'allo 'allo: The Complete Series 1-9 [DVD]

Classic Croft and Lloyd-comedy, using cliché to make fun of cliché. My favourite character is officer Crabtree, the English spy posing as a policeman who garbles his French by getting the vowels wrong, often with hilarious and titillating consequences. Repetition is a key device in the show, but surprisingly it never gets boring. Every episode you wonder what new variation on the same theme the writers have come up with. Leclerc's obvious disguises, Reneé's excuse to his 'stupid woman' for cuddling with the waitresess, what Michelle will say only once, what vowels Crabtree is going to get wrong and what hilarious word joke this will produce (mostly scatological or sexual), how the Madonna with the big boobies will slip through everyone's fingers yet again, how Herr Flick will make Gestapo ruthlessness funny this time. I tried to record every episode on dvd-RW when it was aired on tv , but I missed several episodes. Now I have them all. I like to end a day with an episode of 'Allo 'Allo to relieve stress. It helps me sleep, and not because it is boring.

Politically incorrect farce. And oh so funny for it. The portly middle aged, balding, coward of a café owner, who somehow is irresistible to women and a hero (reluctantly) of the resistance. He dreams of making money from the German and French customers in his café, whilst not having to help British airman escape or risking being shot by the Germans as a resistance fighter or French Resistance as a collaborator. I'm not sure anyone could really take offence on national lines, as everyone comes in for abuse from the occupying Germans, resisting and collaborating French to incompetent escaping British airmen. And even Italians in later series. There is something of a Tom Sharpe novel feel here (in fact it reminds me a little of Riotous Assembly taking the mick out of the Afrikaners, British and Zulus in apartheid South Africa). Like most long running series, I think the first few series (especially 1-3) are the best.

I loved this show when I was younger and watched it with my grandmother on PBS (in the US). The show is very much what I remember it being, and while I notice that some of the reviews focus on the poor treatment of women in this, I think that's more a sign of the times the show was written in, and that is the context that I appreciate it in. I really really like this box set. I like that it comes in a box that seals, and I like that the DVD case is all one case. However, I am not a huge fan of the fact that the DVD holding hard-plastic 'pages' are not connected to the plastic DVD case along the back. Overall I prefer this to some of the other box sets though, such as the Keeping Up Appearances box set. I am definitely satisfied with this purchase. As a side note, if what people say is true about one of the Christmas episodes being shoved on the Season 9 DVD, that will irritate me a bit (I have not gotten that far).

As we hadn't seen every episode this seemed like a good way to see & keep the whole set. I was a bit bemused by some of the comments about the Christmas Specials & the fact that the box says "All 84 Episodes" but a trawl of the Internet says there were 85 plus a "Best Of" etc.... We quickly checked through each disk & counted 85 episodes including BOTH Christmas Specials. Yeah, OK the 2nd special is not on disk in correct chronological order, but once aware easily rectified when playing back. Yes, the packaging & presentation are plain, no episode listing etc but still a bargain for the whole set & easy to keep in one place. We're currently watching them in order & loving it! :-)

Unbelievable value for money, so complaining about poor packaging seems churlish. It's not so much the cheapness, but the bad design of the wallet holding the discs. It's not easy to put the discs back after use, and when they are in place one disc masks the other's list of contents. The labelling of the discs is also maddeningly incompetent, with Disc numbers, Volume numbers and Series numbers in a total shambles, and hard to coordinate with the printed content lists. Get a permanent marker and number the discs yourself. Also at least episode was incorrectly configured for aspect ratio. As regards content: the first three series are superb, but things start to go downhill rapidly after that. Losing Sam Kelly in Series 4 was a great loss, and losing Richard Gibson for the last series was a disaster. As with "Are you being served?" Croft and Lloyd let situations get sillier but less funny, and indulge in endless repetition for increasingly cheap laughs. Still this remains great value, even for the first 3 series alone. But what glorious comedy! Richard Wilson (Herr Flick) succumbing to a poison dart made me explode with laughter!

When they were first broadcast I only saw bits and pieces and there are many episodes I had never seen before. Watching the programmes one after the other shows how well the plot was continued over time, one gaffe leading to another in a very satisfactory manner. The plots are well constructed and the acting of very good quality. The characters all keep straight faces (don't know how they managed it!) no matter how hysterical the situation becomes. So many of their phrases have passed into family usage and we still do use them. I hope we will be able to pass on the pleasure to my two grandchildren. Such a change to have wholesome humour instead of the many instances of really crude humour that abound today. This is a series I thoroughly recommend to anyone. We all love the characters. The discs themselves have so far not shown up any mechanical faults, hope the rest are the same. If there ever was a disc of "out-takes" I would be interested to see it.

Good moaning, I saw many of these episodes when they were originally broadcast in the 80s and early 90s but everyday life got in the way of the rest. To see the entire collection has been a joy and finally makes sense of some of the bits that I missed out on, including the finale to series 9. The episodes follow on from each other in a diaresque fashion so don't make much sense as standalones, although the running jokes and catchphrases hold it together for anyone already familiar with the characters and plot. This represents the best of British comedy, which doesn't victimise anyone and laughs at everybody regardless of age, sex, race, religion, nationality, etc, but is really mocking the British most of all. The first series starts as it means to go on as a fully-fledged entity, hence the enduring success. The quality continues until about series 6/7 when it loses its way somewhat. Then they employed new writers who managed to drag it back on track and actually made it even better. My favourite characters are Michelle of the resistance and Constable Crabtree. Genius!

I am 40 so grew up watching allo allo on the TV, one episode a week :-) and we have the old allo allo board game which we play with our kids. they started asking where the game came from and more about allo allo so though here is a good opportunity to show the children what the wife and I used to watch. they love the show and is as good as i remember but seeing it as an adult you get a different perspective than when i was a child so increasing the enjoyment a second time.

If you enjoy broad comedy, based on farcical situations, innuendo, double-entendres and catchphrases, then this is for you. Subtle and or sophisticated it isn't, but it is very funny. There is wonderful work from Gorden Kaye as hapless love magnet Rene, Carmen Silvera as his wife, Guy Siner as Lt Gruber and Richard Marner as the Colonel, but all the cast do great jobs as, let's admit it , one dimensional puppets. The sheer exuberant silliness of the show sweeps all before it.

Une superbe série télévisée comique à savourer si vous aimez l'humour britannique. Bien que toutes les dialogues soient en anglais ils imitent les accents des Français et des Allemands d'une façon drôle. Très bien joué. La présence d'une piste des sous-titres (optionnels) en Anglais facilite largement l'écoute . Un niveau d'anglais raisonnable est néanmoins requis pour apprécier cette série culte des années quatre-vingts.

I discovered "Allo, Allo" back in London in 1995. It was already re-runs because it was a very successful TV show. The show tells the story of Rene, a bar-restaurant owner in Nouvion, a fictitious town in the Normandy region of France during the German occupation of WW2. Rene has pretty cordial relations with German soldiers, being often clients of his bar. In the same time, he is one of the leaders of the French resistance. From a pretty grim story was created a very funny sitcom. Rene is by any stretch not a good looking men. He is fat, bolding and yet, he is the target of all female's attraction in the serie.... "Oh Rene!!!" Is one of the many catch phrases... Here is another one, from the top of my head: "Listen carefully because I will only say this once....", "What?", "I said, listen very carefully because I will only say this once..." Everything is in English in the spoken language of the serie but in reality, 3 languages are involved: English, from the downed pilots in need of a rescue, German, for the occupying force and indeed French, since it happens in France. In order to make us believe the barrier of languages, the creators emphasized greatly the accents and in the case of the English spy acting as the local policeman, a butchered English, supposed to reflect a butchered French... As my headline suggests, "I was pissing by the window" is a butchered version of "I was passing by the window", supposed to display the poor control of French by the English spy... Confusing? Not as much when you watch the serie. A lot of the humor is language based and situation based. Most of the characters are pretty caricatural but very funny. The serie ran for many years with the same actors with a great success.... I kept on watching it back in the Netherlands since it showed the english shows in English (French are dubbing the shows). I was glad to buy this DVD version to have the possibility to rewatch the serie once in a while. In conclusion: 5 stars.

Perfect!!

La mia serie preferita! Il cofanetto è in cartone. Peccato che i dischi scivolano sotto- all'interno della confezione. Ho cercato di incollare un po' tutto. Per il resto, tutto perfetto! Ho già guardato tante volte la serie ma con questo cofanetto sono riuscita a vedere anche gli episodi mai visti prima. Consiglio