Are you being Served (1 Viewer)

Hi all,

There are some threads on "Are you being Served", but many of them are really old and in some cases you cannot post to the thread.

I order the complete series today from Amazon as it was on sale. I have fond memories of the show as a kid as such it is one of those British shows that is must have if you are fan of British humor: http://www.amazon.ca/Are-Being-Served-Complete-Collection/dp/B002I9TZHA/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1415622553&sr=1-1&keywords=are+you+being+served

I've had it for a while. Love it. I've watched it so many times I think I can recite the entire series word for word.

"Dear Sexy Knickers, I don't 'alf fancy you. Meet me in the lift later and we'll get it together. "

What ever happened to Mrs. Slocombe's pussy anyway?


Adore the show. We used to never miss it on PBS. I've had my set for years. Terrific stuff, especially the early episodes. Just classics.

Rumboldt: "The customer's Chinese, you see, he has difficulty getting his tongue 'round his R's."
Humphries: (starts to say something)....(very....long....thoughtful...beat pause) "...I can imagine that would be rather difficult."

The Brits make fun of us for liking Benny Hill, and we don't have the heart to tell them about our Served fandom.
Either way, the same rule applies in Brit humor that overly aggressive American comics just don't understand: You can get away with absolutely the most inappropriate double-entendres, if you feign utter complete innocence about them.
Hill was a master of that on his show, and what we laugh at when Mrs. Slocombe mentions her pussy isn't the dirty-word, it's her complete earnestness and concern for her cat, that keeps her from being aware of why everyone's looking at her strangely.

Do all the episodes of this still exist?

I remember this was in nearly constant rotation on PBS in the 80's. I liked it, although I liked "Allo Allo" by the same creators even better.

Hard to believe Mr. Rumbold is the only surviving original cast member.

I never missed an episode on PBS back in the day, and had most of them (if not all) on VHS taped from local TV. I even enjoyed Are You Being Served Again, though it wasn't as good as the original show in my opinion.

I have a huge stack of tapes with all the Britcoms from PBS taped. A night of Britcom PBS! That might be a collector's item one day.

I remember some of the stars, pretty much none still with us, coming on the show, the telethons, and they were just as likable and charming as their characters.

AndrewCrossett said:

Do all the episodes of this still exist?

I remember this was in nearly constant rotation on PBS in the 80's. I liked it, although I liked "Allo Allo" by the same creators even better.

Hard to believe Mr. Rumbold is the only surviving original cast member.

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Yes, all the episodes exist. The pilot episode (originally aired as part of the anthology series Comedy Playhouse) was the only episode that was wiped, although a B/W telerecording was retained (as in the case of several Jon Pertwee Doctor Who episodes).

So, the pilot has always been syndicated/shown in B/W since the '70s, However, a recent process called Colour Recovery has been used to extract the colour information contained in this telerecording to restore it to full colour. Combining that with the VidFIRE process that restores the original "shot on tape" look to telerecorded material, the restored version has been broadcast on BBC2 a couple of times since the restoration has been completed. To my knowledge, though, the B/W telerecording is still the version aired in syndication (and is, of course, the only version available on legitimate DVDs).

Luckily, I had a friend in the UK record the BBC2 showing for me, and it's nearly impossible to distinguish it from the other episodes, which says quite a lot!

I liked it, although I liked "Allo Allo" by the same creators even better.

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I have to agree, and almost posted the exact same thing the other day! I recommend that the original poster (or anyone else who likes AYBS?) to give 'Allo 'Allo a try. Give yourself a couple of episodes to get used to the setup, and you'll be hooked, I suspect!

Oh, and the AYBS? sequel Grace and Favour (available on DVD and some PBS stations under its syndication title of Are You Being Served? Again!) is a very worthy follow-up to the original. Yes, it's a somewhat different feel, and there are some new characters mixed in with some of the originals, but it was quite good and deserved a longer run! Billy Burden as the old farmer, Maurice Moulterd, was perfectly cast, and Fleur Bennett as the farmer's daughter was quite good, too!

Radioman970 said:

I have a huge stack of tapes with all the Britcoms from PBS taped. A night of Britcom PBS! That might be a collector's item one day.

I remember some of the stars, pretty much none still with us, coming on the show, the telethons, and they were just as likable and charming as their characters.

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John Inman appeared on our local PBS station for a fund drive. I had it on a VHS tape, but I have no clue if I still have it stashed somewhere or not. I really wish I would've hung on to that.

Ron1973 said:

John Inman appeared on our local PBS station for a fund drive. I had it on a VHS tape, but I have no clue if I still have it stashed somewhere or not. I really wish I would've hung on to that.

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I remember when Molly Sugden filled in for Inman on one local PBS drive, and when the host did the obvious "Are you free?" joke, Sugden replied in character, "No, but...I'm not too expensive! "

Do the "Down Under" episodes still exist? You'd think they'd put at least one the set, just for fun.

Did 'Hi De Hi', another UK sitcom done in the same style & from the same team as AYBS ever play in the States ?

Silverking said:

Did 'Hi De Hi', another UK sitcom done in the same style & from the same team as AYBS ever play in the States ?

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Nnnnnn.....not that I know of.

(We're pretty picky about what catches on: The Young Ones was a big hit on MTV, but The Comic Strip disappeared without a trace, and when A&E followed the last Black Adder series with French & Saunders, the audience dropped drastically.
And after Benny Hill (ie. the syndicated networks following up on the trend after PBS got Python, Fawlty and the Two Ronnies), there were other variety comics distributed for syndication in the late 70's--Dave Allen at Large caught on with a small cult audience, but when they tried to send us Morecambe & Wise, our reaction was...what the hell are we looking at??? )

Ron1973 said:

John Inman appeared on our local PBS station for a fund drive. I had it on a VHS tape, but I have no clue if I still have it stashed somewhere or not. I really wish I would've hung on to that.

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I wish I'd recorded that as well. And the one with Mrs. Slocombe filling in. I remember watching both. One of the best things about sitting through those telethons. that had one with the Red Green Gang, the Canadian show, and it was great too.

I'm a big fan of the follow up series Are you being served again? If for no other reason than the blonde named "Fleur". wow weeeeeeeEEEEee! I'd watch it just for her. What a honey1

Adding this for emphasis. :p

Ejanss said:

Nnnnnn.....not that I know of.

(We're pretty picky about what catches on: The Young Ones was a big hit on MTV, but The Comic Strip disappeared without a trace, and when A&E followed the last Black Adder series with French & Saunders, the audience dropped drastically.
And after Benny Hill (ie. the syndicated networks following up on the trend after PBS got Python, Fawlty and the Two Ronnies), there were other variety comics distributed for syndication in the late 70's--Dave Allen at Large caught on with a small cult audience, but when they tried to send us Morecambe & Wise, our reaction was...what the hell are we looking at??? )

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Oddly enough, Dad's Army never really made it to the states, either.

I blind bought that one on R2 DVD from the UK and the series was magnificent.

Yeah, it's hard to figure out what causes one Britcom or sketch comedy series to catch on in the US and another not to.

Of the Top 50 British sitcoms voted by the UK public in 2004 (now 10 years out of date, of course), I can recall having seen episodes of 16 of them on American television... though in some cases, that was decades ago (Reginald Perrin, To the Manor Born, The Good Life).

Up until the rise of cable, PBS was almost the only way for Americans to see British television. (Apart from that one season of 'Allo 'Allo that got picked up by ABC and then promptly dropped again). I believe The Young Ones and The Comic Strip were the first UK comedies I ever saw somewhere other than PBS.

AndrewCrossett said:

Yeah, it's hard to figure out what causes one Britcom or sketch comedy series to catch on in the US and another not to.

Of the Top 50 British sitcoms voted by the UK public in 2004 (now 10 years out of date, of course), I can recall having seen episodes of 16 of them on American television... though in some cases, that was decades ago (Reginald Perrin, To the Manor Born, The Good Life).

Up until the rise of cable, PBS was almost the only way for Americans to see British television. (Apart from that one season of 'Allo 'Allo that got picked up by ABC and then promptly dropped again). I believe The Young Ones and The Comic Strip were the first UK comedies I ever saw somewhere other than PBS.

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Did it ever actually make it to air, though? The way I'd always heard the co-funding story, the American network (hadn't heard it was ABC) bought and paid for a run of 26, and after they'd paid all the money, backed out, without ever airing a single episode.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong! I thought the only UK comedy that ABC put on the air was those series 4 episodes of Monty Python.

Ethan Riley said:

Do the "Down Under" episodes still exist? You'd think they'd put at least one the set, just for fun.

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Yes, they do! Although not on DVD, you can watch most of them (if not all) anytime you like on YouTube. Picture quality is good, although there is a timecode burnt into the picture...

Only one of the episodes is original material, though. All the rest are re-writes of UK scripts to episodes that hadn't been broadcast in Oz at that particular time. That one episode would've made a nice bonus feature. My guess is rights and/or clearances (and expenses related to such) would have been why none of them were included on the existing sets.

Beane's of Boston would have been a perfect extra, too, but my guess there was probably a rights issue involved (assuming the master even still exists).

AndyMcKinney said:

Did it ever actually make it to air, though? The way I'd always heard the co-funding story, the American network (hadn't heard it was ABC) bought and paid for a run of 26, and after they'd paid all the money, backed out, without ever airing a single episode.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong! I thought the only UK comedy that ABC put on the air was those series 4 episodes of Monty Python.

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It appears the BBC made those 26 episodes (shortened to accommodate American commercials) in hopes of getting a syndication deal in the U.S., but it fell through. Don't know where I heard ABC was involved... that was just something stuck in my memory. Some commercial network must have been involved, though. The BBC would never have been able to go to that expense without an underwriter.