BBC Comedy Greats
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2014–2021
1:54 · 5.1M views · Oct 15, 2009
The classic Fawlty Towers scene in which Basil Fawlty tries not to mention the war while serving German guests, ending in goose-stepping and mocking. It is a two-minute BBC comedy clip with John Cleese.
HN mentions it mainly as a joke reference or as an example of humor that many Germans reportedly find funny.
3 comments from Hacker News
> The original broadcast included a scene in which Major Gowen, a regular guest at the hotel, uses very strong racist language in relation to an anecdote about the West Indies cricket team. A decade ago many broadcasters began editing out this part of the programme, although the racist language can still be heard on the version hosted by Netflix. [LINK] I'm African American and I'd prefer not to be turned into a perpetual victim by people who mean well. Rather than infantilizing censorship, I'd like to have the option to watch to watch this classic episode in its entirety. An embedded disclaimer wouldn't be inappropriate. Apparently, many Germans find this scene very funny: this video
There isn't even a need for that, take the "classic" goose dance, for example, it can be particularly funny, like in this video [1], or out-right scary, like in this footage [2]. It all depends on the context, I can't see John Cleese turning into a genocidal dictator anytime soon, while we all know what the people in the second video did only a few years after those images were filmed. For what it's worth I see the robot in this story closer to the second video than to Cleese's comedic genius. [1] this video [2] [LINK]
Really? Would you think that those people would also be offended by mentioning the war[1], making fun of "Mr. Hilter"[2] or the idea of Kamikaze Scotsmen[3]? Also, it is a fact that most games only let you play as one faction that usually have some very bad luck[4][5][6], be them real or not. [1]: this video [2]: [LINK] [3]: [LINK] [4]: [LINK] [5]: [LINK] [6]: [LINK]