Allo Allo Box Set is Coming in July (1 Viewer)

[Keith Yatsuhashi]

I noticed this a few weeks back, but the full specs were only recently announced. The classic Britcom Allo Allo is coming to R2 PAL on July 8. It's a box set containing the complete first 2 seasons. YES! I love this series.
Does anyone know what the release schedule is for the future volumes? I hope it's pretty quick. My other fav. britcom, Yes Minister, stopped after only 1 Vol. Probably didn't sell well enough. :frowning:

 

[andrew markworthy]

Oh good - a series in which the Nazis are presented as comedians. What hilarious fun living in Nazi-occupied Europe must have been.

Sorry, but I know of no Brit with any sense of history who finds this series remotely funny. There were a lot of protests in Britain when the series was first aired, but to no avail. Presumably enough Brits are either ignorant of what the Nazis did or (far worse) don't care, for it to be run and re-run. And hey, if you can get enough of these people to watch the show, why bother about trivial things like decency, or the memories of 9 million murdered civilians?

 

[Werner_R]

I love this series ! I'm getting one

 

[Hendrik]

andrew markworthy: ...think: ...it's only a Sitcom... it's only a SitCom... it's only a SitCom...
. . . . . .

 

[Keith Yatsuhashi]

Yikes, you can offend anybody with anything. It isn't as thought this is the first comedy to poke fun at something very serious......Hogan's Heroes, The Producers, even Raiders of the Lost Ark made fun of the Nazis. There's some very good comedy about the old USSR, and that was just as serious as the Nazi's. Look at some of the old Bugs Bunny cartoon. Hitler and Goering were satirized at total idiots. The list goes on...The Japanese imperialism, China, Middle East Terrorists. Sometimes humor is the only way to cope with tragedy, especially if it empowers the viewer.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Hendrik - think: what's in Swiss bank vaults, what's in Swiss bank vaults...

I'm resolutely not anti-German, I'm not obsessed with issues, and I agree that we should try to see the lighter side of many things. But: there are some things which I feel are utterly beyond joking, and the Nazis are one of these. The problem with Allo Allo is that it trivialised truly horrible events. If it had been sardonic or used the horrors of Nazi activities to contrast with comedy, then I (and a lot of other critics of the series) would have no problem with it. But in the end the whole thing is seen as a bit of a lark, with no real harm done. If only that were true.

Keith - I agree entirely that at times humour is the best response, and the wartime propaganda such as Bugs Bunny et al served a v. useful purpose. Programmes such as Hogan's Heroes et al were a different kettle of fish altogether. The comedy there was about jailer and prisoner and fell into a routine in which the war was essentially incidental. The difference with Allo Allo is that the humour is derived from specific situations which in order to extract the humour have to trivialise the reality to a point where it's offensive. I think the best way I can explain this is to imagine a 'comedy' series set in an American slave plantation with a bumbling plantation owner and a cast of eccentric slaves. Such a series would never be made and would of course be in appalling taste. However, to me Allo Allo is in this same category.

 

[Eujin]

Keith,
thanks for posting this info--I've been waiting for this to come out.

Andrew,
you make some excellent points and your opinions are certainly valid. I believe that Allo Allo walked a thin line when it was on the air, but for me it fell just on the right side of acceptability. The series was, after all, set in occupied France, not a concentration camp or one of the death camps. I'm not saying that it was all days of wine and roses under the Vichy government, but one can hardly draw parallels with pre-abolitionist America.

In addition, the main German characters were not necessarily Nazis--members of the National Socialist Party. Yes, I realize Herr Flick of the SS would have been an official Nazi, but he was more an object of ridicule than anything else. For that matter, ALL the characters were objects of ridicule. As far as I can recall, Allo Allo did not exploit events like, say, the Holocaust, for the purposes of humor--everything funny in it came down to character and situational slapstick portrayals.

I'm not trying to pick a fight here, just presenting an alternative opinion that goes further than "this was the funniest show ever"-type arguments. I respect the views you presented above--I just don't agree with them.