so it's not entirely the case that there was no room for error.
Priceless Of course India had and still has dozens of castes and nicknames for different types. I can picture the Major sitting in an hotel in Alexandria with a whiskey and soda , talking about the latest troubles in the soukh. Or reading the riot act in a pith helmet and with a platoon of sepoys to the mob in India. Spiffing. I recall Churchill referring to Ghandhi as a half naked Faqir. I of course couldn’t possibly comment.
No one can gainsay that Gandhi was a half-naked fakir, nor can one gainsay that Churchill also greatly admired the Indians. To pick isolated utterances by the man in moments of annoyance, while ignoring what he said in times of sobriety, is petty and self-serving.
Churchill was the right man in the right place. Great amongst hundred dies not a genius make. Neither was Gandhi incidentally. Both are very mortal men - not Einsteins or Shakespeares or Aretha Franklins
I actually find this grossly offensive!!!! That is why it's so funny!😀 There is no malicious intent in it whatsoever. It's lampooning the attitudes of an upper-class, retired British Major from a thankfully bygone era. Please don't ban it x
I assume everyone recognises that the sketch (much like the show itself) was making fun of the stereotypical characters - the Major being a representative of a certain class of Englishman who were instinctively and perhaps unwittingly racist/sexist - and therefore slightly ridiculous characters. Fawlty himself was a send-up of a certain breed of ultra-repressed Englishman who was either fawning over the upper-class guests while despising everyone else. Of course, given the time it was made, there were inevitable stereotypes which would be unacceptable today - Manuel and the Irish builder being but two examples. Ironically, Manuel became probably one of the most loved characters on TV - probably due to the genius of Andrew Sachs
@@grahamkirk5974Yu found it hilarious without even getting what the joke was, and you objected to this comment as a "rant" without even understanding that it was saying that the show is funny. Right Wing simpleton.
Pure art in acting timing and script writing. Sadly missing from the screen today.. So many different people nationalities professions age groups and both sexes this comedy pokes fun at, mostly the English, it is always this sketch that is brought to everyones attention
hhhhmm, not sure there was that sort of censorship in those days. Today you would only get away with it by putting it on the History Channel and claiming it was a documentary! No one of today's generation would recognise the element of humour in it so they would be quite prepared to believe it is a documentary of Britain's Colonial Past!
I'm surprised the timid BBC have not surrendered to the loony lefties who want such racist comedy cut out or a warning given before the programme of offensive content. We thought nothing of it at the time of transmission and laughed, and nowadays we should not get hung up about the language from the 1970s.We need a few more doddery majors to speak their mind as my dear old dad did,RIP. He was not in the army by the way but was a teenager during WWII. I wish I had met a retired major type in real life whose views would have expressed mine but mine have been stifled by the do good hippy sock in sandal brigade. A smart suit, pressed trousers and a tie I say.
They won't put up with people like you who only care about themselves. The BBC play to ALL NATIONALITIES as they have to. Stop your right wing entitled personality moaning.
The Major's role was to be a bit lost...confused...."passed it" (as the Brit's would say).This part wasn't meant to be racist...it was meant to show,yet again,that he was an old guy whose brain doesn't work very well.
@@reddwarfer999 Better still...why don't you try to imagine The Major debating The Big Guy (Biden). In that debate The Major would be the lucid one...the cogent one. Also note that while The Major hates Germans The Big Guy surely doesn't have the same hatred for the Red Chinese...at least not the ones from whom he receives his 10%.
@@Mattywatty65 It just occurred to me...couldn't it be "past" *or* "passed"...meaning his best days have passed or are in the past? I'm a Yank and I've heard the phrase used but have never seen it spelled out.
The Major was off his rocker but then so are racists. Deciding the character and nature of people based on skin colour or location is insane and would be funny if it wasn't so bloody evil too. The clever way Cleese wrote the Major's racism allowed us to laugh and be aware of how uncomfortable his views make us at the same time.
I’m certainly not uncomfortable about it. Those types are the professionally offended melts. Great comedy, still talked about fondly today. We will never agree with other cultures, because we are different, always will be, so there will be jokes always going back and forth.
Fawlty Towers was arguably the funniest TV sitcom of all time, but it probably wouldn't be aired today for PC reasons. Same with Laurel and Hardy. Their films would probably be banned for poking fun at people who weren't that bright.
They did show The Germans episode on the BBC recently from which this clip is from, the BBC just cut this scene so nobody saw the exchange take place. I also love Laurel and Hardy don't see anything racist in any of their movies, this generation don't know what their missing when it comes to comedy and old Hollywood when stars were real stars and they shone brightest.
The fact the major has to correct Fawlty on what type of racist epiphet to apply, is an example of how the empire was obsessed with subdividing races; martial races, indians above Africans, Officers above soliders, the class system. Whole thing was based on peoples being in the right box. His attitudes towards women and cricket however I can't comment 😅
It might be useful to consider the difference between "racism" and class. "Class" is much more invidious. They deal with class more with the Irishman I think (in addition to him being a sort of foreigner of course).
Cringe if you like, but understand what is going on. It is the Major who has the old attitudes that are satirized here. Faulty seems not to, but later he gets hit on the head, and we see he has too. So? Funny. The war impacted people deeply. Feelings were/are even stronger in once-occupied Europe. This does not come out of nowhere. Cleese, commenting on anti-Japanese protests when the emperor visited, said something like ‘ I can’t tell the Pacific veterans what to feel, but the rest of us can let it go’. Keeping in mind we can afford to, because of those veterans. Glad to report, I saw this on tv last month.
I feel the impact of this scene is exaggerated by its controversy. in a show full of absolute classic moments (this episode being one of the best), this scene isn't particularly funny. No one would ever talk about it if not for the racist terminology.
What a pathetic title. If you had grown up or lived in the UK in the 1970s you would be well aware that about half the people in the country felt this way about Germans at the time, and so this sketch was an acceptable joke. You have to realise that adults at the time had lived through WW2, which included the discovery of the holocaust and all the death camps etc. It's hardly surprising that a lot of people in countries other than the UK were also not so impressed with Germans in those days. The Germans themselves were very embarrassed about what had happened in WW2.
For those that think this is terrible. The joke is in the context of the Major's behaviour. He is a sad old boy who can't really look after himself so is spending his declining years living in a seaside hotel ( as are a couple of the other elderly guests) He has dementia and is still in his head living in the days of empire so he keeps coming out with unacceptable and embarrassing misogynistic/racist rants (even for the 1970s) . The thing is, he's a long term paying guest with nowhere else to go, so Basil has to put up with him and humour him. The comedy is in how he completely fails to keep him under control , partly because he secretly sympathises with some of it.
Of course it's racist. The fact that the Major is an ignorant old racist is the joke. I don't even know what you think is going on if you think it's not racist.
Brilliant piece of writing. It illustrated a man who had served in the British Army and had spent time in India clearly adopting these very outdated and racist views but to the major they were and the point of the conversation with Basil Fawlty quite normal.
Were there two versions of this? I remember it as: Major: She called them n+++++s. I said, 'my dear, you can't call them n+++++s!' Basil: Well, quite. Major: No, no, no...these people are w++s! I might be wrong...I've got a memory like Swiss cheese.
The trouble is that we who used to be able to laugh at ourselves are dying off....literally. Pretty soon, once all we baby boomers are dead and gone, even showing this sort of thing on YT will be illegal. I'm glad I won't be around to see that day.
@@reddwarfer999 I have changed quite a few of my attitudes a number of times in my life, I am 63 years old. I like to think that these I have now are definitive.
Basil should of taken over Cleese for training films! What ! Yes! The rude uncaring blunt and unfeeling nature of someone in the service industry. I think thats what we all need😂
Even though he called them names, he respected the Indians enough to see them play. Presumably also the Windies, who were great then. That's what I like about cricket, it's almost a pure meritocracy. Of course, Cleese is a big cricket fan
The Major is a legendary piece of comedy character writing, delivered perfectly by Ballard Berkeley. Good comedy stands or falls by its characters, even incidental ones. Beautifully crafted.
Yes indeed so then too.
His best ever scene in the show.
Ballard was a fine actor. He did some brlliant scenes throughout the series.
@joeoak8181 yes he was too. He was also in the archers on bbc radio 4 at one time too as many will know I am sure. But fawlty towers was his best known role for sure.
@@duffman7065Really? You're right, on its own, it is wonderful, but what about the stolen/lost £75 ; broken vase and the winning bet on the Horse race? The Colonel comes in and finishes Fawlty by remembering the money was from a Horse race. For me, that épisode, Communication Problems, was close to being perfect.
Anyone who is offended by this doesn't understand British humour.
Has no sense of humour. Any kind of humour.
No doubt John Cleese would sound just like the Major In 2024!
@@paulmason329 why aint he blackballed by the woke counterculture
Brilliant
@@castelodeossos3947 dehumanising not humour
I love how Polly is going about being clever and efficient while the two men stand around doing nothing complaining about how incompetent women are.
yes but the all men gave her the time and resources to learn multiple languages but she cannot remember where she put put her german book!
@@rods6405indeed
She was a dizzy bimbo in this...try watching it.
i love how she was topless in that film...
One of the funniest and brilliantly executed dialogues in English comedy.
are you high. you think this rambling is the peak of british comedy?
@ibrahim-sj2cr Absolutely .. and more often that not rated the top comedy series in television history.
@@alanhayward8237 no ones ever rated this clip or any dialogues with the Major as comedy gold, the guy is an NPC
we could put faulty towers as a whole in the top 30 or 50 best comedies sure
@ibrahim-sj2cr Anyone viewing this objectively realises that the joke was on the Major and at the time his antiquated views. It was the same with the Germans (krouts and bad eggs) and formed the basis of many of Cleese's Python skits and The Life of Brian - in that case the C of E misreading it entirely. Berkeley was portraying a man bordering on senility living in the past and was not to be taken seriously by the time Farty Owls or Twats was released. The series was and remains an icon in British comedy.
@@alanhayward8237 100% agree with everything in that comment. it was already my own opinion. however this very forgetable dialogue where cleese listens to Majors ramblings (racist or not) is a bad example of the shows comedy genius
When comedy was still funny. RIP comedy since the PC brigade ruined everything.
Yes we can't even watch dad's army now
you know it m8
@@michaelsandford1015Yes, you can. BBC dvds are available, repeats are shown on BritBox, owned by BBC Studios, and elsewhere. Dad's Army also aired on BBC1 last Christmas. There's nothing much to be done about stupidity. But laziness is a choice.
If this came out today, there would be street riots.
Comedy is still funny. There's loads of it being created. Saying "RIP Comedy" is ridiculously overdramatic.
THE best joke on Fawlty Towers. The audience are about to cringe and tut-tut at his racism then they are relieved that he pulled back from the brink....only for him to go back into it even worse. A joke on the audience in my view, and a brilliant one.
If you are in any doubt Cleese then shows the Major to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
Thank fuck *somebody* in this benighted comments section gets it.
meh, the germans was much funnier
A few sandwiches? Never heard that phrase, I must use it. Thank you.
The sandwich deficit was established from the beginning. That's what saves his bacon. (Not sandwich bacon!)
Bit like the pc brigade.
Calling this racist actually demeans the what racism is. This is nothing more than excellent comedy. If you're offended by it, then that is your problem, you need to deal with it.
You need to chill.
I agree with everything you said.
Just lighten up a little.
IT wasn't even really, it was just using language that was common in that generation.
@@srldwg lighten up? Why? I'm simply expressing myself. What right do you have to dictate how I choose to express my views? 😂😂
As a German, I'm offended.
Well it was and it wasn’t, given that this was the seventies and the fact that someone of the Major’s and the actor that played him generation were for the most part “racist”
That’s the part you have to deal with, and yes it’s funny and it was comedy and it is now, in the context of then!
My dad spoke like that, no filter, no awareness of what he was saying when other people were around, yes it used to make me cringe and in later life he realized and knocked it off. It was a generational thing!
You've got to remember, this is just well observed comedy from its time. It's actually making fun of those views not supporting them..
funny how all the actual far-right racists love it though... ever thought why?
Not sure that today's snowflakes can tell the difference. But I do very much agree with you.
And as such, is actually way ahead of its time😊
@@trinkabuszczuk6138
Not at all. The racist bigot was always a source of humour, because true gentlemen were not racists.
The depiction of senility is also spot on and quite moving. It is a fact of life we will all have to deal with one way or another.
Look at Joe Biden....
hands up everyone who's watched re-runs and YT vids of fawlty towers dozens of times since the 70's? - that'll be all of us then😁
(I put my hands up)
I've got the entire show on DVD. A box set with commentary from John Cleese. Great stuff.
I watched it when it was first broadcast. The best British sitcom by a country mile.
@@davidwalter2002 Me too! 🦘
Repeats of Fawlty Towers are becoming rare on the BBC these days, but if this episode is shown, this scene is, sadly, omitted
And for good reason. The BBC play to ALL NATIONALITIES not just people like you!
The joke was the major and his simplistic racism. Of a time when we laughed without feeling guilty of upsetting somebody.
There is plenty of this kind of humour, uncencored all over the internet. Stop being such a snowflake yourself maybe?
What a horrible melter you are.
@@maikeschafers9569maybe if you stop being rude.
I also fail to see how this is “snowflake behavior”
You self-censor? You sound triple jabbed.
@@acesamm
Because it's only WORDS.
SNOWFLAKE.
The major was a fantastic character, as was the builder and Manuel, all brilliantly cast.
A show of it's time, a very different England, Elderly folks living out there days in Eastbourne, Torquay, Brighton, having done their industrial grind/ whack, fought for king and country, earned their retirement.
Today's all walking sticks, notability cars, sick note and mental health, goodness knows how this is all affordable .😬😬😬
I lived and worked in hotels in Eastbourne in the late 1970s, I agree with your observation 100%. It was a lovely time with manners charm and respect. I really miss that.
One of the most important Fawlty Towers sketches - thank-you for sharing. Too often this part is censored because of it's overt racism. But that was the point - we are meant to be comically horrified at the Major's (and Basil's) laughably outdated attitudes (even when it was first broadcast, which was when I first saw it). My laughs were from the unbelieving of the characters commitment to their terrible attitudes with no semblance of doubt. Unfortunately this is comedy of subtlety and the modern media does not publicly admit to getting it - it is apparently not commercially astute to do so... Thus rather than confronting and evolving from these issues, we sink backwards into ignorance, censorship and fear.
Well said. ❤
This is very well-said.
spot on alex
Fantastically articulated 👏
Hardly outdated attitude. Look at Israel. And to think that seeing such comedy is a form of educating confontration that leads to improvement (evolution is in itself neither towards the good nor the bad) is as clichéd as the claim that history teaches us not to repeat our mistakes.
Good only fashioned gerry bashing....you cant beat it
Major is a COD player confirmed.
NPC player more like
AFB
Don't mention the war
I mentioned it once....but I think I got away with it
🤫😂
@thekenster2002 it was the Gemans that started it lol
@@kvpunk881Yes you did, you invaded Poland!
There's nothing racist about this.
It's comedic writing at it's peak. Cleese never bettered Fawlty Towers but nor has anyone else
There is a little bit of
@@wilfridwibblesworth2613 the title dim wit
Laughing AT racism was what brought about the DEMISE of actual racism in this country. Until the left reintroduced it with all the Critical Theory toxicity
There is, but that is the joke. The old Pom is the joke, an anachronism, and his racism is highlighting how ugly racism is.
Not racism but attitudes of a generation and national sentiment during wartime.
Racism Are Black People.
'winnie, i said - i called her that because that's who she looked like'
'black, was she major ?!'
'black !?, churchill wasnt black, old boy'
comedy genius
I believe those old episodes were filmed ' live ' ? I may be wrong but if true then the chemistry between Cleese and Berkeley was sensational . Not any room for error and non taken !
They got on very well because they were both big cricket fans. While Cleese was performing Berkeley would often mime the latest Test score for him from behind the scenes. The cricket references are a bit of a private joke between them.
Yes, they were filmed in front of a live studio audience, like most UK sitcoms of the day. However, you can find bloopers and outtakes on TH-cam, so it's not entirely the case that there was no room for error.
Priceless
Of course India had and still has dozens of castes and nicknames for different types.
I can picture the Major sitting in an hotel in Alexandria with a whiskey and soda , talking about the latest troubles in the soukh.
Or reading the riot act in a pith helmet and with a platoon of sepoys to the mob in India.
Spiffing.
I recall Churchill referring to Ghandhi as a half naked Faqir.
I of course couldn’t possibly comment.
No one can gainsay that Gandhi was a half-naked fakir, nor can one gainsay that Churchill also greatly admired the Indians. To pick isolated utterances by the man in moments of annoyance, while ignoring what he said in times of sobriety, is petty and self-serving.
@@castelodeossos3947 one of the greatest Britons ever lived.
Churchill was the right man in the right place. Great amongst hundred dies not a genius make. Neither was Gandhi incidentally.
Both are very mortal men - not Einsteins or Shakespeares or Aretha Franklins
I actually find this grossly offensive!!!!
That is why it's so funny!😀
There is no malicious intent in it whatsoever.
It's lampooning the attitudes of an upper-class, retired British Major from a thankfully bygone era.
Please don't ban it x
I tend to agree, I am not laughing at the insults I am laughing at the ignorance between Fawlty and the Major.
what do you think of this? ... The Niggar family by dave chapelle
I assume everyone recognises that the sketch (much like the show itself) was making fun of the stereotypical characters - the Major being a representative of a certain class of Englishman who were instinctively and perhaps unwittingly racist/sexist - and therefore slightly ridiculous characters. Fawlty himself was a send-up of a certain breed of ultra-repressed Englishman who was either fawning over the upper-class guests while despising everyone else. Of course, given the time it was made, there were inevitable stereotypes which would be unacceptable today - Manuel and the Irish builder being but two examples. Ironically, Manuel became probably one of the most loved characters on TV - probably due to the genius of Andrew Sachs
Fawning over them... Or else spitting venom like a benzedrine puff-adder
Typical left wing woke rant. I found it hilarious.
@@grahamkirk5974Yu found it hilarious without even getting what the joke was, and you objected to this comment as a "rant" without even understanding that it was saying that the show is funny.
Right Wing simpleton.
Don't forget it's the lefties who have gotten the western world into awful state it's now in.😉
Agreed. Not your use of the term ironic though.
Germans are bad eggs 😂
very funny 😂
Because they don't play cricket.
Pure art in acting timing and script writing. Sadly missing from the screen today.. So many different people nationalities professions age groups and both sexes this comedy pokes fun at, mostly the English, it is always this sketch that is brought to everyones attention
How did this get past censorship?
Glad it did. 🇬🇧
Its called comedy we used to do it here in the past
@timhandley7408 I know kid,but sadly not now,I've got it on VIDEO CASSETTE,so they can't take it from me.
I've also got a player, so F 'em. 🇬🇧
@@keithdavies1395video????? Get the dvd!
hhhhmm, not sure there was that sort of censorship in those days. Today you would only get away with it by putting it on the History Channel and claiming it was a documentary! No one of today's generation would recognise the element of humour in it so they would be quite prepared to believe it is a documentary of Britain's Colonial Past!
@@keithdavies1395that'll show em Keith 👍🏼
Perhaps a point we should seriously consider is that this brilliant humour is now actually banned.
Good point wole.
Banned where?
Bring back this type of Comedy 🇬🇧🙏👌
As an aging man from the English upper class I find this offensive.
...and damned funny.
*ageing
well said major
All these wokes are getting my dander up dear boy!
Major was the best.
If you put this on TV nowadays, you would melt more snowflakes than a Siberian heat wave 😅.
'snowflakes'..another far-right term invented to normalise their own hate-speech
@@StuartH2709 www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime
You can't even say you're English, these days.
@@BrendanDufftronicI'm English... why am I still perfectly fine. Could you possibly be talking absolute shit?
Irony. Snowflake.
Context and a grasp of nuance is everything.
I'm surprised the timid BBC have not surrendered to the loony lefties who want such racist comedy cut out or a warning given before the programme of offensive content. We thought nothing of it at the time of transmission and laughed, and nowadays we should not get hung up about the language from the 1970s.We need a few more doddery majors to speak their mind as my dear old dad did,RIP. He was not in the army by the way but was a teenager during WWII. I wish I had met a retired major type in real life whose views would have expressed mine but mine have been stifled by the do good hippy sock in sandal brigade. A smart suit, pressed trousers and a tie I say.
They won't put up with people like you who only care about themselves. The BBC play to ALL NATIONALITIES as they have to. Stop your right wing entitled personality moaning.
It's all there in your Shakespeare to be censored but if you did, it would be like Swiss cheese. Hard? No. Full of holes.
Wonderful wit and a wonderful world that could still laugh at itself before the onset of wokesterism - precious, pretentious and patronising.
The Major is fantastic in this section. Still makes me laugh.
This is when it was the British broadcasting company, now its the black broadcasting company, how times have changed
It is corporation actually but I know what you mean there too.
What are you on about?
Or the black bi corporation
"Good card players!" I'd love to know the rational behind that assertion.
I had a major crush on Polly back in the day ❤
why am I the only one wondering about the wierd end of this video?
Many people, especially in these days of fast scrolling, are unconscious.
jesusbuddhacult.com
THANK GOD for DVD collections....
Connie Booth one of my first crushes. Don't think you'd be allowed to make this in these batshit crazy days.....
sadly
From an age of creativity, free speech and free though. Beautifully crafted comedy writing from when the BBC had balls.
Thought
Totally, I was back end of school during Fawlty Towers original run, Connie Booth was gorgeous !!
@@halley4032 very sexy lady
You can see his point
Totally Brilliant Those were the days
When we were allowed to laugh at ourselves and it was actually funny 😕
Aaahhh...the good old days...
Very funny indeed, the Beeb cut this from the re-runs; the beginning of the end
The Major's role was to be a bit lost...confused...."passed it" (as the Brit's would say).This part wasn't meant to be racist...it was meant to show,yet again,that he was an old guy whose brain doesn't work very well.
I think you mean 'past it'.
@@Mattywatty65 Yes,I think you're right.
I can imagine him debating with Donald Trump live on TV.....
@@reddwarfer999 Better still...why don't you try to imagine The Major debating The Big Guy (Biden). In that debate The Major would be the lucid one...the cogent one.
Also note that while The Major hates Germans The Big Guy surely doesn't have the same hatred for the Red Chinese...at least not the ones from whom he receives his 10%.
@@Mattywatty65 It just occurred to me...couldn't it be "past" *or* "passed"...meaning his best days have passed or are in the past? I'm a Yank and I've heard the phrase used but have never seen it spelled out.
The Major was off his rocker but then so are racists. Deciding the character and nature of people based on skin colour or location is insane and would be funny if it wasn't so bloody evil too. The clever way Cleese wrote the Major's racism allowed us to laugh and be aware of how uncomfortable his views make us at the same time.
I’m certainly not uncomfortable about it. Those types are the professionally offended melts. Great comedy, still talked about fondly today.
We will never agree with other cultures, because we are different, always will be, so there will be jokes always going back and forth.
Now it's all just panel shows , cheap to make and easy to sell, with no used-by date on the repeats .
Ballard Berkeley was an extremely handsome film star when he was younger
'Shot, was he, Fawlty ?'
Sounds great to me
I quite liked when the Major took his lady friend to Lord to watch the cricket ….
Not Lord's old chap - The Oval!
@georgebennett3197 just testing George !!
The best scene from the best British comedy ever produced.
Fawlty Towers was arguably the funniest TV sitcom of all time, but it probably wouldn't be aired today for PC reasons. Same with Laurel and Hardy. Their films would probably be banned for poking fun at people who weren't that bright.
They did show The Germans episode on the BBC recently from which this clip is from, the BBC just cut this scene so nobody saw the exchange take place. I also love Laurel and Hardy don't see anything racist in any of their movies, this generation don't know what their missing when it comes to comedy and old Hollywood when stars were real stars and they shone brightest.
The fact the major has to correct Fawlty on what type of racist epiphet to apply, is an example of how the empire was obsessed with subdividing races; martial races, indians above Africans, Officers above soliders, the class system. Whole thing was based on peoples being in the right box. His attitudes towards women and cricket however I can't comment 😅
It might be useful to consider the difference between "racism" and class.
"Class" is much more invidious.
They deal with class more with the Irishman I think (in addition to him being a sort of foreigner of course).
@@davewolfy2906 and the fake lord
How many people still don't understand British humour even now 😂
Cringe if you like, but understand what is going on. It is the Major who has the old attitudes that are satirized here. Faulty seems not to, but later he gets hit on the head, and we see he has too. So? Funny.
The war impacted people deeply. Feelings were/are even stronger in once-occupied Europe. This does not come out of nowhere. Cleese, commenting on anti-Japanese protests when the emperor visited, said something like ‘ I can’t tell the Pacific veterans what to feel, but the rest of us can let it go’.
Keeping in mind we can afford to, because of those veterans.
Glad to report, I saw this on tv last month.
this is a youtube recommendation from 2014. miss those days.
John Cleese had to have been onto something when he came up with "Fawlty Towers."
I feel the impact of this scene is exaggerated by its controversy. in a show full of absolute classic moments (this episode being one of the best), this scene isn't particularly funny. No one would ever talk about it if not for the racist terminology.
What a pathetic title. If you had grown up or lived in the UK in the 1970s you would be well aware that about half the people in the country felt this way about Germans at the time, and so this sketch was an acceptable joke. You have to realise that adults at the time had lived through WW2, which included the discovery of the holocaust and all the death camps etc. It's hardly surprising that a lot of people in countries other than the UK were also not so impressed with Germans in those days. The Germans themselves were very embarrassed about what had happened in WW2.
The good old days.
For those that think this is terrible. The joke is in the context of the Major's behaviour. He is a sad old boy who can't really look after himself so is spending his declining years living in a seaside hotel ( as are a couple of the other elderly guests) He has dementia and is still in his head living in the days of empire so he keeps coming out with unacceptable and embarrassing misogynistic/racist rants (even for the 1970s) . The thing is, he's a long term paying guest with nowhere else to go, so Basil has to put up with him and humour him. The comedy is in how he completely fails to keep him under control , partly because he secretly sympathises with some of it.
Just to say when the BBC made funny comedy shows so much better then today's P C crap.
Excellent comedy,it parodies old world thoughts,not racist just misunderstandings 😂
Brilliant piece of comedy, no racism at all. Made by the BBC before all of this ‘racist’ bollocks
Cleese is openly racist.
Are you joking? You don’t think the N word is racist?
There's no such thing as racism, just ask Jesse Lee Peterson
Agreed mate. A word which needs to be banned.
Of course it's racist. The fact that the Major is an ignorant old racist is the joke. I don't even know what you think is going on if you think it's not racist.
Brilliant piece of writing. It illustrated a man who had served in the British Army and had spent time in India clearly adopting these very outdated and racist views but to the major they were and the point of the conversation with Basil Fawlty quite normal.
IndIAH! Well said Major.
Les Griffiths
The major's terminology comes from the war and is more bluster than anything sinister.
Were there two versions of this? I remember it as:
Major: She called them n+++++s. I said, 'my dear, you can't call them n+++++s!'
Basil: Well, quite.
Major: No, no, no...these people are w++s!
I might be wrong...I've got a memory like Swiss cheese.
Being British is being able to laugh at oneself, and learn from someone taking the Mick!
The trouble is that we who used to be able to laugh at ourselves are dying off....literally. Pretty soon, once all we baby boomers are dead and gone, even showing this sort of thing on YT will be illegal. I'm glad I won't be around to see that day.
I listen to this while sleeping rofl
Brilliant, we shall not see the like again sadly.
Didn't know Enoch Powell was a dramatic trained actor 😅
remember, the Major's lady friend disappeared with his wallet!
image this being aired on American TV
TO THE SNOWFLAKES😂 THIS IS BRITISH COMEDY AT ITS VERY BEST
Its not a racist rant. It was comedy. Still is if youre not made of tissue paper
I am dumber for having endured that bit of WTF.
Imagine, what thoughts that each of us have now will be inapropriate in the future?
That is quite a scary thought.
Well watching this will be the equivalent of watching kiddie porn
@@reddwarfer999 I have changed quite a few of my attitudes a number of times in my life, I am 63 years old.
I like to think that these I have now are definitive.
The show currently at the Apollo in London’s west end is very true to the sery
Basil should of taken over Cleese for training films! What ! Yes! The rude uncaring blunt and unfeeling nature of someone in the service industry. I think thats what we all need😂
They were filmed twice and live, and then cleese would choose his favourite.
Anyone who finds this racist and gets offended by it is hypersensitive and needs therapy from a psychiatrist or psychologist!
Agree people don’t understand 70s or 80s comedy and won’t shows banned for trying to be funny
It wasn't funny.
@@Capgpro1 that’s your opinion! You’re being hypersensitive!
@@Capgpro1watch the whole series if you haven’t already. Then tell us it’s not funny
Even though he called them names, he respected the Indians enough to see them play. Presumably also the Windies, who were great then. That's what I like about cricket, it's almost a pure meritocracy. Of course, Cleese is a big cricket fan
Everyone: before displaying your virtue and modern sensibilities, please watch it again and try to find the animosity.
Can't help but wonder if The Major wasn't a major influence on Fast Show's, Rowley Birkin QC.
My father... the Major... 100%.. fought in the war.
We should still be able to talk like this. This island has went to the dogs.
people get so worked up about racism but say little about the casual sexism inherent here
Conveniently cut out nowadays.
My favourite scene ❤❤❤
Whys that then? Cos the major’s an old racist you mean . Wet your pants did you when he went on about n**gers and w*gs
@@henrysmith883 Snowflake alert ⚠️
Being delighted by one's own racism is a lovely trait.
@MortalClown How am I racist? I simply said it's my favourite scene, trouble is snowflakes like yourself fail to see the whole point of the scene
Lovely sketch
The major is a brilliant charachter....
Germans and a lot of English are related through the Saxons, so I don't see where the 'ism fits.
Best episode the show ever did!
In the OED wog was an anachronism for wily oriental gentleman
No no no that's not right I said!
It's the WEST Indies. 😂😂
Absolutely CLASSIC.