Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Revealing mistake: When the Colonel first meets Basil, the same shot is used twice of the Colonel twitching.
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Audio problem: In the first scene when Basil is trying to repair his car, when he tries to start the engine, the engine sounds are totally out of sync with Basil turning the ignition key. (00:00:05)
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Continuity mistake: There appears to be a very obvious splice edit in this episode. When Basil manages to get Kurt off him after being pinned to the kitchen table, he pushes Kurt against the wall knocking him out. Before this Basil is lying flat on the table and we never see him get up to a standing position beforehand.
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Continuity mistake: When Basil goes to fetch the branch to give the car a thrashing after it breaks down, the car manages to move onto the pavement all by itself.
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Revealing mistake: When Basil is out of the car and shouting at it after its final breakdown, you can see a crew member reflected in the right hand side of the windscreen giving John Cleese cues. It's not Cleese himself, as the reflection remains after he runs out of shot to get the tree branch, and the reflection doesn't mimic every action performed on screen.
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Visible crew/equipment: When Basil runs to change the menu and Sybil says "why?" you can see a shadow of the boom on the pigeon holes at the side.
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Continuity mistake: When Basil is driving home the second time, he is turning into a street where a van is parked. When he turns the street is dry. In the next scene where he is backing away from the van, the street is all wet.
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Continuity mistake: When Basil's car breaks down for the final time after reversing away from the van, watch closely on the garden path of the house right next to the car. The garden gate is open, and you can see it swing shut (look at the black shape just above the hedge) just as Basil says "One, two three." The gate was shut when he first reversed around the corner, but was open again after the shot cuts back to the car (after it's moved to the right along the pavement).
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Visible crew/equipment: Just after Basil gets the duck from Andre, he tells Manuel to get the trolley. Basil then walks into the door, and the duck goes flying. You can briefly see the arm of the crewman holding the door closed. A few seconds later, Manuel comes through the door and stands on the duck. For about 5 seconds you can see the crewman's face.
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Audio problem: When Basil is pretending to be a duck and quacking, you can tell it is false because the quacking stops a second after Basil stops pretending to quack.
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Audio problem: When Basil impersonates the duck, the sound effect used continues when his mouth is closed.
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Continuity mistake: When Manuel fetches Basil from outside, Basil enters the building first in the exterior shots, but Manuel gets to reception first in the interior ones. (00:01:30)
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Visible crew/equipment: At the start of the episode, when Basil follows Manuel into the hotel, the shadow of a crew member holding a boom mic can be seen bottom right as the camera follows them across the terrain. (00:01:30)
Gourmet Night (a.k.a. Gourmet's Paradise) - S1-E5
Visible crew/equipment: At the end, the stage lights can be seen in the silver lid. (00:29:00)
Answer: A possible explanation can be found here: http://tviv.org/Fawlty_Towers/Waldorf_Salad Quote: "This is, of course, sarcasm, as southern California in general and Los Angeles in particular is famous for its palm trees".
Mortug