The first series of Fawlty Towers aired in 1975. The BBC sitcom premiered on BBC Two on 19 September 1975, beginning with “A Touch of Class,” in which Basil Fawlty tries to impress the supposedly aristocratic Lord Melbury.
The series was created and written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, who developed its tightly constructed farce around the chaotic Fawlty Towers hotel in Torquay, Devon. John Howard Davies directed all six episodes of the first series. The remaining episodes aired weekly, with “The Germans” bringing the first run to a close on 24 October 1975.
A common mix-up comes from the gap between the two series. The second series did not appear until 1979, more than three years later, and the programme is therefore often described as a 1975–1979 series. The pilot was recorded on 24 December 1974, but that production date is not the year in which the first series aired. Fawlty Towers ultimately consisted of two six-episode series.