rink in "Basil the Rat". He is known for his passionate patriotism, amplified in "The Anniversary" when he tries to make Terry the chef let him cook a seafood paella to his mother's recipe. Manuel has a large family in Spain, mentioning in "The Wedding Party" that he has five brothers and four sisters. During the episode "Basil the Rat", Manuel acquires a common rat while under the impression that it is a Siberian hamster, and names it Basil, after his boss. He becomes very emotionally attached to the rat, and even threatens to leave Fawlty Towers altogether if Basil and Sybil dispose of it, to which Basil immediately responds, "Well, goodbye." The episode also highlights the fact that Manuel is rather dim even without the language barrier, as he lets the rat out of its cage for some exercise (which leads to the rat ending up loose in the hotel), manages to spell "Spleep" from S-L-E-E-P, and pronounces cholesterol as "costellorol", even though the two words are quite similar in English and Spanish (colesterol). Origins Sachs claimed that he only had a few weeks to learn the difficult and complex accent that Manuel is so famous for (in fact, having lived in Germany until he was eight, Sachs initially suggested playing a German waiter), but loved his experiences on the show and still had Manuel's attire. Sachs suffered two serious injuries during Fawlty Towers. In The Wedding Party, he was almost knocked unconscious after being hit over the head with a frying pan (after John Cleese accidentally picked up a real frying pan instead of a rubber-padded prop) and in The Germans, he suffered second degree burns from a fire. Dubbing For the Spanish dub of the show broadcast in Spain, the character was changed to an Italian from Naples called Paolo (and in The Anniversary, his desire to make paella is changed to lasagna). In the Catalan TV3 channel (based in Barcelona), Manuel's origin was changed to Mexico City and the character has a Mexican accent. The French version also gives his nationality as Mexican. In scenes in which Manuel appears there are several references to Spain, and to General Franco, who was still alive when the first six episodes of the show were broadcast. In The Builders when Bennion the delivery man says "No no, where's the real boss?... The... the generalissimo." Manuel looks at him daftly: