After - or during - far too many series-es, this show became flat and no longer entertaining. A great shame. When it was fresh it excellent.
The first pilot episode - season 1, E00, has to rank among the very very best of television comedy of all time. The introduction of the theatrical device of accent = language is absurdly simple and breathtakingly brilliant. The pilot explains all the rules of the game to the viewer in one hilarious scene (airmen behind the curtains) and thereafter, the device is used consistently, never breaking the rules and yet developing the theme into all sorts of absurd comical extrapolations.
One of the great strengths of Allo Allo is that it plays with xenophobia and national stereotyping in a way that has become unfashionable. As the politically correct movement has blossomed in the wake of the holier-than-thou prissy anal retentive neo-puritans who have tainted social thinking with their rabid chauvinism, an awful lot of areas of expression, analysis are now "bad taste." These areas are tools for exploring the very ideas of nationalism, racial prejudice and bigotry and whilever these ideas cannot be explored because someone has decreed that the playing field must be closed down, then no real progress in understanding can ever be made. Instead we have learned behaviour defined by narrow-mindedness and the fear of being seen not to champion whatever is socially fashionable.
Please do not confuse humour with ideology.
Is it possible to make a racist joke without being racist? Where you stand on this one determines how hidebound by ideology you are.
Would Father Ted be well received everywhere in the world? Would it even be tolerated without Reformation?
Allo Allo seems superficially xenophobic because it draws lines around stereotypes and "differentness" but it pokes fun at the roots of bigotry, reminding us that people are people irrespective of their mindset, beliefs, persuasions or foibles. It doesn't stop us being appalled at Nazism or the atrocities of war. It DOES remind us that these atrocities were carried out by ordinary, probably extremely likable, people whose pressure to conform to an ideology was greater that any individual could stand.
Humour is nothing to be frightened of - unless one subscribes to a repressive ideology which cannot stand humour's light being cast on it.
In Allo Allo we are invited to question. In Newspeak, we are not.
We need more irreverence. What we really need are sitcoms about PC thinking, child abuse, Islam, slavery. Actually, one program could probably cover all of that
Viva la difference, chaps!!!
Rating? Pilot episode 9/10 First series 8/10 Later series 2/10
The first pilot episode - season 1, E00, has to rank among the very very best of television comedy of all time. The introduction of the theatrical device of accent = language is absurdly simple and breathtakingly brilliant. The pilot explains all the rules of the game to the viewer in one hilarious scene (airmen behind the curtains) and thereafter, the device is used consistently, never breaking the rules and yet developing the theme into all sorts of absurd comical extrapolations.
One of the great strengths of Allo Allo is that it plays with xenophobia and national stereotyping in a way that has become unfashionable. As the politically correct movement has blossomed in the wake of the holier-than-thou prissy anal retentive neo-puritans who have tainted social thinking with their rabid chauvinism, an awful lot of areas of expression, analysis are now "bad taste." These areas are tools for exploring the very ideas of nationalism, racial prejudice and bigotry and whilever these ideas cannot be explored because someone has decreed that the playing field must be closed down, then no real progress in understanding can ever be made. Instead we have learned behaviour defined by narrow-mindedness and the fear of being seen not to champion whatever is socially fashionable.
Please do not confuse humour with ideology.
Is it possible to make a racist joke without being racist? Where you stand on this one determines how hidebound by ideology you are.
Would Father Ted be well received everywhere in the world? Would it even be tolerated without Reformation?
Allo Allo seems superficially xenophobic because it draws lines around stereotypes and "differentness" but it pokes fun at the roots of bigotry, reminding us that people are people irrespective of their mindset, beliefs, persuasions or foibles. It doesn't stop us being appalled at Nazism or the atrocities of war. It DOES remind us that these atrocities were carried out by ordinary, probably extremely likable, people whose pressure to conform to an ideology was greater that any individual could stand.
Humour is nothing to be frightened of - unless one subscribes to a repressive ideology which cannot stand humour's light being cast on it.
In Allo Allo we are invited to question. In Newspeak, we are not.
We need more irreverence. What we really need are sitcoms about PC thinking, child abuse, Islam, slavery. Actually, one program could probably cover all of that
Viva la difference, chaps!!!
Rating? Pilot episode 9/10 First series 8/10 Later series 2/10