On the other hand, none of these shows has run anywhere near as long as The Simpsons, and the AV Club community's time allotment for that show appears to be infinite.

Yeah, this is actually one of the few ones lately I've wanted to read.  And I actually want to see most of these shows now.

His fourth favorite?  CHiPs.

Is it actually not letting you comment?  I just meant that it's impossible to type in "@ " + E. Buzz Miller and have your name come up.

Well, it looks like neither of us will get that liver.

Hey, are you Borgin'?

Aw, it's OK.  As @avclub-3a964157d2661371723992a5bbe09992:disqus said above, enjoy your crush.

I for one am thrilled at this significant new slice of TFAD's backstory.

I think you've uncovered a whole new subculture here at the AVClub, @avclub-c156902f5b20b572848be18c11634dfb:disqus .   And it's terrifying.

Would you settle for Sidney J. Furie?

Yeah, Fawlty's got a rather complex pattern— any sort of a title boosts one's prestige in his eyes.  Doctors, military (officers only I would assume) and aristos he fawns over— though his hilarious recoil from the black doctor in The Germans episode shows the boundaries he lives within.  His prejudices are a map of…

I don't think that Sybil would've married up just for the sake of doing so.  I thought of it more just that as a younger woman she may have been more impressionable, and that Basil's affectations of class might have made him more attractive to her somehow.  But she's too inherently practical to be a snob.

I did enjoy Brick City, the documentary series about Newark, but then I like Cory Booker, and I can't say I'd feel the same way about the show were I running against Booker for mayor.  Although I did believe that Brick City's makers were trying to be as objective as possible,  I'm beginning to think that just turning…

He always says that.

I think her notion was that Sybil had married up— that Fawlty's upmarket pretensions had once impressed her (presumably before she learned to see through them).

I was interested to hear that the idea of giving her a lower-class accent was Scales's  rather than Cleese or Booth, who had imagined her being somewhat more posh.  It makes her interactions with Fawlty funnier somehow.  Which I suppose reinforces the old saw that all British humor is ultimately about class.

Hev-en-tchwall-ee.

Exactly.  Unpleasant assholes getting their comeuppance have been the history of comic writing— rule them out as a device and you've basically tossed out Moliere, Feydeau, Sheridan, and the lighter (and darker) sides of Shakespeare just to start with.

Fawlty to Manuel: "I'm going to send you to a vivisectionist!"

Basil the Rat.  The reveal with the biscuits in the end is my favorite sight gag in the show.  It also has some of the best lines: