Great Old TV Episodes...from Fawlty Towers

WALDORF SALAD, from 1979, is from the British sitcom Fawlty Towers, a short series that split its twelve total episodes between two seasons in 1975 and '79.   It's about an small town/countryside English inn owned and run by the married couple Basil and Sybil Fawlty, played by Monty Python star John Cleese and Prunella Scales.  Basil is a self-important, arrogant man who acts as if those around him...including the hotel's guests...are beneath his station in life.  Like other great comedic characters (the Honeymooners' Ralph Kramden comes to mind) he is always looking to game the system, usually with disastrous results.  Sybil for her part does little actual work in maintaining the place and is usually seen reading or chatting with others...when she isn't bluntly standing in the way of her husband's chronic foolishness. The rest of the core cast consists of Polly, a competent young waitress and Juan, an all-around worker there from Spain who barely understands English.  The episode I'm discussing today is my favorite of the series.  It's nine at night as the inn's dining section is closing down seating people and Basil, Polly and Juan are frantically running around serving customers while Sybil just stands there talking to a guest.  The orders are late and botched, while Basil makes a show of his general contempt toward both guests and colleagues.  Into the hotel walks a new couple, a tough-talking American and his English wife, and they expect to be fed even though the diner has just closed.  The man slips Basil some money to pay his chef to stay overtime to cook for them, but Basil secretly pockets it and sends his employee home instead.  The rest of the episode is about Basil's subterfuge of pretending the chef's still out in the kitchen while he finds himself clueless about preparing the couple's orders...including their drinks (Screwdrivers) and, of course, a Waldorf salad.  The American, played by Bruce Boa, gets more and more antagonistic with Basil, and their interaction should go down in history as one of the funniest ever in television.  And the episode's ending, with Basil proudly invoking British patriotism against his American adversary, is unforgettable...