When I was younger, every Friday night before leaving to hang with friends or go clubbing, I’d pass the den where I could hear Mom and Dad laughing. I rarely stuck around to see what it was that was giving them the giggles, but naturally, I knew. Their favorite program was on. A BBC sitcom starring John Cleese, pre-Monty Python fame, called Fawlty Towers was a Friday night never-miss. The show was a series that aired weekly and the story line was staged in a hotel aptly named Fawlty Towers. Since my Dad was British, and my Mother had a dry sense of humor, I could see the appeal, but for me I had dancing to do, so I’d leave them to it, and started kidding them about their weekly habit calling it, Friday Towers.
Fast forward a few decades and Mom and Pop are both gone now, but their laughter over the simple, but brilliant sitcom still rings in my ears. This blog post is about Fawlty Towers and the humor it brought into the lives of millions over the years. The writers John Cleese and his wife at the time, Connie Booth, brought a special irrepressible brand of humor to the British public. Like anything good, the word spread and soon it had an international audience.
Since I’m a big fan of John Cleese and his style of humor I’ve developed a new appreciation for the show over the years and my posts reflect that appreciation. Admittedly, revisiting Fawlty Towers, aka (in our household) Friday Towers is a bit of an homage to my folks. Why not spread the laughter? I hope that through some of my articles you can also gain a taste for the silliness and absurdity of an old fashion take on life in a small business.
Not only Fawlty Towers, but other notable sitcoms will be the subject of my blogs from time to time. I enjoy writing about a simpler era when we had the wisdom to poke fun at ourselves without an intentional underlying message. Fawlty Towers clearly functions as entertainment, and deftly demonstrates in 30 minutes ways we should avoid taking ourselves too seriously.
I hope you get a laugh or two from my posts. Please don’t be a stranger. Leave your comments below each article, I’d love to hear from you.