Mistakes are an inevitable part of human nature, but there's a system for dealing with them the right way -- The Four A's: Assess the damage, Acknowledge your role, Apologize sincerely and Assassinate all accusers. But no matter how simple and logical this process may seem, there are plenty of idiots out there who just live for the chance to make a bad thing so, so much worse.

6 Fawlty Towers Ruins the Reputation of a Crazy Person

Via Fanpop.com

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Despite only running for 12 episodes, Fawlty Towers is considered one of the best British sitcoms of all time. The show's success was mostly due to the character of Basil Fawlty, who utterly enraptured audiences in spite (or because) of the fact that he was an absolutely awful human being. John Cleese eventually revealed that the character was based on Donald Sinclair, a hotel owner he'd once encountered. However, his widow didn't like having her husband's name attached to one of the most successful British sitcoms in history, presumably because money once tried to take advantage of her in an airport bathroom and she never forgave it. So she adamantly denied that her husband was anything like the character in the show and, rather than chocking the whole thing up as some kind of situation or scenario employing falsehood or embellishment to comedic effect (if only there was a word for that), she loudly and repeatedly objected to the way Cleese portrayed her husband for 30 years after the series had finished. Which we imagine is 29 years past the point when anyone gave a damn.

Via Orangecow.org

No mention of whether she protested the portrayal of that hair.

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The Backlash:

Rather than letting the story fall into the sarlacc pit of pop culture's collective short attention span, Sinclair's widow revived the controversy again, just before she died. Unfortunately, this time it prompted a former waitress from the hotel to publicly refute her, stating that, if anything, Sinclair was even worse than Cleese had made out. If the widow Sinclair had just left the story alone, not only would nobody care, but it would be her and her husband's word against Cleese's. Worst case scenario, they come off as a couple of humorless buzzkills. Instead, she had to reiterate the story one last time and accidentally provoke the only witness to stand up against her in 30 years.

Via Telegraph

OK, we take back the hair comment.

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Then she passed away, leaving the whole world to remember her as "that crazy lady who hated jokes."