May 2012

Where’s Jason?

Politically Correct Disclaimer: This is only a joke, based off the humour drawn from the comparison between Jason from the Friday the 13th movie franchise and the Where’s Wally set of children’s books. It’s especially funny because my name’s Jason too. There, now you have society’s permission to laugh at this.

What do The Wombles and Fawlty Towers have in common?

Fawlty Towers is by far my favourite TV show of all time. I’ve seen the episodes too many times to count, I’ve bought the DVD sets, and I’ve even got a copy of the read-a-long scripts. And yet no matter how many times I watch the 12 episodes, there’s always something else I enjoy about every scene. The only other show I’ve appreciated in this way, but for totally different reasons, is The Larry Sanders show; a series that I could watch again and again, just to see the winces I didn’t catch the first time, or to have another opportunity to cringe at the awkwardness of it all.

I was quite amazed to learn today that Fawlty Towers is connected to The Wombles (which, by the way, was one of my favourite TV shows growing up as a young kid of the 80s). One of the actors in The Hotel Inspectors episode, Bernard Cribbons, was actually the narrator and voice behind all of the characters in The Wombles (which in itself is quite surprising news to any Wombles fan).

Here’s Bernard in The Wombles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM7U-WP_JqI

And here he is as a pompous guest in Fawlty Towers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YXjwbzViN9M#t=97s