How to make the Germans love you? Just mention the war...
Poll finds Basil Fawlty and Blackadder are among their TV heroes, despite the politcally incorrect jokes
IT’S FINE to mention the war after all, it seems, because a survey of international attitudes towards BBC programmes has found that the Germans adore Basil Fawlty.
Audiences from different countries were asked to name their favourite television characters, both comedic and dramatic, for a BBC poll.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock came top in every territory. But while most countries nominated the Doctor from Doctor Who as the next most popular character, Germany chose John Cleese’s 1970s hotelier. It also showed a fondness for Edmund Blackadder, placing him sixth in its top 10. The final Blackadder series was set in the First World War trenches, with Rowan Atkinson playing Blackadder as a wily captain doing his best to avoid a deadly encounter with “Fritz”. Fawlty Towers was not shown in Germany until 1993, such was the sensitivity around the episode entitled “The Germans”. It featured a goose-stepping Cleese yelling, “Don’t mention the war!” before a group of German guests, and the famous exchange: “Will you stop talking about the war!” “Me? You started it.” “We did not start it.” “Yes you did, you invaded Poland.”
In 2001, a German remake of Fawlty Towers was announced, but the German sketches did not make the cut. “The scenes with the Germans will not be included. It wouldn’t be that funny,” a BBC spokesman said at the time.
The survey of more than 7,000 people aged 18-64 was conducted in Germany, Australia, France, the United States, India, Japan and Mexico.
In the overall top 10, Sherlock was followed by the Doctor and Luther, the brooding detective played by Idris Elba, with Basil Fawlty ranked fourth.
The Stig, of Top Gear fame, was fifth; Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley) of Absolutely Fabulous was sixth, and Edmund Blackadder seventh. Hyacinth Bucket of Keeping Up Appearances was eighth, proving that social climbing translates to every language. The Vicar of Dibley (Dawn French) and the Daleks completed the list.
The survey also asked international viewers to name the “most iconic BBC moments”. Sherlock came out on top once more with the ending of the 2012 series, in which the detective appeared to fall to his death from the roof of a building, before returning unharmed in a new series two years later.
But the second most popular scene went back to 1969: Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch. Other favourites included Colin Firth as Mr Darcy emerging from a lake in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice; David Brent dancing in The Office; Sir David Attenborough’s encounter with a gorilla in Life On Earth; and the “Don’t tell him, Pike!” moment in Dad’s Army.