Product Description

There's plenty of laughter in store when an unbelievably quirky contingent of sales clerks makes shopping at Grace Brothers the comic experience of a lifetime. For the first time all 69 episodes of this classic Britcom have been gathered together in one deluxe collection. Each episode is presented uncut and has been lovingly restored. Also included are two bonus discs containing over five hours of extra material!Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 794051206329 Manufacturer No: E2063

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4997 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2004-09-07
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, DVD-Video, Color, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 14
• Dimensions: 3.10 pounds
• Running time: 2070 minutes

Amazon.com
The definitive British sitcom is almost certainly Are You Being Served?, which depicts the squabbles, misadventures, and flirtations of the staff of Grace Brothers department store. The show was originally conceived as a vehicle for an irreverent junior salesman named Mr. Lucas (Trevor Bannister), but it soon became clear that mocking a social hierarchy isn't half as funny as taking it all too seriously. The show really revolves around Mrs. Slocombe (Mollie Sugden), whose wildly changing hair color and mercurial moods terrorize the rest of the staff, and cheerful but sly Mr. Humphries (the effervescent John Inman), one of the first gay characters on television treated with dignity--or at least no more indignity than anyone else (the show makes some noise about not being sure if Mr. Humphries is gay or not, but no one in the audience will have any question). But the rest of the cast is superb as well: Frank Thornton as the elegant but leering floorwalker Capt. Peacock, Wendy Richard as the sexy, impish Miss Brahms, Arthur Brough as cantankerous Mr. Grainger (who, sadly, died after the fifth season; other characters took his position on the sales staff, but never quite matched up), and Nicholas Smith as the self-serving but incompetent manager Mr. Rumbold form a comic ensemble that has rarely been equaled.

These characters, written with affection and played with superb comic dash, endlessly jockey for status and salary while simultaneously creating an alternative family (the core structure for any sitcom on either side of the Atlantic). Are You Being Served? deserves its devoted fan base, who will revel in this comprehensive 14-DVD box set (which includes specials about Inman, Sugden, and Richard, as well as other extras). --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

Are You Being Served? Collection
Great video quality for a very enjoyable show. The only negative is the first seven discs have an annoying intro, but it's not a big deal. I would buy this product again.

Great laughs!
My mother loved watching this British comedy series on public television so much that I bought this entire set for her to watch. She enjoys it very much and plays them all the time. Great characters did a good job in this series. Highly recommended!

Great Show, but BBC Video Quality Control Problems Prevail
I discovered AYBS on a PBS station during law school. It was a pleasant, homey program that greatly helped me unwind at bedtime (no mean feat, at the time) so I could eventually fall asleep. I don't want to imply that it's like a sleeping pill-- it's more like a massage.

No sitcoms make me roar with laughter every minute (MST3K came closest, alhough categorizing that as a sitcom, or anything else, is problematic); but, the good ones brighten my mood, especially when the characters come to feel like welcome, comforting, old friends, and I'll always have a warm feeling from seeing the core cast. John Inman as Mr. Humphries is among my fondest characters from any program, anywhere.

The jokes are often pretty silly or over-the-top, making "The Andy Griffith Show" seem like "COPS." You come to anticipate the reactions of each character to a given situation with certainty; but, as many reviews will attest, that is something people who like this show enjoy. I wouldn't quite say that this show is like crossing "The Office" with "Gilligan's Island;" but, it's tempting (never moreso than when you encounter the "Guatemalan monkey"). If I did, I'd say the watchability greatly favored the former parent. Even though I could see many jokes coming a mile away, they were often done so outrageously that they still sometimes surprised me the first time through. I found it interesting how the British were prepared (rarely) to make jokes based on cringingly erroneous ethnic stereotypes that wouldn't have been tolerated here in the U.S. decades earlier; and double entendres abound that might have pushed a very mild, harmless program into a later time slot here.

When some original cast members had to leave for one reason or another (death being a common one), their replacements had a hard time filling the shoes of their predecessors; but, I'm grateful that they kept the series going as best they could. Even new cast members contributed to some memorable moments.

Unfortunately, I've had horrendous luck with BBC Video quality control with every set I've ever bought, and I'm running into similar problems with the box set of "Only Fools and Horses," also from BBC Video. The entire current batch of AYBS Disc 11's appears to be corrupt in the same place based on 3 sets I tried (look for it in "The Erotic Dreams of Mrs. Slocombe;" if yours doesn't start tiling, dropping sound, and generally just becoming a mess when she discusses getting a chip caught in her throat the previous night out with Mrs. Axelby, I envy your good luck). The second and third sets had a slightly defective Disc 12, as well (I couldn't have known it, but, I should have quit while I was ahead). Amazon has suspended sales pending correction of the disc defects. I strongly recommend watching any BBC Video release entirely before the inspection period expires if you much mind defective discs; and, I urge you to buy multi-volume sets from sellers like Amazon who can easily replace defective sets, and let you pick out a single set of least-corrupt discs from two sets of mixed quality before you have to send one set back. Even when I've had to pay a bit more to buy from Amazon, the customer service has made the investment well worthwhile, especially on large, multi-disc sets where the odds favor the occasional bad disc.