'Allo 'Allo!

I have little to add to this what the other have written here. Accept that what few people seem to know. This brilliant series is a parody on another very good series, Secret Army, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075579/ The cafe, The Gestapo officers, the singing wife, even the characters look the spitting image. But, in all fairness, I think the parody is more brilliant than the original series. Strange, but true. I Think that this is one of the few cases where the parody is better know than the original, and a true red herring in that it is also better. I cannot think of one where this is also the case, although there are more parodies better known then the original (Airport-Airplane to mention one).

This show was a staple in Saturday night entertainment here in Norway from the mid 1980's and up into the late 1990's, and considering most of them were re-runs, I in the end felt almost persecuted by this show (would they EVER stop sending that show on Saturday??). It was funny but never THAT funny, or at least so I thought, because when I got into my twenties and the show vanished from Norwegian television - low and behold - I went and ordered the 3 first seasons of the internet! So I guess I was more addicted to it than I cared to admit at first :)

The basic idea of making fun of Nazis never seem to grow old, or in the case of this show: making fun of the Gestapo. The rest of the Germans come off as almost sympathetic and lovable at times, but I mean: how can anyone hate the closet-gay officer Lt. Gruber and his "little tank"? The show is really classic comedy, especially in the way that much of the laughs rely heavily on the fun of repeated catchphrases ("It is I, Leclerc!" - "Good moaning!" "Listen carefully, I shall say this only once" etc) and some truly crazy antics. It IS at times *very* funny and some of the goings-on in this German occupied French village really has to be seen to be believed!

One of my favorite characters is Officer Crabtree, a British undercover-agent posing as a French police-officer, which is quite impressive considering his French makes Inspector Closeau sound like a professor in linguistics. One of his lines that has followed me since I was about 14 was "The French pissants are hiding in the German shiteu" (you figure it out).

So there you have it, if you like the subject of WWII and British comedy "Allo Allo" should be your 'cap of toe' (as Officer Crabtree probably would call it).

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with it, "Allo, Allo" is a British comedy series about the French Resistance during World War II. It is a comedy series that could never be produced today, and certainly could not be produced in the U.S. Only the British could have come up with a comedy series that contains more politically-incorrect material than would be found in an entire season of any present-day television show. To this day "Allo, Allo" remains among the things for which the French have never forgiven the British (along with Crecy, Agincourt, Joan of Arc, Blenheim, Trafalgar, Waterloo and Dunkirk). However, the French are not alone. The humor in "Allo, Allo " would be perceived to be equally offensive by Germans, Italians, women, homosexuals, the Catholics Church, the British themselves, and just about everybody else.

"Allo, Allo" was created by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, the same pair who created "Are You Being Served?". Consequently, it should come as no surprise that the show leaves no depth unplumbed in the pursuit of a laugh. "Allo, Allo" represents British burlesque humor at it's lowest. On the other hand it is also, for those whose sensibilities are not easily offended, truly one of the funniest shows ever produced.

The best news is that "Allo, Allo" has recently been re-released on Netflix. That means that former fans can enjoy being offended by it all over again, and new fans will have the opportunity to enjoy being offended by it for the very first time.

Words can't explain how much I love this show, it's just amazing. It's extremely funny, but the only downside is that it's not easy to find on tv these days... In the 80's and early 90's it was very well known and loved, but then disappeared into nowhere... A small town in War time France makes a great setting for this wonderful tv show, and the language barrier is easily fixed... everyone speaks in English, but the British have British accents, the French, French accents, the Germans, German accents etc. Th storyline follows on from the previous episodes, with Rene explaining what happened in the last episode. Watch it, you won't regret it.

Allo Allo may not be offensive as it sounds. I even watched this show in Poland. A sitcom about WWII, Germans, French, British, in a small French town at a small cafe, Renee's. He owns it with his idiot wife, Edith, who helps her ailing, bedridden mother, and hides 2 British airman in her wardrobe/closet. Renee has enough on his plate with his constant infidelity relationships to his servant girls. He always comes up with an excuse to have them in his arms at one time or another. The French resistance and the French communist resistance only complicates Renee's already complicated life. Despite the fact, that the leader of the communist resistance is also in love with Renee too. Michele of the French resistance always says "Now listen very carefully, I shall say this only once." There's plenty of laughs to watch and enjoy on this show. Don't miss it.