Put me down as a fan, Eve. I think it’s a pretty funny show.
The ex & I looked forward to it nightly - it was one of the few times my ex actually wanted to watch something on Public Television.
Patsy from Ab Fab made an appearance in two episodes - the perfume demonstration woman in season 1/episode 3 and as the German lady in the German week (Strumps anyone?) season 3/episode 6.
Miss Brahms and Patsy on my TV screen at the same time! Yes.
When we were children, and Mum was happy with something we’d done, she’d say “You’ve all done very well” and we’d respond “Thank you Mr Grace”.
I went to school with one of the Grace boys from the family that founded the local department store, Grace Brothers.
I’m watching the Australian version on Youtube right now. For apparently recycling everything from it’s parent it’s surprisingly good (although I doubt anyone who wasn’t a big fan of the original would like it). Mr. Humphries must sure have gotten alot of deja vu; I wonder if it was ever referenced onscreen.
In the later seasons–which were pretty much awful–they replaced the old Young Mr Grace with a young actor in old-age makeup, and it was just creepy, like that dancing Zombie Swifty Lazar in the Six Flags ads.
Yeah, a lot of the time they played it broadly, but the funniest times in AYBS were when a line was set up for, or about, Mr Humphries, but John Inman just raised an eyebrow as if to say “I see what you did there, but just this once let’s just pretend I made a comeback rather than going through with it.”
Absolutely. Leonard Rossiter was a superb comic actor and the Reginald Perrin scripts were great.
I’ll also chime in as being an AYBS fan, but I haven’t watched any episodes for about 20 years. I’m too afraid they won’t live up to my memory of them.
I like the show too. One of my favorite scenes is when they think it’s Mrs. Slocombe who’s pregnant when she’s talking about her pussy.
My dad and I both loved this show.
My grandmother was a huge fan of AYBS. I think she identified with Mrs. Slocombe.
I still love the show. My high-school composition teacher was a huge Anglophile, and he would show us episodes every now and then.
They started airing it on our local PBS when I was in high school, and my little circle of friends all watched it. The show entered our vernacular: one of us would call to the other, “Rob, are you free?” (significant look left) (significant look right) “At the moment.”
Yes, we were colossal nerds.
At the train station this morning I thought of complaining to my fellow commuters that “this turnin’ the clocks back is playin’ havoc with my pussy,” but thought the better of it.
To be honest, my favorite character was Miss Belfridge.
I have seen all the Department Store episodes (didn’t like “Served Again”), and also the movie (which lifted lots of it’s various sub-plots from the show, as well as I thnk the “Carry On Aboard” movie)
I just sort of chalked up the older-looking “Junior” Mr Lucas (Trevor Bannister was in his late 30s when the series began) to the rather ad-hoc senority system of Grace Brothers (which seemed to change show-to-show as needed by the plot) - his replacement, Mr Spooner (Mike Berry) did seem young enough to be a “Junior”, although I never thought his character was as funny as Bannister’s Mr Lucas.
As for Ms Brahms, she looked reasonable like a Junior at the begining (1972 pilot - in glorious Black and White), but at the series end in 1985 it was hard to see her as anything but the mid-40s woman she was by then, even with Mr Spooner making remarks about her at the disco getting all the young mens attention (well, she did learn in Catford, she did). From what I have read, Wendy Richard in the 1960s bit of a “goer”, as apparently she was not afraid to display her sweater puppies for photographers- wonder if that helped her get the part of Ms Brahms?
Highest praise I know possible for a British TV show:
In an episode of Doctor Who, while stepping off an elevator, the Doctor quips, “First floor, perfumery.”
Maybe I missed it, but it has always been my impression that they scrupulously avoided and suggestion of Mr Humphries ever having any sort of sexual or dating relationship. I agree that he is (at least compared to the other characters) a pretty positive presentation of a gay character, but British shows (most notably Round The Horne on the radio - a vastly superior show IMHO) had been doing gay characters like this for years before AYBS first aired.
Maybe that is so in America, but AYBS was not in the least groundbreaking in Britain, and there are other (earlier and later) British shows in something like the same vein (often with the same or overlapping writers and producers) that are vastly superior, but apparently little known in America. It seems the love for it stems from when it first became available in America, but it is a mystery to why U.S. stations would originally have decided to air this rather than one of its many, superior, competitors.
Reginald Perrin and Benny Hill were both very different sorts of shows, but also both vastly superior to AYBS (and Benny was doing his thing long before AYBS appeared).
Of course, as you probably know, “All in the Family” was also based on a British show “Till Death Us Do Part.” I was never, personally, a great fan of “Till Death,” but it was groundbreaking and edgy even when it first appeared in Britain. AYBS, which debuted several years later, was not groundbreaking or edgy at all. To me (and, frankly, I think to most British people) it is almost the bottom of the barrel of British comedy. When I see it played in America I cringe to think that many Americans will think this is what British humor (or, God help us, Britain) is really like.
Oh no, they frequently have him just come back from weekends with a “friend,” or going to gay bars, or spending time with a “sailor,” and warning his mother over the phone that a man will be calling on him . . . ‘E was gettin’ more than Mr. Lucas!
One of the later shows that annoyed me had Mrs. Slocombe suddenly falling in love with Mr. Humphries and thinking he was going to propose, which totally negated the earlier seasons, when she was nobody’s fool and knew full we “'e was a little light in the loafers.”
I’m pretty sure we knew it was just a sitcom. 
Although I have wondered over the years what the Germans must have thought of Hogan’s Heroes.
It’s probably a fair point that, from the point of view of a British viewer, AYBS was not particularly noteworthy. Whereas, it seems from the comments here that that kind of bawdy British music hall comedy was something of a novelty to viewers elsewhere. That said, it was one of the top-rated shows in Britain for several years. I’ve actually been watching a couple of the early episodes on YouTube, because of this thread, and it is indeed better than I remembered. I’ve actually laughed out loud a few times :eek:. It’s really quite similar to Dad’s Army, and that show is considered a classic.
They never should have done the series where the group is trying to manage a B&B farm. Any idea why they didn’t just write another series at Grace Brothers?
I remember seeing Frank Thornton (Captain Peacock) listed in the credits of Gosford Park and trying to spot him. I had to rewatch various scenes a couple of times. He plays Maggie Smith’s umbrella toting butler and the entirety of his scene lasts less than 1 minute (beginning 1:10) during which he was on camera for less than half that, has a couple of lines and no closeups.
I’ve wondered why a name actor who had two hit series (AYBS and Last of the Summer Wine) and quite a few stage and screen credits would even have been interested in such a bit part. I doubt it paid much, but I suppose it was a day out of the house and paid at least enough for a nice dinner for him and Mrs. Thornton or whatever.