History Trivia / FawltyTowers

** The first, ''Snavely'' (also known as ''Chateau Snavely''), starring Creator/HarveyKorman and Creator/BettyWhite, was produced by Creator/{{ABC}} for a pilot in 1978, but the transfer from coastal hotel to highway motel proved too much and additional episodes were never filmed after the completion and review of that pilot. Cleese felt that Korman and White "played it too slow and were embarrassed by the edgy dialogue".

** The American remake, ''Payne'', is this for Creator/JohnLarroquette, who simply calls it a "[[{{Pun}} pain]]".

* DoingItForTheArt: Creator/JohnCleese and Creator/ConnieBooth put enormous amounts of effort into the show, with each script requiring months of writing and editing before shooting. Also, the scripts were very dense and ran more than 120 pages at a time a typical half-hour sitcom script was only around 60 pages long. The cast rehearsed everything very thoroughly so that they could complete tapings in just two hours. The sheer exhaustion this caused was the reason why there was a long gap between the two series and the series lay dormant for the next forty-five ''years''.

* TropeNamer: For FawltyTowersPlot.

* DoingItForTheArt: Creator/JohnCleese and Creator/ConnieBooth put enormous amounts of effort into the show, with each script requiring months of writing and editing before shooting. Also, the scripts were very dense and ran more than 120 pages at a time a typical half-hour sitcom script was only around 60 pages long. The cast rehearsed everything very thoroughly so that they could complete tapings in just two hours. The sheer exhaustion this caused was the reason why there was a long gap between the two series and why no more were made.

* CreatorCouple: Creator/JohnCleese and Connie Booth were married when they made the first season. They divorced by the time of the second one, but still could [[WorkingWithTheEx work together.]] This has led to rumors that the show ended ''because'' of their divorce, by people who didn't do the research about the timing.

** Connie Booth's favourite episode was "The Germans".

* FakeBrit: Yes and no. Connie Booth had lived in Britain for so long that she could be said to be actually British. Also played with in "Gourmet Night," where she sings in a perfect but annoying American accent. Her accent also slips out in "The Builders" when Basil drags her by the ear.

* InspirationForTheWork: The series was inspired when Creator/MontyPython stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, run by Donald and Beatrice Sinclair. Mr Sinclair's irascible antics included: berating Creator/TerryGilliam (an American who later became a U.K. citizen) for eating his meals in "too American" a way; throwing Creator/EricIdle's suitcase over a wall because of a "bomb scare" (the scare was that Idle had an alarm clock in his suitcase); disbelief at Creator/MichaelPalin asking to pre-book the Gleneagles TV to catch a show; after Creator/GrahamChapman requested an omelet made with three eggs, Sinclair brought him an omelet with three fried eggs perched on top; when asked by Cleese to call for a taxi, he argued with Cleese and took his time calling for the cab. While the rest of the Pythons eventually left to find another hotel, Cleese was fascinated by what he described as "the most wonderfully rude man I'd ever met" and called Connie Booth down to experience it, and the rest is history.

* RealLifeRelative: Creator/JohnCleese (Basil) and Connie Booth (Polly) were married when they wrote and acted the first series (1975). By the time of the second, in 1979, they were divorced, although they were on good enough terms to keep working together.

* WriteWhoYouKnow: Sybil's distinctive laugh was based on Connie Booth's.

* DawsonCasting: A mild case, but Sybil's medical chart in "The Germans" gives her age as 33 years old; Prunella Scales was 43 years old when the first series was broadcast.

* WordOfSaintPaul: Prunella Scales made up a backstory for Sybil: she was a barmaid was charmed by a just out of the army Basil, married him and bought the hotel before realizing what kind of person he was.
* WordOfGod: Creator/JohnCleese said that they had little intention of creating catch phrases (Manuel says "¿''Qué''?" a lot, for instance, because... well, how could that not be the case?), though they did eventually realize that the "He's from Barcelona" line almost got funnier each time they put it in. Especially when Sybil and Polly are eventually forced to use it and the one instance where Manuel himself says "I'm from Barcelona" in the first episode of the second series.

* OldShame:
** John Cleese named The Builders as "the least good" of the Fawlty Towers episodes that were filmed, owing to a general lack of laughter in the studio on recording day. He recalls that members of the Icelandic Broadcasting Corporation were visiting the studio that day and many of them were in the front row seats, apparently not entirely amused.
** The American remake, ''Payne'', is this for Creator/JohnLarroquette, who simply calls it a "[[{{Pun}} pain]]".

* CompletelyDifferentTitle: Since the pun in the title is LostInTranslation in most other languages, many broadcasters opted for localized titles when it was broadcast in non-English speaking countries, some more creative than others:

** German: ''Ein verrücktes Hotel'' ("A crazy hotel")

* EnforcedMethodActing: Sachs took a beating in a few episodes:

** Manuel, who's from Barcelona, was played by Andrew Sachs, a German-born British actor. This continues into the German dub, where Andrew Sachs dubbed himself, and had fun trying to speak German with a Spanish accent.

* InMemoriam: After Andrew Sachs passed away in November 2016, the BBC reaired the episode "Communication Problems", with a dedication by Creator/JohnCleese.

* MultipleLanguagesSameVoiceActor: Andrew Sachs, who was born in Germany, reprised Manuel in the German dub, complete with Spanish accent.

* InspirationForTheWork: The series was inspired when Creator/MontyPython stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, run by Donald and Beatrice Sinclair. Mr Sinclair's irascible antics included: berating Creator/TerryGilliam for eating his meals in "too American" a way; throwing Creator/EricIdle's suitcase over a wall because of a "bomb scare" (the scare was that Idle had an alarm clock in his suitcase); disbelief at Creator/MichaelPalin asking to pre-book the Gleneagles TV to catch a show; after Creator/GrahamChapman requested an omelet made with three eggs, Sinclair brought him an omelet with three fried eggs perched on top; when asked by Cleese to call for a taxi, he argued with Cleese and took his time calling for the cab. While the rest of the Pythons eventually left to find another hotel, Cleese was fascinated by what he described as "the most wonderfully rude man I'd ever met" and called Connie Booth down to experience it, and the rest is history.