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Frame from Don't Mention the War! | Fawlty Towers | BBC Comedy Greats Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Don't Mention the War! | Fawlty Towers | BBC Comedy Greats

5 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
Cited on HN 3 times, 2014–2021, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN mentions it mainly as a joke reference or as an example of humor that many Germans reportedly find funny.

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.

1 citations · 2 jokes · Comedy

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@throwablePie Jun 2020 Cites it
on HN thread Fawlty Towers 'Don't mention the war' episode removed from UKTV
Read more
> 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]
Many Germans find this scene funny.
@estebank Mar 2014 Makes a joke
on HN thread Apple rejects Tank Battle 1942 for depicting Germans and Russians as "enemies"
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]
@paganel Jan 2021 Makes a joke
on HN thread How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance
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]

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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