Trivia / 'Allo 'Allo!

• Actor-Inspired Element: Mimi hiding inside the grandfather clock in "The Reluctant Millionaires" was Sue Hodge's idea. Originally, she was to be inside a chest of drawers.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: A common misconception among viewers is that the word Geering says after all the other characters call out "Heil Hitler" is "klop", which is German for "me too". This is wrong on both counts, as not only is that not what "klop" means in German (it actually means "knock"), Geering is actually saying "-tler", in order to avoid giving the full salute.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Kirsten Cooke (Michelle) originally auditioned for Yvette, while Yvette herself (Vicki Michelle) auditioned not only for Yvette but also Michelle.
• Character Outlives Actor: Whereas Jack Haig died after Series 5, Roger LeClerc was still alive, albeit in prison. After Derek Royle's death, his brother Ernest was simply recast to the much younger Robin Parkinson.
• Completely Different Title: In Sweden, the show was called 'Emliga Armén ("Lame Army"), a pun/French-accented pronunciation of Hemliga Armén (the Swedish translation of Secret Army).
• Corpsing:
  • Richard Marner is visibly trying not to laugh during Crabtree's speech at the end of "Pretty Maids All in a Row" ("I was pissing by the door, when I heard two shats. You are holding in your hand a smoking goon; you are clearly the guilty potty."), even though his character believes he has just seen a double homicide.
  • In one episode Herr Flick and Helga get sprayed by dirt from an explosion. Kim Hartman gets the giggles due to how ridiculous Richard Gibson looks and completely loses it because Gibson absolutely refuses to break character and reacts as Herr Flick would have.
  • In another episode, Edith and Michelle argue violently, ending with Michelle coldly noting that she could replace Madame Edith as a waitress, and she also can sing. Kirsten Cooke ad-libbed the ending: "off the note!" Carmen Silvera managed to stay in character, but Gorden Kaye was clearly trying not to burst out laughing.
• Creator's Favourite Episode:
  • Gorden Kaye's (René) favourite episode was "The Execution", due to the punchline he delivers: "My bum is on a thistle".
  • One of Sue Hodge's favourites was "The Gestapo for the High Jump", mostly due to the horror-themed costumes the cast wore in the climax.
• Defictionalization: The BBC commissioned an actual Portrait of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies by van Klomp and presented it to the 6th Marquess of Bath in gratitude for his assistance with a show-related event.
• Deleted Scene: Cut from "Flight to Geneva" for timing issues was a scene where Mimi returns to Café René after being thrown from the train. In the scene, she hugs René, who remarks her heart is pounding fast, resulting in the two discovering she has a trout stuck under her clothes.
• Genius Bonus: The creators went to some lengths to get small details completely accurate. Examples include the following:
  • AFV-nerds will recognise immediately that Gruber's Little Tank is not a tank. But it is an Sd Kfz 222 armoured car, and an absolutely genuine period vehicle dating from The '30s that would have been built between 1937-1942, and seen service with German forces in WW2. ^note The real thing is a genuine German vehicle captured in WW2, and was on loan from a military vehicle museum in Windsor, Berkshire, where it is on permanent display.
  • The motorcycles used by the Fuhrer's escort in "Hitler's Last Heil" are also period-accurate: only a real motorcycle buff could tell you these are real wartime BMW motorcycles, the R75 that was extensively used by German armed forces.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Rose Hill and Jack Haig had a sparky on-set relationship. On one occasion, when Hill had taken too long to deliver her next line, Haig muttered, "I could've eaten a bloody ham sandwich in that pause".
  • Haig also had a conflict with the make-up department, claiming that after fifty years of doing his makeup, he didn't need "some girl who had only been in the business five minutes".
• I Am Not Spock: The cast struggled with typecasting due to this show. Richard Gibson eventually decided to just run with it and set up a website where he berates visitors as Herr Flick. He and Kim Hartman have also gone on tour as an 'Allo 'Allo! cabaret act.
• Irony as She Is Cast
  • In a few episodes, Fanny takes over for Edith and is an even worse musician; her actress, Rose Hill, started out as a professional opera singer.
  • Lieutenant Gruber is a homosexual who has an unrequited crush on the heterosexual René Artois. Gruber was played by the heterosexual Guy Siner, while René was played by Gorden Kaye, a gay man.
  • Officer Crabtree's French pronunciation is absolutely horrendous, while being played by Arthur Bostrom who is fluent in French.
• Jews Playing Nazis: The Jewish actor Sam Kelly plays the Nazi Captain Hans Geering. This led to the rumour that Geering only ever says 'tler!' as opposed to 'Heil Hitler' because Kelly didn't want to give the full salute, but Kelly always stressed that he felt Geering was the sort of person who simply couldn't be bothered to say the whole thing (and that as an actor, he wouldn't get many roles if he refused to say lines that he considered offensive).
• On-Set Injury: "The Reluctant Millionaires" has a scene where Mimi hides inside a grandfather clock. When it came time to remove Sue Hodge so they could shoot the next scene, her shins were grazed by the clock, and she bled badly but was bandaged in order to continue the day's filming.
• The Other Darrin: David Croft was opposed to re-casting roles as a personal rule (one reason why characters in his sitcoms were always written out if the actor died or otherwise left^note To name just one example from four of his previous series: Private Walker in Dad's Army after James Beck's death, Rangi Ram in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum after Michael Bates' death, Mr Grainger in Are You Being Served? after Arthur Brough's death, and Jeffrey Fairbrother in Hi-de-Hi! after Simon Cadell left the series.), but when he left 'Allo 'Allo! after Series 5, the door was open to re-casting.
  • Capitan Bertorelli was played by Gavin Richards from Series 4-6, and by Roger Kitter in Series 7.
  • Ernest LeClerc, Roger LeClerc's brother who replaced the latter when actor Jack Haig died late in Series 5, was played by Derek Royle in Series 6 and by Robin Parkinson from Series 7-9 after Royle died unexpectedly.
  • Herr Flick was played by Richard Gibson from Series 1-8, and by David Janson in Series 9 (the fact that Gibson had fair hair while Janson had dark hair and a more angular face was explained by Herr Flick having undergone Magic Plastic Surgery).
• Playing Against Type: Before this show, Richard Gibson had been Typecast as a an actor who played youths. Herr Flick gave him the chance to show that he could play older characters as well.
• Real-Life Relative: Vicki Michelle's (Yvette) sister, Ann Michelle, played a member of the Communist Resistance in "A Tour de France".
• Recast as a Regular: David Janson played Hitler's double in the Series 8 episode, "Hitler's Last Heil", and then came back full-time in Series 9 to take over the role of Herr Flick from Richard Gibson.
• Replacement Scrappy: In and out of the series. Some fans dislike Mimi, believing Maria was sexier, while René doesn't love her as much as he did Maria due to her being slightly deranged.
• Romance on the Set: Series co-creator Jeremy Lloyd briefly got engaged to Carole Ashby (Louise of the Communist Resistance) near the end of the series.
• Series Hiatus: The show was put on hiatus between 1989 and 1991 due to Gorden Kaye suffering a devastating head injury when storm force winds drove a shaft of wood through the windscreen of his car and into his head, putting the show's future in doubt. Thankfully he went on to make a full recovery (albeit with a large dent in his forehead for the rest of his life).
• Shoot the Money: Due to its success at home and abroad the BBC lavished the show with an unusually large budget, which the producers promptly used to stage huge explosions and elaborate stunts as often as they could simply because they had the money to spare.
• Stunt Double: Sue Hodge had a stunt double for Mimi being dragged away by the kite in "The Flying Nun".
• Throw It In!: Yvette's growl when uttering "Ohh, René!" was ad-libbed by Vicki Michelle, who wanted a Character Catchphrase and thought she wasn't getting enough dialogue in the pilot.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The first choices for Yvette and Maria were Amanda Donahoe and Mary Stavins. However, Donahoe and Stavins didn't have the right union cards. They were replaced with Vicki Michelle (who had worked with David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd in Come Back Mrs. Noah) and Francesca Gonshaw.
  • Before Guy Siner had his way with Lieutenant Gruber's characterisation, he was intended to have been played with the same campness as John Inman did in Are You Being Served?.
  • Richard Gibson originally envisioned Herr Flick as something akin to an evil Inspector Gadget, with all sorts of fake body parts that could be swapped out as needed. However, none of this was feasible with the technology and money available to the show so Gibson had to settle with giving Flick a limp.
  • The female cast was given less glamorous makeup in trials before filming began. Croft was able to have this vetoed, however.
  • As stated elsewhere, the fifth series was unusually long due to a plan for US syndication being in the planning stages. However, the deal fell through and ultimately the show simply wound up on PBS like most other British imports at the time.
• You Look Familiar: Phoebe Scholfield (Henriette) also played a Communist Resistance girl in "Otherwise Engaged".

---