UKC

This is being re-run on BBC2 at the moment, just watched the latest episode and it's still brilliant, funny, slapstick and subtle humour with great characters and actors all in one package.

In reply to Al Evans:

Surely troll of the year. Chapeau!

D

In reply to Al Evans:
"You stupid woman..."

Saw this live in London years ago - brilliant. My parents were going with my aunt and uncle, but Mum was ill and I went instead - still remember the opening lines:

"Zis is Herr Flick of the Gestapo. Ze taking of photographs is strictly verboten - anyvun caught doing so vill be taken outside unt shot"

Oh, and Helga in Swasticka underwear...

In reply to Al Evans:

Subtle!?!

In reply to Al Evans:

Is there an 'ironic post' emoticon?

In reply to Al Evans:

What gets me annoyed is that crap like this gets repeated all the time, but the decent stuff doesn't

I suspect most people have forgotten that Allo Allo started off as a parody of "Secret Army", one of those great and very moving Sunday night dramas - much better than Lark Rise to the Midwife !

In reply to The New NickB:


Well maybe you don't get them, but there are undertones of sublety amongst the obvious.
To Chris the Tall, how can you possibly not 'get' this. It's to comedy what John Otway and Wild Willy Barret are to rock music.

In reply to Chris the Tall:


You sound like Al now

In reply to Al Evans:

I certainly got Vicky Michelle and that other bird.

Oh and the French Policeman was class.

But overall it got a bit tedious.

In reply to JamButty:



I guess it just looks a bit refreshed after all these years

In reply to Al Evans:

It had its moments. It was OK. Apart from being fundamentally offensive.

I would say it was the last gasp of the long-lived British idea that all foreigners are essentially comic, but that would be to leave out various Enfield and Baron-Cohen routines.

In reply to Al Evans:

http://cache2.allpostersimages.com/p/LRG/30/3008/PP3BF00Z/plakaty/tv-progra...

What's not to like?

In reply to Al Evans:

Al, as much as i like you, and you Know i really do, im going to have to disagree with you on this...

allo allo was jaw Droppingly shite.

In reply to Choss:

You have said it just like I was thinking it.

In reply to DaveHK:

AA was a huge success in France and Germany, not sure how they translated the double entendre accent gags...good moaning!

In reply to Tim Chappell:

I would say it was the last gasp of the long-lived British idea that all foreigners are essentially comic.

I thought it was quite accurate in its portrayal of the characteristics of various countries: -

The English: Incompetent. Inability to speak foreign languages.
The French: Philanderer's. Sexy young women. Ugly old crones.
The Italians: Strutting Peacocks. Cowardice.
The Germans: Crossdressers. Punctual. Into S&M. Have a 'sinister' disability.

In reply to Tim Chappell:


This.


It was good for those who like laughing at the cowardly French from the security of this island, thanks to which no British citizens experienced occupation thankfully. Bernard Manning, of all people, loathed the show as he as thought it was an insult to the memory of Resistance fighters. I tend to agree, though it's unsurprising that many on this side of the channel don't really get that.

In reply to Owen W-G:


Are you sure, I've lived in France for > 10 years & have nver seen it here, and my partner (French) says she's never heard of it.

Personally I thought it was mostly dreadful with the odd funny moment

In reply to Removed User:

Bernard Manning, of all people, loathed the show as he as thought it was an insult to the memory of Resistance fighters.

By that logic, wouldn't 'Dads Army' be an insult to the Home Guard?

In reply to Submit to Gravity:

don't forget Maria............

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/21055/Allo-Allo-comedy-hit-...

In reply to Al Evans:


Go on give an example, I suspect we just have different ideas of what constitutes subtle.

In reply tto00

I remember talking to my uncle in the early 80's when Allo Allo was first aired. He was a fighter pilot flying out of airfields in Northumberland and, being a Grammar School kid , he remembered that most of his posh wing men spoke exactly like the two hapless pilots in the programme!!!
additionally, the airfield was guarded by the Home Guard and not unlike Captain Manwaring et al.!!!

In reply to Al Evans:

One thing that always makes me laugh in Allo Allo is the way Sam Kelly (who is Jewish) just manages to avoid saying "heil hitler".

In reply to JamButty:


Yeah, if you've seen the first series, you've seen them all. Dead horses getting flogged for several years after.

In reply to Al Evans:

I remember watching it as a teenager and thinking it was hilarious. I guess if you think too hard about political correctness you might not find it so funny.

In reply to knthrak1982:


Not quite. The first TWO series work well, I watched them recently. The story actually ends at the end of the second series, as we see the two British airmen escape in a balloon (although there is still the issue of Rene having been fake-executed and having to play his own twin brother whilst Edith plays the widow and heiress to the café)

There is also a great and sadly underdeveloped gag, really just a single line, which suggests that the blonde Nazi Helga is in fact Jewish. Look out for it.

In reply to Clarence:


Yes!

In reply to Blue Straggler:


There is also a great and sadly underdeveloped gag, really just a single line, which suggests that the blonde Nazi Helga is in fact Jewish. Look out for it.

I missed that.
Does that mean, that I'll have to watch a whole load of Allo Allo's featuring Helga, with the inevitably of her stripping down to basque and stockings?

In reply to FactorXXX:

It is somewhere in the first two series. When Kim Hartman was in her pert prime. Handy, that.

Maybe somewhere between S3 and S9 there is more "she might be Jewish" stuff but frankly I couldn't face the diminishing returns. Seriously it works well as a complete story (with aforementioned loose ends!) in the the first two series.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Thanks, might have to do some nifty fast forwarding and pausing...

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I respect your views on most thing film and television, the episode I watched was from the first two series.

In reply to FactorXXX:

They are discussing the London tailors who are using the German officers' stolen uniforms in order to make copies to help the airmen escape. The tailors' names are announced as Solomon and Klein.

Helga declares "Oy vey!......er....whatever THAT might mean". Good comic timing from all involved (it's all about the pause and the blushing). That single exclamation, explains a lot about her subservience to Herr Flick, which I always thought had to go a bit beyond mere ambition. She's a Jew, hiding out in the last place anyone would expect. Well that's a theory anyway (and it did used to happen....e.g. wasn't Paul Verhoeven's Dutch resistance film Black Book based upon a combination of real stories?)

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I remember loving it as a kid, but was not keen on the later series.
And as i remember it, didn't Helga fancy herr Flick?

In reply to Al Evans:

I used to cringe at it on the telly. Then I met a Dutch lad in the Alps who said it was incredibly popular there despite the war having been no joking matter. It seems that different countries put their own slant on it during the dubbing - in France they all have outrageous provincial accents.
I got to appreciate it when I played Rene in the stage version some years ago.

In reply to Mikkel:


It's hard to tell, in the first two series. She mostly seems to be whoring herself - any affection she displays seem to be acting-within-acting, in a desperate attempt to impress.

I know I am taking Allo Allo far too seriously. Don't fret, I have a stupid kung fu film to watch later

In reply to Chris the Tall:



It's just dawned on me, Lark Rise to Candleford was effectively Postman Pat for adults. Same central theme, same ridiculous characters.