One Of John Cleese's Only Fawlty Towers Regrets Involves Getting Hit With A Moose Head

In 2021, the BBC made all episodes of "Fawlty Towers" available to watch on its iPlayer streaming service. Naturally, the ever-voluble John Cleese had some retrospective thoughts on his beloved sitcom, which had debuted some 46 years earlier. The first run of six episodes hit BBC Two in 1975, before a further six arrived in 1979 — all of which were a big hit for the BBC and the Monty Python alum.

Since his days spent playing the lovably misanthropic hotelier Basil Fawlty, Cleese has built a varied and impressive acting career, landing roles in everything from the '80s comedy "A Fish Called Wanda" to his stint as Q in the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies. But all these years later, his Python sketches and farcical antics in "Fawlty Towers" remain among his best-loved work. That doesn't mean there aren't things Cleese regrets about those days, though. In fact, there's one instance involving a moose head that still bugs the veteran comedian to this day.

When the BBC brought "Fawlty Towers" to iPlayer, Cleese was on-hand to reminisce about the classic sitcom. Speaking to the broadcasting company's The One Show, he told hosts Alex Jones and Martin Clunes that when he does catch reruns of the show there are certain things he wishes he'd done differently. One instance involved a scene where he was supposed to get hit by a moose head that falls off the wall:

"There is a moment when the moose head falls on me and I would have retaken it, because if you watch carefully, I am waiting for it to fall on me because it didn't fall on cue, it was late. I'm very sorry we didn't go back to do that so every time I watch that sequence I go, 'Oh dear I wish we got that right.'"

You can see the clip here and, honestly, it doesn't really look like Cleese did anything wrong, and you can't tell the moose head didn't fall on cue. But when you've made something of course you spot all the imperfections. 

That said, Cleese seems rightly pleased with the legacy of "Fawlty Towers" in general, going on to say that he "still laughs" when he sees the argument at the beginning of the Germans episode about the fire drill, adding: "it's terribly well performed by everyone. It was a group performance." And in reality, the whole production was so rushed, there probably wouldn't have been time to redo the moose scene anyway. As Cleese once said when he was asked if he enjoyed making the show on a "Making of Fawlty Towers" featurette: "there wasn't time to enjoy it ... it was a mad improvised rush."