Fawlty Towers and Hostile Guests
I’ve been a huge fan of the Fawlty Towers series since first seeing it all those years ago when it first came out. I’ve had occasion to see reruns over the years, none of which I missed. And now, I have the DVD edition at home that allows me to see any of the shows I like at any time. I would put Fawlty Towers at the top of the list as one of the best sitcoms ever made.
That’s why, when I saw that someone had made a Counter Strike map based on Fawlty Towers, I downloaded it immediately and set up a server to play it, using bots. Called cs_fawlty_towers, it’s a pretty good effort, though without the polish of mainstream maps. It’ll give any fan a laugh or two, as I can attest, not just from running around the familiar surrounds of the Fawlty Towers hotel, but also from allusions to incidents from different shows that are scattered around the place.
These little touches really add to the fun, and if you know the series well, you know that the designer has done his homework. More than likely, he’s seen the shows as many times as you have.
On the front counter is the vase and money from the Mrs. Richards episode; above the clock is the moose head from the Germans episode; under the counter, and at several other random spots, is a Harold Robbins book from the dissatisfied American guests episode; in the kitchen, there is a sign about breakfast-tray types from the dead guest episode; the light switches look suspiciously like small breasts, which is from the psychiatrists episode; and of course, something that could not be missed, in the kitchen is a box of rat poison from the rat episode. The list goes on.
Of the others I could mention, the fire alarm is located behind the front desk, and it works. Just shoot out the glass. This alarm feature is from the fire drill Basil attempts to conduct: as the frustration mounts, he’s arguing with the guests, the alarm is ringing loudly, and then, to add to the clamor, the phone starts ringing. Well, in the map, there’s a phone on the desk that starts ringing too; if you go near it, it starts ringing and doesn’t stop.
The phone ringing is probably what gave me the biggest laugh. There I was at the front desk, just as two counter terrorist bots start bursting through the front door, one firing an MP5-Navy submachine gun and the other a Benelli shotgun, catching me and the desk in a hail of bullets. I was returning fire with the AK47–and the phone starts ringing. Memories of Basil, a ringing phone and hostile guests came back to me, and I just cracked up at the juxtaposition now presented with my own predicament.
It was so much fun getting shot to pieces.
My only wish was that some aspects of the map had more detail. I would have preferred some windows not to be covered with curtains. I would have preferred the blow-up sex doll in one of the rooms to have been in 3D–how could we forget that moment, when Basil bursts in on a guest inflating one. There should have been a fridge in the kitchen where now there are boxes. The backyard area didn’t really look like how I remembered it from the rat episode. And there is no view of Torquay from the roof, no “herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plain”!
But perhaps these things will feature in version 2. I look forward to it.
For more scenes from Fawlty Towers, see the gallery.
Happen it did the night I went to see Brazil, not knowing that much about it. Here is another film that instantly became one of my all time favourite movies. I would say it’s probably the number one of my top ten. It is so unique with its bizarre upside down world, its black comedy, film references, literary allusions and symbolism. There is a clear debt to Kafka in this twisted vision of an individual against society, bureaucratic madness and the ghost in the machine. Directed by Terry Gilliam, you can also see the legacy of Monty Python at work. Aspects of Brazil can also be seen in the better known 12 Monkeys, which for me wasn’t as good.You can check out the Brazil trailer below:
There are classic scenes like the alien bursting from a chest, which has become a part of modern pop culture. There were subtles, like the robot’s behaviour and the suggestion that one of the female crew is raped by the alien. Years later the same director would make that other brilliant sci-fi classic, Bladerunner, another one of my favourite movies.I couldn’t go past Taxi Driver as another film to have a great impact on me. I think I saw it before any other Martin Scorsese films, and several years after it came out, although I hadn’t heard much about it other than it was considered an exceptional movie. I had to agree. I loved the use of slow motion inter-cut with fast action, the interesting camera angles, the close ups. This film had it all. Its direction, music, the alienation and brooding aloneness of Travis, the incidental details that were afforded significance, and the bloody cathartic ending – these all made it an undeniable classic. It certainly appealed to me as an eighteen year old misfit, single and frustrated by the way life was going. I’m sure the young males that shared my demographic at the time perhaps related to it more than any one else.
