Friday dilemma: Was Basil Fawlty a bad boss?

Carstairs says:

01:00pm | 26/08/11

Basil a faulty boss? “Right, well I’ll go and have a lie down then. No I won’t; I’ll go and hit some guests.”  Elegant.

sarah says:

01:05pm | 26/08/11

at least it would never have been dull working at fatty owls…

David of the Grand Academy of Adelagado. says:

01:35pm | 26/08/11

I once had a wealthy client who told me theres only 2 types of bosses… bastards, or poor ones. Sadly I think he was right. I was one of the poor ones.

The Phenom says:

02:24pm | 26/08/11

Of course he was a bad boss! You can’t hit your employees….no matter how much they deserve it. The scary thing is Basil was based on a real hotel manager the Pyrhons once met.

kate says:

02:35pm | 26/08/11

He was only bad because he didn’t hire efficient and capable staff.

Mallie says:

02:47pm | 26/08/11

I think Basil did a bang-up job keeping the hotel running with what he had.

Shenanigans says:

03:12pm | 26/08/11

don’t you mean flowery twats?

Kassandra says:

03:24pm | 26/08/11

Basil Fawlty was a dangerously inept lunatic and Manuel was probably the most competent person in the hotel despite being linguistically challenged. I think John Cleese on the other hand is a comic genius - but then I’m one of those people who knows most of the Python sketches off by heart so I was a big fan of the show.

Cynical Pom says:

04:00pm | 26/08/11

This edition of The Punch brought to you by those nice folk at New Line Cinema. Tickets for Horrible Bosses available now.

Does that count as cash for comment?

Justin says:

04:18pm | 26/08/11

Farty Towels was my favourite re-name.

Abusive to staff? Check. Abusive to customers? Check. Questionable morals? Check. Created webs of lies? Check. Circumvented regulations? Check. Instructed others to lie & circumvent regulations? Check. Knowingly served bad food to customers? Check. Beat a car with a tree branch? Check. Mentally unstable? See all of the above.

Oh yeah, he was an absolute gem.

LON says:

04:46pm | 26/08/11

I never found out who actually owned Fawlty Towers because Sybil always appeared to control the money. Basils demented behaviour would not be unusual for a territorial psychopath, sadly i have met one or two Basil’s during my working life and there is nearly always a Manuel or a Polly present, their egos cannot thrive without an outlet for their venom . I suspect that at the time of writing the script John Cleese was basing the personality of Basil a lot more on himself than he would care to admit.

stephen says:

07:01pm | 26/08/11

David Brent is funnier, and a worse boss you’ll never find.
I’m sure he’s real.
I had a boss like him only 3 months ago. Me and a gal from Holland spent so much time doing the moonwalk and writing crappy guitar riffs in this office (just to ape Dave) that the Manager caught us out and and tried to put us in the advertizing department.
‘Advertize what ?’ I said.
‘We’re doing a cmpaign for the IT Industry’ he said.
‘Ah yes, Dave comes from IT. Thanks, but no thanks’.

NESLIHAN KUROSAWA says:

08:46pm | 26/08/11

HI Punch Team,

I personally have always thought Fawlty Towers and Mr Basil Fawlty are very unique & remarkable to say the least!!  To be able to make people laugh takes a certain kind of intelligence & talent as well as being one of the hardest things to do in life.  What if I had a boss like Mr Fawlty??  I am not sure how to answer this questions.  However, it looks great, funny & very entertaining from a distance.

I do not think that he was a bad boss, he was just an ultra hyper active, sensitive, out spoken & shrewdly honest person.  Especially the language barrier with Emmanuel made it even more entertaining & hilariously funny!!  In our everyday lives, it would be almost impossible to find such contrast & true talent at the same time. 

At least, Emmanuel was very good at taking orders, and Mr Fawlty was very good at giving them.  I truly think that you can not teach an old dog new tricks. But did he always get his way??  I most certainly think not!!  But that is OK, in life you win some & you lose some.!!  Best regards to your editors.

Zonker says:

08:56pm | 26/08/11

I once worked in a Government Office dealing with the public.  Hundreds of them a day.  The Boss was a WW2 veteran who would turn up at about 9:45am sign some letters and disappear.  Then at about 3pm he would stand in the front door, drunk beyond belief and hurl abuse at the male staff for not keeping him company in the pub.  As a boss he was a benign tumour, the worst ones were the “Death March Commanders” who were prepared to sacrifice any member of staff, any principle, any tenet or belief so long as it furthered their careers.

Torkona says:

12:15am | 27/08/11

Basil was a terrible boss.  The reason his staff were crap because he was crap (although hilarious).  Physical abuse is not ok as a boss.  come one, give me a break! hehehe

- tork
Dad blog

Mr Pod says:

01:48pm | 27/08/11

Basil Fawlty was the owner of a small business, the overbearing restrictions and policies that poured down from public servants and having to serve greedy grabbing grubby banks must bear the responsibility of making him a bad boss.

Boog says:

02:28pm | 23/11/11

Phmeneonal breakdown of the topic, you should write for me too!