7 Times Officer Crabtree Spoke Perfect French | 'Allo 'Allo | BBC Comedy Greats
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- čas přidán 7. 05. 2022
- "Good moaning!" Enjoy this beginner's guide to the French Language with expert Officer Crabtree from 'Allo 'Allo.
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#Comedy #AlloAllo - Komedie
The idea of communicating different languages by speaking English in different accents was absolute genius.
Absolutely genius😉
And saved the costs of subtitles
Yeah, and I liked that they also used a silly stereotypical accent for the English speakers - shows they weren't just picking on the foreigners
It really was! i was trying to explain to a friend how 'Allo 'Allo did this, and I think I ended up sounding like Officer Crabtree in the process! :D
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I was lucky enough to see the live stage show with most of the original cast. When Arthur made his first stage entry and uttered the now immortal 'good moaning' it brought the house down. Just simply wonderful comedy.
id love to have seen that
You were very fortunate! Here in the States we could see the show on PBS; I was hooked from the first episode! I subscribe to BritBox and Acorn, so I’ve discovered more comedies that weren’t broadcast on Public TV. So many great shows!
He was also on CZcams during the pandemic with oopdits on the veeros
I love when he says 'Good Moaning' even if it's the middle of the night.
Officer crabtree, what a fabulous character, he was so funny, loved Allo, Allo, well written and acted brilliantly.
still makes you laugh now ,class comedy
Indeed, glad i have this on DVD. I never laught so much.
It was a rather genius way of portraying the misuse of French in the English language. Shafting the Vuwels slightly to represent an understanding of French but with obvious mistakes was brilliant. He was my favourite character and passed myself laughing many times.
I also fond officer Crabtroo to be...hilhairyass
Passed yourself laughing many times? 🧐😄 Whet dos dis moon?
I sow whit you did thore
As I understand it...Arthur Bostrom, who played Officer Crabtree was one of the few catst members who could, actually, speak French...rather fluently! A groat Pass Tike!
And René, always bemoaning lieutenant Gruber "that fancies me", was as far as I know the only gay cast member.
"They have crapped along the tunnel and are dogging" is even funnier now than it was then.
Nearly 40 years in and I still greet people with "Good moaning".
I loved it when one of Crabtree's colleagues was there and he told her the villagers didn't understand them as the villagers were posants and Crabtree and his colleague were speaking pish.
So do I, and I live in France 😄
When I first started wearing glasses in my late 40s I greeted people who saw me in theme for the first time with "It is I, Le Clerc!"
WHO WILL BUY MY MARROWS?!
I try and say that sometimes but people unfamiliar with the programme just look very confused. 😊
I do with my emails at work.. .no one has twigged😂
One of the great British comedies and a brilliant cast. 'Good moaning. I was pissing by the door.' Pure genius and comedy gold.
we need girls knoclers :D
Had the great pleasure to meet Arthur ( officer Crabtree ) at a war weekend a couple of weeks ago , and what a lovely warm hearted man he is, he spent at least a couple of hours chatting with fans and posing for photo's with them, a lovely lovely man.
Once when I was out shopping, I encountered Richard Gibson (Herr Flick) and Geoffrey Hughes (Onslow from Keeping Up Appearances) in a supermarket in Denmark. The BBC had produced a DVD box with a single season each of a number of British sitcoms, and had hired the two for a promotion tour. I gather that the idea was to get more people outside of Britain interested in their TV shows, possibly to eventually sell entire shows to them. So the two gentlemen in question were sitting at a table signing autographs on the DVD boxes for those who bought them. Richard Gibson was even in full costume, although Geoffrey Hughes was understandably not. They were both absolutely delightful and gracious.
My favourite 'Allo 'Allo line is a Crabtreeism as he leaves Café René in one episode: “Are you not proud that the RAF are still farting for freedom?"
All these years later, still the funniest thing ever made. Who could ever tire of such silliness?
I'm continually amazed that there were so many straight faces when Crabtree comes out with some of his lines :- "I was pissing by the door"
13:26 Watch the Colonel's face. He's chewing the inside of his cheeks. 🙂
@@chrisredding6673 lol, yup, just seen that, thanks for pointing it out
@@chrisredding6673 I love how he fought to keep a straight face.
I was a kid when Mom would watch her Britcoms on public television. She had to explain the French/English device to me; I thought it was brilliant. Officer Crabtree became my favorite character.
“Gud moaning” became a family greeting.
Tank crashes into the outdoor public convenience nearly squashing Gendarme Crabtree “Well I guess there is no piss for the wicked”.
A laugh every second. How they managed to keep straight faces in performance is amazing 😂. "At least farty..., maybe even 50" 😂😂😂
How the crew managed to keep a straight face when Crabtree would start talking is beyond me. No matter how many takes it took. "I was pissing by the door... "
My Father, who was Spanish, was a teenager during the Second World War. He came to the UK in the 1960's & when this came on in the 1980's he thought it was hilarious. His favourite show. It took the mickey out of all countries. When he used to go drinking with his friends, he'd walk in to the pub and announce ''It is I, LeClerc!''
Sounds like a great bloke.
My grandad said it portrate common people trying to survive pretty well on funny way. That Rene was like almost every civilian who was known in his place,like shop keepers and simmilar,making deals and doing this or that for all sides,who ever wins you will not end up dead ..
I always say good morning to people in the style of officer Crabtree. You can always tell those that know. It's lost on the young ones.
My brother once came to my class in school (age 10 or 11) and opened the door with a great "Good Moaning!" and everyone thought he was the coolest guy for a long time, haha. Everyone watched Allo Allo back then in the Netherlands. Including kids.
A college tutor greeted us with "Good Moaning" one day and I was the only one that got it/laughed. I was 20/21 the others were 16-18, those couple of years made a huge difference.
It was all the rage at my school. I'm showing my age!
This is how I speak Polish to my Polish friends. They are usually very polite but there are a few moments of laughter at my pronunciation. 🤣
"Farty knickers or even fifty ...er.... I'll go for fifty" this is a clever use of comic device.
We loved this show in Portugal and all characters were dear to us. Gorden Kaye's death was in the mainstream news, it was a sad day to his portuguese fans.
"I was pissing by the door..."
Already a legendary moment.
For me, the killer part was when Crabtree stepped up to the Mike in the cafe concert to give a rendition of “Ev’ry Little Bruise Seems to Whisper Lou-oose”. Still cracks me up!!
Have you ever tried to explain officer Crabtree to someone who has never seen allo allo? Try it. It’s a nightmare 🤣
i am Troying but it is hurd :P
An ex colleague of mine worked in Germany for a while. He tried explaining it to the Germans, they just couldn't get the concept.
As long as you bong the bill when you go into the coffee
Sounds like trying to explain the LBW law to a Malaysian orthopaedic surgeon in 2005 during the Ashes, when he could not understand why half the consultants in the hospital were yelling at the TV in their private lounge.
@@delbertogrady6824 It's just one of those things that countries that dub tv shows and movies into their local language miss out on. There is simply no way the humor of that show could be replicated with a dubbed version.
Edit: Reading further down in the comments, it seems that I am mistaken. Apparently the show was dubbed into Czech with great success.
Even more amusing is watching Richard Marner (Colonel Kurt von Strohm) trying to keep a straight face, whilst Arthur Bostrom delivers his "French" lines!
indeed, I didnt notice that but went back to watch it again. Very funny :D
He’s corpsing so badly. I am surprised he didn’t inhale the “wine”.
I suspect that the Crabtree character was inspired by how the British sent encoded messages during the Second World War. They used officers that had learned french in high school. Native French speakers were barely able to understand them, so by logic, the Germans didn't have a hope... Arthur Bostrom conveys this perfectly. :)
It was actually based on PM Ted Heath who spoke perfect French but with no accent
Made me think of the episode where the other British agent arrived, and she and Crabtree talk to each other in Fronch and she said the posants wouldn't understand cos they were taught to speak pish. (or something like that)
Actualy, Crabtree was inspired in a real person! One of the writers (Croft I believe) lived in Portugal at the time, and his portuguese gardner was very proud of speaking a fluent and perfect English. The problem was... he don't. He speak with a English accent (kinda), and make hilarious mistakes. His wife told him at dinner, with tears on her eyes, all the things he said, and laugh so so much, that he thought "hum... Maybe it would be funny to create a character who speaks badly but thinks that he speaks perfectly" and so Crabtree was born.
EDIT: most of the sentences ("pissing by the door" and similar) where exactly how the gardner talked. He don't invented almost no new lines. He just write what his wife told him what the gardner speak.
I don't know how popular this was in Norway, but it was on the state channel, and probably very much watched at least. They didn't dub it (thankfully), but stuck with subtitles. Good moaning was translated into "God merra", which means something along the lines of "good (that) female horse", where that term would be used as a moderately offensive term to describe older women.
The decision to show through the script the different languages was genius.
If only the BBC could produce comedies even 10% of this calibre today I might still watch it.
Sadly, wokism, feminism ans other isms have conspired to ruin comedy. The BBC is a pitiful shadow of what ot once was.
One time in college ( 21 years ago) one of the tutors greeted us with "Good Moaning" and I was the only one that laughed. I was only 3-4 years older than the rest of the class, but my Gid that made me feel old.
I understand Crabtree speaking French, but have trouble understanding him speaking English 🤦🏻♀
Oh, he's so bad at French, yet he's so sincere, he genuinely believes he's good at it. I thought it was hilarious in the episode when Renee and Edith are in London, and one of the Brits say that he wishes his friend Crabtree was there because he speaks fluent French 😆
British comedy at it's best I loved watching Allo Allo
still in love with Michelle all these years later
She is still lovely. I later saw the older episodes with Maria and found out you can be in love with several girls at once...
Top comedy and so clever with the accents depicting what language they are speaking...😁😅🤣😂
When I was little this show was dubbed in my language (Czech) and it was brilliant in there as well. As similar principle as here, but more like "swaping letters," not "switching letters"
For example -- dobré odpoledne (good afternoon) was "bodré podoledne" (cheerful podoledne) (that other word doesn't mean anything to me)
or something about "car plugs" (automobilové svíčky) was translated as (automobilové cvičky), so not "car spark plugs," but "car excercise shoe" or something like that 🙂
It was brilliant! ❤
Thank you! I knew it was translated into other languages, but had wondered how they showed Crabtree's bad French.
@@PrincessFidelma It's a double laugh... It was same in croatian. You just don't know which is funnier, original or the translation :D
Same was done in Estonia lol. It was brilliant.
If forgotten how brilliant Allo Allo was 😂
I have forgotten how hilarious this show was! The Bad French has me “Loafing at Lard” ;-)
13:20 Looks like the Colonel is trying so hard not to laugh. 😀
The clever thing is that he makes the same mistakes (vowel sounds, word choice / order) that the English genuinely make when speaking French and the mistakes are reflected back into English to make us laugh....
Yes, it’s perfect. I’m fluent in French and English and have rather good German. All the language jokes are spot on. Just another example of quality comedy: high brow and low brow at the same time.
I watched this a lot growing up. It's helped me a lot working in hospitality to understand which country my colleagues are from by their accents. Some have even asked if their English speaking is okay as they want to improve. Most speak English very well and I tell them that their English is much better than me trying to speak their language.
When the Post Office started supplying foreign currency, Arthur Bostrom came as a guest for the launch. He was able to speak his "perfect" French ad lib.
“Her log is in plister of porridge” 😂😂
He spoke to me at a war and peace show as officer crabtree, I went to pieces
I’m sure I saw Crabtree trying nit to loff.
the fact the French don't like it makes it even funnier
yet the Germans love it!
Arthur Bostrom, a contemporary at Durham uni, proved himself to be an excellent actor there!
Ahh, my favourite aircraft ever. The De Havilland Rapide.
I'm not alone, then!
@@wbertie2604 And me ! My first flight ever as a boy it was so exciting looking over the pilots shoulder. I noticed it was used in a TV advert but it had two pilots and people standing on the upper wing oh well.
We shall never forget you Gorden......RIP ...
I was pissing by the door, and then the laughter… almost as good as WE ASK ZE QUESTIONS!!!
😂😂😂
This show was really popular in Holland. I was never quite sure how they understood the Officer Crabtree jokes, especially in the subtitles . 'They mist have hid god onglash'.
The Dutch almost always are able to speak English. Who other than the Dutch speak Dutch?
@@robinclarke9978 The Flemish in Belgium :)
The Dutch subtitles were actually extremely good, replicating the vowel shifting and as much as possible working in puns in Dutch where the original English did. This sometimes meant the translation wasn’t literal, but always close enough to give the same message but with a good pun worked in. Very good subtitling I tell you.
Simple: anyone with enough mastery of English would ignore the subtitles for these jokes
And many Dutch being rather adept at English, made Crabtree's jokes possible to land
French naval motto,..."to the water, ..it is the hour!" ( A l'eau,..c'est l'heure!)
i didn't get the joke until I said the words aloud! Cheeky!
@@mandolinic Me neither, and I wouldn't have if you hadn't suggested it. Brilliant!
Hahah! Cette blague, c'est blooming génial! 😄
I cracked up when Agent Crabtree said that "a podgeon had cripped on my hod".
I learned German, but I think I speak like Officer Crabtree 😂😂😂
This explains a lot. It was on our local PBS-UK station and I got that his French was....idiosyncratic but did not know why everyone so often acted like he was useless or in the way.
Total genius
Timeless!!
I had the pleasure of watching Arthur Bostrom in a pantomime a few years back. It was a production of Aladdin, and he played Jaffa. Naturally, he had to do the thing: “Good moaning. I was pissing by your door when I ‘eard a bossom.”
I think it was that same play where one of the actors accidentally said “Aww and you’re my twanky-wanky”.
what a fantastic 👏 show love crabtree so funny took a while to understand what he was saying especially simonese pissy kit up the tree and pissing by the door .
Always wanted an episode where a German Commandant and his driver/ Sergeant unknowingly carrying a couple of "passengers"(An American Colonel, and a French Leiutenant), on the roof rack of his staff car, make a stop in the village. A crossover with Hogans' Heroes.
They don’t make comedies like this any more 😭
Simply I loved 🤗👍❤️😉
My days are better 😉👍
13:27 Made me laugh😂
Arthur comedic genius. Hats off to the writers.
Officer Crabtree is from Rugby, the same town I’m from. I live 2 roads away from his childhood home
What a genius and very well made show👏
This show was so good! I was able to pick up a few episodes on PBS.
This show was seriously clever, using accents to communicate different languages
Brilliant program always makes me laugh 😀
Listen very carefully, i shall say this only once: "The greatest piece of art. Genuinely! Brilliant! " 🇬🇧
I loved this!
it took me a long time to figure out that everyone talked in their own language ( thus the accent) and the policeman was bad at French
He's like the french version of Borat
the guilty potty just pissing by the door 😆😂🤣
13:36 I was pissing by the door when I heard 2 shots you holding in your hand is smoking goon 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Everytime this man has me crying laughing 😂😂😂 that why allo allo lasted 10 years
I too, am from the Left Bonk!
"A Roman Catholic Farter"
Great comedy.
Interesting that this was put online on VE Day.
Comedy gold.
Thank you for sharing.
Officer crabtree reminds of a French version of Borat
Yes, this is true, both physically and comedically.
That's where Borat got the idea from.
I wish people would stop taking the piss out of my DAD
Be proud of him. He made most of us laugh. Take no notice of the dismal jimmies.
Terribly sorry old chap, don't understand a word of the lingo
This is so funny. 🤣🤣🤣
I've absolutely loved Crabtree since I was a child even though we only only had a czech dubbed version on our TV. The dubbing was actually pretty good - have any of you experienced othe dubbed versions? How were they?
Acting in this series was so good...
Separated at birth - officer Crabtree & Richard Osman.
the funniest ever
It flying around
😂😂😂😂😂😂
I really miss this
I have all the towels for the jib ! !
Good moaning. I em Crabtree, your lical frandly Frinch Polooceman!
Ooh la laaa! I would've happily lifted Maria up in my big strong arms! 🤣🤣🤣 She was gorgeous! 😍😍😍
Just get back in the line and wait for your turn!
There's a scene where Rene goes to the police station, hoping to be put in jail for his own safety. Crabtree asks what crime he's committed (biglary, mare dare, alson). When Rene asks what "alson" is, Crabtree responds "Setting fire to places" without messing up.
Overy toom I see Officer Crabtroo, I alwoos gaggle, I moon, It's just very foony, watty and will rooten.
Her log is in plister of Poris!
I'm hoppy to witch this sories oover and oover a goon 😆
HILLARIOUS!!!!!!!
When this was shown in France, he was dubbed like he had just stepped off the ferry at Calais with a dodgy phrasebook. With absolutely no attempt at pronunciation. 🙂
Just Average English Tourist then..?
Working as a thespian on this show must've been fun...if you could keep a straight face and not laugh! Great, timeless show!
These clops are olarious, officer crabtree needs a premetion