'Allo 'Allo!
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Template:Infobox British television
'Allo 'Allo! was a British sitcom that ran on BBC1 from 1982 to 1992 and featured 85 episodes in all. It was created by David Croft, who also wrote the famous theme music, and Jeremy Lloyd, who had written gags for Laugh-In in the 1970s; they were also responsible for the BBC series Are You Being Served?.
The show's premise was not to make fun of the war but to spoof war-based film and TV dramas, and in particular a BBC1 drama about the resistance movement Secret Army, which ran from 1977 to 1979, and dealt with the activities of resistance workers based at a café in Brussels, though some inspiration was also drawn from patriotic black-and-white British melodramas of the 1940s.
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Plot
Set during World War II, 'Allo 'Allo tells the story of René Artois, a French café owner in the village of Nouvion. The village has been occupied by the Germans, who have stolen all of its valuable artifacts. These include the first cuckoo clock ever made and a painting of The Fallen Madonna (known to those who have seen it as The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies) by Van Klomp. The commandant of the town has decided to keep them for himself after the war and gets René to hide the painting in his café. The Gestapo also want the painting and send Herr Otto Flick to find it.
At the same time the café is being used as a safe house for two brave but clueless downed British airmen. René is forced to work with the Resistance, who would otherwise shoot him for serving Germans in his café. The far-fetched plans of the Resistance to get the airmen back to England, which always fail, are one of the main running gags of the series.
René is also trying to keep his affairs with his two waitresses secret from his wife; in addition, the Communist women-only Resistance members are also plotting against René for serving Germans and working with the Gaullist Resistance. The only reason that they do not shoot René is that their leader is in love with him, a fact he has to hide from both his wife and his waitresses. Furthermore, the seemingly gay German Lieutenant Gruber is also continually flirting with René.
In the meantime, René's wife is getting proposals from Monsieur Alphonse, the village undertaker, who is torn between his love for her and his admiration for René as a true hero of France.
These few plot devices provided the basic storyline throughout the entire series, on which were hung classic farce set-ups, physical comedy and visual gags, fake theatrical foreign accents, and a fast-paced running string of broad cultural clichés that owed something to Monty Python. Each episode ran on from the previous ones, often requiring that the previous episode had also been watched in order for the plot to be fully understood. At the start of each subsequent episode, René would summarise the plot to date in a gag based on the device ("As you remember...") of serials. Coincidentally, in re-runs, local TV stations have shuffled the episodes, making the plot synopses useful.
Languages
With four different languages (French, German, Italian and English) spoken by the characters, representing this to the audience could have been tricky. The programme uses the device of representing each language with English spoken in a theatrical foreign accent.
An exchange between French-speaking characters, conducted in English with a French accent, is totally incomprehensible to the English airmen until Michelle switches to Bertie-Wooster-esque "top hole, old chap"-style banter in an upper-class English accent. The English undercover officer Crabtree, in the permanent disguise of a French-speaking gendarme, speaks abominable French. His mangling of French vowels is represented by similarly distorted English, most famously his customary greeting catch phrase of "good moaning"; many of his distortions come out as innuendoes, such as "I was just pissing by". Curiously, in spite of the difficulties in communicating with the English characters, the French, Germans and Italians all appear to understand each other's languages perfectly.
The last few series introduced a new gag, where Colonel von Strohm and Lieutenant Gruber are put in situations where they have to speak in a strange manner. In one episode, the two try to learn Spanish, which is basically "German" with high pitched voices and mangled consonants. And in another they are forced to wear "suicide teeth" – large bulky dentures containing poison. This makes them garble their speech in order not to release the poison.
Characteristics
Though described as one-dimensional, most of the characters had a catchphrase, gimmick or saying which became running points of recognition throughout the series. These recognition points included:
- René
- "You stupid woman!": Every time René is caught by his wife Édith in the arms of another woman, he would use this phrase. Immediately following would be a convoluted explanation, which Édith always believed (except for one of the episodes, in the latter series, in which Édith asks Yvette, the waitress, to explain the situation by herself), resulting in an apology from her; the show's title 'Allo Allo is inspired from the way René says hello when he is on the radio/telephone ("allo" is the normal French way of greeting someone over a remote communication system).
- Édith
- Incomprehensibly tuneless singing.
- Maria
- A tendency to spit with some force when speaking.
- Michelle
- "Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once": her perennial instruction prior to issuing vital information.
- Fanny
- "Ze flashing knobs!": the secret communication device between London and the resistance (codename "Night Hawk") was hidden under her bed, and incoming messages were signalled by triggering the light bulbs concealed in her bedknobs.
- Leclerc
- "It is I, Leclerc", accompanied by a raising of his glasses, presumably to reveal his identity; he seemed to think he was good at disguise (This was a deliberate dig at Clark Kent trying to hide his identity as Superman), even though he was always instantly recognisable no matter what he wore.
- Alphonse
- Ownership of "a dicky ticker"; that is, a heart condition. Also, his marketing phrase, "Alphonse, undertaker, swiftly and with style."
- Gruber
- Has the stereotypical effeminate manner of a homosexual, and a 'little tank', later called Hubert. Despite his overtly camp behaviour, however, it is revealed in the very last episode of the series that he eventually married Helga.
- Geering
- "'Tler!"; his abbreviated salute to the Führer (Geering is reportedly too lazy to use the full salute; rumours that Sam Kelly, a Jew, refused point blank to give the regular salute, are apparently false) [1].
- Bertorelli
- Womaniser, replies to 'Heil Hitler' with 'Heile Mussolini'. He would also infrequently use the saying 'Whata mistakadamake' whenever something went wrong.
- Helga
- A tendency to take off her clothes for usually tenuous reasons, showcasing a vast range of erotic lingerie. This could be seen as a parody of Jane the British comic strip character (popular during World War II), who was always losing her clothes and constantly being captured or found in lingerie. Helga's attempts to seduce Herr Flick invariably had no effect on him.
- Herr Flick
- A considerably exaggerated limp.
- Officer Crabtree
- A British spy posing as a French police officer. Speaks incredibly bad French, most famously noticeable in his usual greeting: "Good moaning!". Despite his almost incomprehensible speech, strangely enough the Germans never suspect him.
- Yvette
- In their stolen moments she would throw her arms around Rene and rumble with an elongated, deep growl of 'ooooooh, Renè'.
The beginning and the end
In the pilot episode, we are introduced to René's café and the German army enjoying lunch. The Germans have silver, a valuable cuckoo clock, and a painting that need hiding, and they call upon René to do so. But the resistance need to hide the British airmen and an old passport forger in Café René as well! When the Germans learn of this, they promise not to tip off the Gestapo as long as the paintings stay safe.
In the last episode, called Dénouement (French for Outcome), the Allies have invaded France and are on their way to arrest General von Klinkerhoffen and the other Germans. Trying to hide, the Colonel and Lieutenant Gruber make it to Café René and hide in the cellar where they find the British airmen (who have conveniently been shot down again). The Germans steal their uniforms and try to make it past the allies. However, General von Klinkerhoffen appears and surrenders. René gets an MBF medal, or the Magnificent Brother of France award (which really means Mad Bloody Frog award). We cut ahead about 40 or 50 years, to present-day France. René's son to Yvette has taken over the café, René reduced to a wheelchair-bound old man. Édith lives where the late Madame Fanny once was, and Mimi takes care of her. When Gruber, now a millionnaire, arrives with his wife Helga, and chauffeur Erich von Strohm (aka the Colonel), everyone rejoices at seeing each other once again. Gruber knocks the arm off René's statue, and out comes the missing painting of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies. Yvette and René steal Gruber's car, shouting to Édith "You stupid woman! Can you not see... I AM ELOPING!" before he leaves the village.
The stage show
As well as the long running TV series, the show gave rise to a successful touring stage-show featuring most of the TV cast. The stage show ran from 1986 to 1992, including three London stage runs as well as international tours. In January 1990, Gorden Kaye was badly injured in a car accident so in a London Palladium production his part was played by his understudy, John Larson, and by Australian comedian/impressionist Max Gillies when the show toured Down Under.
Cast
External links
nl:'Allo 'Allo nb:'Allo 'Allo! pl:'Allo 'Allo! pt:'Allo 'Allo! sr:Ало, Ало sv:'Allå, 'allå, 'emliga armén