Are The Bbc Wrong To Ban 'it Ain't Half Hot Mum' From Our Screens?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2583111/It-aint-half-daft-BBC-ban-racist-Dads-Army-creator-JIMMY-PERRY-BBCs-refusal-repeats-greatest-hits.html

[Gromit]

// My Grandad had served in Burma during WWII and it fascinated me to get even a semblance of an insight to how it might have been for him. //

The sitcom was about ENSA putting on concert parties. I doubt there is any insight to be had about how it was for our troops in Burma.

[ChillDoubt]

The sitcom was about ENSA putting on concert parties. I doubt there is any insight to be had about how it was for our troops in Burma.
-----------------------

That's your opinion Gromit.
For my son and I as young lads it gave/has given even a scintilla of some idea of the situation, conditions, setting etc, so please don't presume to know how evocative the series was/is for both of us, you simply have no idea.

[woofgang]

My father thought the program was funny but as for it giving any insight into the real thing....he would have laughed in your face, and probably thumped you if you had pushed it.

[sp1814]

As someone said earlier, comedy is entirely subjective. For me, 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' is basically...rubbish. But to this day, if I'm sat in front of series two, three or four of 'Are You Being Served' I will be in tears laughing. There's a timelessness to AYBS that is lost with IAAHM. Also, IAAHM didn't have (in my opinion) characters as strong as Mrs Slocombe or Mr Humphreys.

There simply isn't the affection felt for IAAHM that there is for REAL classics like The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin, Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Butterflies, Rising Damp, The Young Ones, The Likely Lads etc.

These were all classics.

IAAHM was just a series of eye-rolling buffoonery, best forgotten in the Parthenon of BBC sitcoms.

Before the BBC re-transmits IAAHM, it should look to repeating some of Stanley Baxter's Christmas specials...and perhaps a Dick Emery or two...

Needless to say,..'in my opinion'.

[emmie]

a number of the freeview channels are showing some of these old shows like Butterflies, original series of Birds of a Feather, Waiting for God,
a channel i posted on called BonanzaBonanza, has really rolled out the barrel, with the Lone Ranger, gawd, Sherlock Holmes, with Ronald Howard, son of Leslie Howard, and the only one i really like and still makes me laugh is The Beverley Hillbillies.

[emmie]

also showing Bonanza and Highway to Heaven, which look incredibly dated

[sp1814]

methyl

The sad thing is - I remember that episode.

When I used to watch it with my mum, she used to have to stifle her laughter at the Mrs Slocombe's pussy lines.

As a child, I knew they were funny, but I didn't know WHY they were funny.

[askyourgran]

I agree with Chilldoubt. The IAAHM was a comedy about a concert party- entertainment for the troops. It in no way reflected the war in jungles of Burma, and the Far East, my father was in Burma for three years during the war. The series was a lighthearted look at that group of entertainers under such conditions. In those days no offence was taken. Why anyone would take offence at it now is ludicrous, I don't particularly like it but it was fun. I loved 'Allo 'Allo, and the French and Germans don't seem to be be bothered about it, in fact I believe the Germans have their own version of it.

[Gromit]

There are loads of episodes on YouTube, so we do not really need Repeats on BBC1. I have just watched a couple of episodes, and they were not great. But if this is your cup of tea, then you should check out the other episodes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBOIl7piCQo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[andy-hughes]

Perhaps Gromit's point is the most valid - in this age of technology, catch-up and box sets, it is possible to track down a massive amount of vintage TV without it being re-broadcast on terrestrial stations.

Of course, the irony is that the majority of people who want to watch TV from forty years ago are not always those with access to the technology that will allow them so to do.

However, it is another excellent point raised by sp1814, that licence payers' revenue should be spent on developing new drama and comedy, otherwise we will disappear in a maestrom of nostalgia and 'they don't make programmes like this any more ...' - because they don't make programmes anymore full stop!

[Gromit]

If you watch the last 30 seconds of the youTube episode above, the show finishes with the company being marched out singing...

// What are you...?

A load of poofs...
A load of poofs...
A load of poofs...
A load of poofs...
A load of poofs...
A load of poofs...
A load of poofs...
A load of poofs... //

It might be PC gone mad, but that isn't really cutting edge comedy anymore.

[sp1814]

W1A begins tonight.

Can't think of another sentence that I could write today that could bring me more happiness.

[ludwig]

^ actually, that just made me laugh. It's so wrong, it's actually become funny.

[ludwig]

..that was to Gromit's 'poofs' excerpt of course.

[LazyGun]

I thought it tedious, tired, stereotypical and unfunny when it came out. Time has not improved it. In comparison, I still have an affection for Dads Army, and still think it has some excellent humour in it.

So if the BBC never showed IAAHM again, it would be no skin off my nose.

[woofgang]

Actually, thinking about it, they haven't "banned" it, just said that they won't be showing it again.