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The series was loosely based on a successful BBC drama series, Secret Army , which ran from 1977 to 1979, and dealt with the activities of resistance workers based at a cafe in Brussels, though some inspiration was drawn from patriotic black-and-white British melodramas of the 1940s.
Set during World War Two, 'Allo 'Allo told the story of René Artois, a French cafe owner in the village of Nouvion. The village had been occupied by the Germans, who had then stolen all the valuable artifacts in the town. These included the first cuckoo clock made and a painting of The Fallen Madonna (with the big boobies) by van Klomp. The commandant of the town decides to keep them for himself after the war and gets René to hide the painting in his cafe. The Gestapo also want the painting and send Herr Flick to find it.
At the same time René is acting as a safehouse for brave but clueless downed British airmen. He is forced to work with the Resistance, who would otherwise shoot him for serving Germans in his cafe. The farfetched plans of the Resistance to get the airmen back to England, which always fail, are one of the main running gags of the series.
Rene is also trying to have an affair with his two waitresses without his wife discovering. Also, the Communist Resistance, consisting of all women, wants a piece of René for serving Germans and working with the other Resistance. The only reason that René isn't shot by them is that their leader is in love with him, a fact he has hide from his wife and waitresses. Not to mention his troubles with German lieutenant Grueber, a homosexual Nazi who also has an eye on him.
René's wife in the meantime, 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 FranceThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents..
These few plot devices provided the basic storyline throughout the entire series, on which were hung classic farce setups, physical comedy and sight gags, fake theatrical foreign accents, and a fast-paced running string of broad cultural clichés, which owed something to Monty PythonMonty Python or The Pythons were the creators and stars of Monty Python's Flying Circus the television comedy series first aired on October 5, 1969. As a television series it consisted of 45 episodes over 4 series; however, the phenomenon that is Monty Py. Each episode ran on from the previous ones, often requiring that the previous episode be also watched. Fortunately, Rene would inform the viewer as to what had previously transpired, in a gag based on a threadbare device ("As you remember...") of second-rate serials. Unfortunately in re-runs, local TV stations have shuffled the episodes as they do not realise that AA is a continuous series, making the ridiculous plot synoposes quite necessary.
With four different languages (French, German, Italian and English) spoken by the characters, representing this to the audience could have been tricky. The program uses the masterful device of representing each language with English spoken in an overblown parody accent.
An exchange in "French", or English dripping with stage-frenchman accent, is totally incomprehensible to the English airmen until Michelle switches to Bertie-WoosterHugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster Bertram Wilberforce Wooster is a fictional character created by P. He is a foppish, somewhat dim-witted, and fabulously wealthy British aristocrat and member of the "idle rich". In Wodehouse's stories he always appears alongs-esque top-hole-old-chap banter with an upperclass English accent. On top of this there is the English officer Crabtree, in the permanent disguise of a French-speaking Gendarme. His mangling of French vowels is represented by equally distorted English, most famously his customary greeting catch phraseA catch phrase is a phrase or expression that is popularized, usually through repeated use, by a real person or fictional character. They are especially common among TV and cartoon characters. Today, catch phrases are frequently seen as an important part of "Good moaning".
However, despite the difficulties in communicating with the English characters, the French, Germans and Italians all appear to understand each other's languages perfectly.
Despite this, one episode showed two characters learning Spanish (as part of an abortive attempt at desertion) which consisted of a series of extreme exaggerations of words and accents based on English but clearly removed from the normal language.