We Love Are You Being Served

The appeal of some stuff surprises me. I never got the appeal of OFAH either. Somebody at school loaned me three tapes worth of this and I couldn't get through the first episode, there was just nothing in it that appealed to me. Twenty five years later? Still don't give a monkeys.

My Family was the same, never got the appeal of it and it always surprises me that this show ran for as long as it did, even when the starts were slating the quality of the writing, and it still got recommissioned over and over again.

A lot of the other Croft and Perry catalogue was universally popular though, to an extent where most of them racked up many series worth and are still universally loved today, Dad's Army has never really been off the air since it came out of production in 1978, albeit these days it's relatively disposable depending on what else BBC Two is showing on Saturday nights.

Different strokes for different folks. I never found Hi De Hi or You Rang My Lord funny yet for me Dad's Army is one of the best comedies of all times. My Family was rubbish yet I loved Citizen Smith.

The thing with OFAH from my viewpoint is that the BBC made it an event . The greatest piece of comedy ever and yes I like many people watched the (supposed) final trilogy during Christmas 1996. I believe that the BBC were trying to make OFAH the successor to Morecambe and Wise as The Christmas Blockbuster and yet its worth pointing out that the 1977 Christmas M&W started with the spoof "Starkers and Crutch".

I can certainly see the appeal of it, Del and Rodney are ultimately warm characters that you want to see succeed, and the moments of pathos in the show are superbly written and acted. It's just never made me laugh much, but obviously I'm missing something given how popular it still is.

My Family really was mediocre though. Nobody really cared when it finished, did they?

Dad's Army, after all these years I probably still haven't seen enough of it to have an informed opinion on it.

Oh I agree that Del and Rodney were warm characters although in the first series the character of Del was more aggressive and was "altered" later on. There's no doubting its success and the "chandelier" and "wine bar" scenes are seared in the collective memory but as I said above the BBC placed it on a pedestal and invited us all to worship at its feet.

IIRC My Family used teams of writers which is more akin to American sitcoms than British sitcoms which is probably it was able to run as long as it did.


The 2016 Are You Being Served? was written by Derren Little who created Benidorm.

Not having watched "Benidorm" I can't comment on the writing style.

I struggle with a lot of pre-alternative comedy with the exception of Python and Fawlty Towers, the likes of M&W and The Two Ronnies has always left me cold - even as a child in the 1990s I remember trying to find them funny but wishing something like Harry Hill was on instead. Even by then a lot of them did seem like products from another time, and in the rare cases that they’d actually show a full episode you’d realise the few “classic” sketches always seen on clip shows actually went on about five minutes linger and got less funny as they went on. I did appreciate The Two Ronnies Sketchbook though for making a point of showing the full versions of every sketch and having them honestly admit afterwards if the punchline wasn’t that great and they could have done better, rather than the same 30 second clips usually seen with random comedians howling at how great it is.

There definitely were a few years when a new OFAH became Essential Christmas Day Telly, the final season of the show was back in 1991 and after that it only appeared as specials for the next twelve years. The ratings it got back in 1996 and 2001 are still colossal and very few programmes have ever topped it since, indeed I don’t think anything outside of the London Olympics (and maybe the odd England football match) has come close to what Rodney and Del Boy got nineteen years ago.

The classic 'four candles' sketch is a good example of that, very few clipshows show the punchline at the end because it's rubbish. It's 'Billhooks' by the way

Not the Nine O'Clock's News' Two Ninnies sketch was a great piss take of the Two Ronnies but Ronnie Barker apparently hated it.

The thing about the Croft and Perry sitcoms were that they are all period pieces so they don't date as badly as they weren't contemporary in the first place. They're also big ensemble pieces so very broad and characters that appeal to the family

I've been thinking about Only Fools and Horses recently as a friend and her 5 year old were watching it the other day and it's on Netflix so am tempted to try and revisit it. I've always liked it but last time I saw it was when BBC1 repeated it from beginning to end in the afternoons a while ago.

Despite its contemporary setting (and there are topical references in it) I think it'll still hold up well, especially at the beginning there were some brilliantly written self contained episodes - timeless stories of scams and the like. A lot were based on real events and urban legends (the dead budgie and the paint) for example. Later on it had the advantage of 50 minute episodes to not only tell a great story but also introduce subplots and a more soap opera story arc for the family

You are referring of course to "The Two Ninnies":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oVG4_k7Hbc

I read somewhere that the reason was, he thought he was 'untouchable' in terms of stature and status within the BBC LE department, and thought (incorrectly) that any form of pot shot taking at The Two Ronnie's would be edited out before transmission.

A certain ignorance of the depth and bredth of that empire within Television Centre.

Although, a better reason probably was whoever wrote the script for that sketch rattled him, as they clearly nailed Barkers love of cheap laugh lazy spoonerisums, and using certain words as cover for much ruder words, which given the time slot, would not get close to being broadcast.