Picture this: it's 1972, and BBC producers are pitching a sitcom set entirely in a single department store floor, featuring characters who barely tolerate each other and innuendo so thick you could cut it with a knife. Sounds like a recipe for a one-season wonder, right? Instead, "Are You Being Served?" became one of Britain's most beloved exports, running for 13 years and spawning a devoted following that stretched from Sydney to Savannah.
The show's genesis came from writer Jeremy Lloyd's real experience working at Simpson's of Piccadilly in the 1950s. He teamed up with David Croft (of "Dad's Army" fame), and together they created Grace Brothers department store—a retail time capsule where the ladies' and gentlemen's clothing departments shared one floor and a mutual disdain. What made the show revolutionary wasn't just its double entendres about "soft furnishings" and measuring inside legs. It was the rigid class structure on display: camp senior salesman Mr. Humphries, the snobbish Captain Peacock, and downtrodden junior Mr. Grainger created a hierarchy as British as tea and crumpets.
Here's something most fans don't know: John Inman's portrayal of Mr. Humphries nearly didn't happen. The role was almost given to another actor, but Inman's flamboyant "I'm free!" during auditions sealed the deal. That catchphrase became so iconic that Inman was reportedly stopped countless times daily by fans wanting to hear it. The character was groundbreaking for its time—a potentially stereotypical portrayal that Inman played with such warmth and humanity that Mr. Humphries became genuinely beloved. The BBC received surprisingly few complaints, perhaps because beneath the camp exterior was a character who consistently outsmarted his supposedly superior colleagues.
The show's American success story is particularly fascinating. While many British sitcoms flopped stateside, "Are You Being Served?" became PBS's most-watched comedy in the 1980s. American audiences, perhaps charmed by its quaintness and bewildered by its Britishness, made it a cult phenomenon. This led to a 1992 sequel, "Grace & Favour" (called "Are You Being Served? Again!" in America), where the staff inherited a country manor. The original show even inspired a failed American remake in 1979 called "Beane's of Boston," which lasted just five episodes.
Mollie Sugden's Mrs. Slocombe deserves special mention—her ever-changing hair colours and constant references to her pussy (cat, naturally) became the show's second-most-famous running gag. Sugden revealed in interviews that she chose a different wig for nearly every episode, creating an unspoken competition with the costume department to see who could be more outrageous. That commitment to silly details kept the show fresh through 69 episodes, proving that sometimes the simplest premises—difficult colleagues, terrible management, and strategically placed innuendo—make for the most enduring comedy.