Are You Being Served - the best Britcom ever?

Only Fools and Horses is an absolute classic, although it went a bit off after Rodney started getting played a bit straighter, I'm not keen on Nicholas Lyndhurst playing 'normal' roles, I can't watch New Tricks once he started in it.

the best scene ever (IMO):

 

Allo Allo also, I love how they are playing on the fact they are speaking in English but of course would be french, so when the English spy acting as policeman talks in french he makes a hash of the pronunciations - so in the English we hear: "I was p*ssing by the window"

 

I can remember, back in the early noughties. insisting to my wife that Veronica’s Closet was the best programme on the air. The next morning, I woke up with a raging thirst and a pounding headache.

(The best 20th century British sitcoms were Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, followed by Rising Damp, by the way)

 

I probably posted this already, but in a world where you have HANCOCK'S HALF-HOUR, STEPTOE AND SON, and TILL DEATH US DO PART, AYBS is hardly the best. I know it's all personal opinion, but AYBS disappointed me when I finally saw it.

 

ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES was on some PBS stations, and RISING DAMP was on A&E in the 80s.

 

I'm surprised by the lack of repeats of 2Point4 Children. It's been years since I saw it on Gold.

The show brings back memories of my childhood. I remember thinking Belinda Lang was a bit of a fox, haha.

 

She was!

 

Now I have that stupid theme song stuck in my head

 

Enjoying Nightingales three episodes into it, I especially liked the Dixon Of Dock Green ending of the first episode. The Ain't Nobody here But Us Chickens bit getting tired already though. A very wacky show, it reminds me of Lynch in a few ways, dead employee and surreal gallows humour. Night shifts are bad for your health.

 

Glad you’re digging it, Becca.

The chickens bit continues to run, but it doesn’t annoy me so much. I know what you mean, though. In the early episodes, they hang too much emphasis on it, like a self-conscious attempt to create a catchphrase for the audience to pick up on. In later ’sodes, as things get weirder — and they do get a LOT weirder — it seems less important.

The cultural references get more highbrow — Shakespeare, Harold Pinter, Herman Melville, Evelyn Waugh, etc. — and the scripts sharper as the show progresses.

Ding Dong is my favourite character, played by the brilliant David Threlfall.

 

Comparing Are You Being Served with Fawlty Towers is like playing Joy Division just after Abba; I think they are different beasts; here's a division in catagories I just made up myself:


The double entendre/sometimes bit racist ones, the ones with catch-phrases/the cheeky ones:
It Ain't Half Hot Mum
Are You Being Served
Mrs. Brown's Boys
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

The strange ones (unlikeble characters, absurd storylines)
Bottom
Young Ones
Father Ted
The League of Gentlemen
One Foot in the Grave (it looks like an ordinary sitcom, but there a VERY strange things happening here; complete episodes taking place in a car or a waiting room, Victor Meldrew walking around in (what he thinks) are his slipers, but there's a decomposing dead hedgehog on one of his feet, strange dead things in the freezer, etc)

The all-time greatest:
Blackadder series II-IV
Fawlty Towers
Dad's Army-first four series
Hancock's Half Hour
Yes Minister
Porridge

Sketches:
Two Ronnies
Fast Show (hasn't aged that well, I must say)
Monty Python (just like some Beatles-songs: being imprinted in memory isn't making it more interesting...but in small snippets it's still fantastic).

The Charmers: mild laughs and lovable characters
Gavin and Stacey
Last of the Summer Wine
Open All Hours

Personal favourites:
Spaced
Black Books
Jam and Jerusalem (underrated fine comedy by an almost all female cast, no laugh track or studio audience and one of the few funnies scenes I've ever seen on a sitcom)
Detectorists

 

There is probably more UK comedy in our collection of DVD's than of any other one genre. And I was incredibly happy this year when this happened: Goodies (The): The Complete BBC Collection

And that was followed a few months later by this: Kenny Everett Video Show (The)

Is "Are You Being Served?" the best? Well, no. But it is one I'll watch if it is on and I own the DVD set. Hell, I like the Carry On movies.

 

Stella Street is superb - for anyone not familiar with it (I expect mainly non U.K members) go to YouTube as there’s loads of bits from the series up there.

This shows you which stars live on the street .



Bowie Mick and Keef are hilarious

Genius !

 

Very of it’s time ...

 

Dug this way back when in Australia too!