Flute your handkerchief! An Are You Being Served? thread

[Phoenix Lazarus]

The chap who played Mr Spooner had a rather pleasant song in the charts in 1979 or 1980.

[Annie Labuntur]

^ Mike Berry. He was a singer before he was an actor and had a few hits in the 1960s.

[Glebe]

^ Mike Berry. He was a singer before he was an actor and had a few hits in the 1960s.

He also played the dad in Worzel Gummidge.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Also deserves a place on Globe's ads thread over on Picture Box for his singing the Blue Riband blues back in 1980 ( # I've got thooose...# ...Ah, thank you!")

[Blumf]

He tries to grope Miss Brahms (she put a folder or something in front of her bottom so he couldn't) and also groped one of Mr Rumbold's secretaries. He also tells Mr Humphries a rather unpleasant story of how he removed the door handle of his car to prevent his date getting out.

Each time it's treated by the audience as a joke.

Well, to be fair, how were you expecting the audience to react? A sharp intake of breath, followed by deathly silence? As has previously been stated, you have to take older comedy as something from a different era, and not try and analyse it too much from a modern perspective.

There's a comparison to be made here with Family Guy's loveable rapist Glen Quagmire.

[petril]

just going to leave this here. ETC.

[neveragain]

There's a comparison to be made here with Family Guy's loveable rapist Glen Quagmire.

I would say there's definitely a difference when the writers know a character's behaviour is deplorable and aim to be shocking based on that, as opposed to just thinking a character is cheeky. Whether it makes any difference to the viewer is of course down to them.

[Annie Labuntur]

just going to leave this here. ETC.

Nice. I'd forgotten about Trevor Bannister's inexplicable channelling of an exasperated Tony Hancock for a lot of his lines. I suppose his Mr Lucas could have been a Hancock fan and doing it deliberately, but it seems unlikely. Did he ever call Miss Brahms a peroxided jezebel?

[Glebe]

Also deserves a place on Globe's ads thread over on Picture Box for his singing the Blue Riband blues back in 1980 ( # I've got thooose...# ...Ah, thank you!")

Oh yeah, now I remember!

Blue Riband - 1984 UK TV advert.

Blue Riband - 1985 UK TV advert.

[the science eel]

£26k royalty cheque every year for that ad. 'bought me my house in Swindon' he says

[Glebe]

Now I'm laughing at Partridge pronouncing it

Are You Being Served?

GOLD announcer virtually pronounced it like that yesterday evening.

[Glebe]

Caught the end of an episode on GOLD the other day where it was Mrs. Slocombe's birthday, she get's a present from the staff who all look into the gift box and make various comments about it, then Mr. Humphries looks into the camera and goes "No we're not going to tell you what it is!" Quite a sudden and surprizing Fourth Wall break.

I reckon it was Gwyneth Paltrow's head in the box, thanks to some weird time convergence.

[PeterCornelius]

John Inman was also in a mediocre comedy with Rula Lenska called Take A Letter, Mr Jones. He played her secretary. Panto beckoned soon afterwards IIRC

[Fambo Number Mive]

Caught the end of an episode on GOLD the other day where it was Mrs. Slocombe's birthday, she get's a present from the staff who all look into the gift box and make various comments about it, then Mr. Humphries looks into the camera and goes "No we're not going to tell you what it is!" Quite a sudden and surprizing Fourth Wall break.

I reckon it was Gwyneth Paltrow's head in the box, thanks to some weird time convergence.

I wonder if they did that because of budgetary reasons or because they couldn't decide what the staff would buy her. Maybe something like Trudy got in The Office (UK).

[thr0b]

It's just funny, isn't it? Not worthy of over-analysis - it's just jokes hung on a very loose plot. Sometimes they land, sometimes they don't - stick it on halfway through an episode and you won't be lost.

I don't get over-analysing comedy of this time. Laugh at the jokes, turn it off if it's not for you.

Also, the theme tune did get a remix in the 90s which briefly troubled the charts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSSjsnLwnI

[gilbertharding]

The thing about the different sensibilities in the 70s and Mr. Lucas's groping is fairly simple, and I don't think it's because people thought it was acceptable. I'm pretty sure 50% of the population were agin it, for a start. What people would have said if you'd asked them at the time, was that comedy wasn't real. Also sexual innuendo was a comedy trope. There were strong precedents going back to the 60s, things like Benny Hill, etc. So Mr. Lucas makes the joke about the car door handle, and the audience is like, oh my god imagine if he actually did that, oh dear, but he didn't - ha ha ha. I stopped finding those jokes funny around the age of about 12 because I began to realise they were very lazy and not very interesting.

I am trying to get my head around why people laughed at these kinds of things then. The furthest I have got is that there was a trope (or something) that while women were exactly as randy as men, they weren't yet allowed to express it. Any reluctance was considered to be feigned, for appearances. Confusing times for everybody - no-one had figured out the terms and conditions of the sexual revolution.

[Brundle-Fly]

John Inman was also in a mediocre comedy with Rula Lenska called Take A Letter, Mr Jones. He played her secretary. Panto beckoned soon afterwards IIRC

Inman probably would have made more bunce doing a handful of pantos than he was paid to star in the entire run of AYBS* The big names make a bloody fortune but it's always perceived as a career step down.

*not including residuals where they all must've cleaned up given the initial repeats on terrestrial TV and the show's overseas success.

[dissolute ocelot]

I am trying to get my head around why people laughed at these kinds of things then. The furthest I have got is that there was a trope (or something) that while women were exactly as randy as men, they weren't yet allowed to express it. Any reluctance was considered to be feigned, for appearances. Confusing times for everybody - no-one had figured out the terms and conditions of the sexual revolution.

There was the sense in wider society that it was basically harmless to grope women. If they objected they were bad sports or frigid or uppity. No concept of psychological damage, so unless something caused physical wounds or property damage or threatened the dominant social order, it wasn't real. Kids were beaten at school and spanked at home. And there's a lot of sociology now about how "men being men" functions to strengthen social and societal bonds (between men, primarily, but men were society) and reinforce the social order, so men weren't going to challenge it.

I guess there's a strong crowd mentality behind it - in the studio, people are expecting to laugh, they're jumped up by a warm-up person, so if they're not sure how to react then they'll follow cues from others. At home, people follow the laughter on screen. People laugh at boys doing naughty things for similar reasons - the "boys will be boys, what are they like..." mentality. Certain things appeared in comedies a lot and were seen as comic (much of which is now incomprehensible to us). And nobody would stand up in a BBC comedy audience or a theatre and say "this is wrong" unless they were sure everyone was agreeing with them.

[The Ombudsman]

The funniest thing about AYBS for me was when a Nazi Louis Theroux visited said he was his favourite British TV show.

I watched some George and Mildred a while back and was surprised to get the occasional laugh. I know I did see a couple of Sykes episodes and found those funnier than I'd expected.

I've never had any talent for writing whatsoever (have you read my posts?) but often, for some unknown reason think a version of On The Busses could be rebooted today and might actually work if the writing was good enough. Perhaps I should just write a pilot, submit it then forget I'd ever had the idea.

[gilbertharding]

There was the sense in wider society that it was basically harmless to grope women. If they objected they were bad sports or frigid or uppity. No concept of psychological damage, so unless something caused physical wounds or property damage or threatened the dominant social order, it wasn't real. Kids were beaten at school and spanked at home. And there's a lot of sociology now about how "men being men" functions to strengthen social and societal bonds (between men, primarily, but men were society) and reinforce the social order, so men weren't going to challenge it.

I guess there's a strong crowd mentality behind it - in the studio, people are expecting to laugh, they're jumped up by a warm-up person, so if they're not sure how to react then they'll follow cues from others. At home, people follow the laughter on screen. People laugh at boys doing naughty things for similar reasons - the "boys will be boys, what are they like..." mentality. Certain things appeared in comedies a lot and were seen as comic (much of which is now incomprehensible to us). And nobody would stand up in a BBC comedy audience or a theatre and say "this is wrong" unless they were sure everyone was agreeing with them.

I think you're right - but I think lifting repression had a lot to do with it. You never saw anything like this in (mainstream) humour from before the 60s.

[Brundle-Fly]

Also deserves a place on Globe's ads thread over on Picture Box for his singing the Blue Riband blues back in 1980 ( # I've got thooose...# ...Ah, thank you!")

If we're discussing the Are You Being Served?/ sweetmeats TV commercial axis of trivia?

James Hayter appeared in the long-lasting BBC department store sitcom Are You Being Served? as Mr Tebbs in 1978 taking over from Mr. Grainger ( Arthur Brough) as the senior in the menswear section. He was also the original narrator of the UK television advertisements for Mr Kipling cakes. In fact, these ads led to his departure from Are You Being Served?; the cake company paid him a significant bonus to withdraw from the series, as they felt his reputation lent an air of dignity to their advertisements. Hayter died in Spain in 1983, aged 75

"Who can blame an actor in his seventies for accepting money for staying at home? I, now 78, would jump at the chance!" wrote Frank Thornton (Captain Peacock) in a letter to one of Hayter's eight children after her father's death.

Hang on? Frank Thornton was 78 in 1983? Born in 1921, died in 2013, aged 92. It doesn't add up unless he tardily wrote a comforting letter to Hayter's daughters sixteen years after Hayter's funeral. My maths is shite though.

[petril]

just going to leave this here. ETC.

since the thread's been bumped, the lead-in to the actual gag is a lot funnier. "You're watching BBC 1" over a BBC 2 ident, on an ITV station. it's full of layers.

Channel 4 should repeat End of Part One and complete the set really

[Echo Valley 2-6809]

I guess there's a strong crowd mentality behind it - in the studio, people are expecting to laugh, they're jumped up by a warm-up person

The warm-up man for many AYBS episodes was Michael Barrymore. He knew how to rouse a rabble.

[Echo Valley 2-6809]

If we're discussing the Are You Being Served?/ sweetmeats TV commercial axis of trivia?

James Hayter appeared in the long-lasting BBC department store sitcom Are You Being Served? as Mr Tebbs in 1978 taking over from Mr. Grainger ( Arthur Brough) as the senior in the menswear section. He was also the original narrator of the UK television advertisements for Mr Kipling cakes. In fact, these ads led to his departure from Are You Being Served?; the cake company paid him a significant bonus to withdraw from the series, as they felt his reputation lent an air of dignity to their advertisements. Hayter died in Spain in 1983, aged 75

"Who can blame an actor in his seventies for accepting money for staying at home? I, now 78, would jump at the chance!" wrote Frank Thornton (Captain Peacock) in a letter to one of Hayter's eight children after her father's death.

Hang on? Frank Thornton was 78 in 1983? Born in 1921, died in 2013, aged 92. It doesn't add up unless he tardily wrote a comforting letter to Hayter's daughters sixteen years after Hayter's funeral. My maths is shite though.

He wrote the letter to one of James Hayter's daughters in response to her request in The Stage for actors' memories of him. I guess that was a long time after Hayter had died.
The letter's here on her website http://www.judithjohnson.co.uk/james-hayter.html

[Brundle-Fly]

He wrote the letter to one of James Hayter's daughters in response to her request in The Stage for actors' memories of him. I guess that was a long time after Hayter had died.
The letter's here on her website http://www.judithjohnson.co.uk/james-hayter.html

Ah, that explains it. The Thornton quote was slightly out of context on my wiki cut and paste. Thanks.

[amateur]

That feeling when you're free

[the science eel]

I know I did see a couple of Sykes episodes and found those funnier than I'd expected.

Sykes is great but it's as much about the warmth you get from Hattie J and the larks with the very wonderful Deryck Guyler as it is the 'jokes'. And of course Eric himself, who....well, I don't know exactly what it is, but he's likeable, that slight air of puzzlement or something.

[Gurke and Hare]

As a child I was always very excited by the self-playing trumpet in the Sykes titles.

[The Ombudsman]

Sykes is great but it's as much about the warmth you get from Hattie J and the larks with the very wonderful Deryck Guyler as it is the 'jokes'. And of course Eric himself, who....well, I don't know exactly what it is, but he's likeable, that slight air of puzzlement or something.

Yes, that's it. It's the warmth about it that I liked. I'll have to look for some more. Now I think of it, perhaps that's an element to Reggie Perrin too. There is a caring side to the overall show, not just humour in dispair.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

As a child I was always very excited by the self-playing trumpet in the Sykes titles.

That used to interest me, although it would be putting it too strongly to say it excited me.  What did excite me was that episode where that man got locked out of his flat in the nude after having a bath, then the policeman had to give him a helmet when some press cameraman came and photographed him, this being reported in a newspaper as a man streaking.  It was the episode called Reporter.