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'Allo 'Allo Myth

GNC

GNC

King-Sized Canary
Joined
Aug 25, 2001
Messages
33,626
It's official, Sam Kelly said it on TV last night, his character in 'Allo 'Allo is saying "'tler" which is a shortening of "Heil Hitler" and not "klop" which is not the German for ditto. Let this be the end of the matter.
 
It's a great weight off my mind as well.
 
Okay. I am missing something here - I was never a great allo allo fan, but even so, I thought the salute was klop. Please explain how we have misheard and where the debate came from (who heard klop and tler?). I have absolutely no knowledge about this, but as a nosey sod, really need to know now. arghghgghghghgh.
 
It was on the 'Allo 'Allo Comedy Connections documentary last night, dunno if it's repeated. Basically Kelly's character, for comedy effect, would never say "Heil Hitler" (not because Kelly found it offensive, either, it was just a joke). He would just say the last syllable, "'tler!". Somehow this became in the minds of viewers that he was saying "klop!" which thanks to a letter on Points of View (the BBC TV feedback programme) the myth that this was the German word for "ditto" got around. And so an urban legend was born.

But he was just saying "tler". It was a joke.
 
Er, right.

Not something I ever noticed, so I never lost sleep over it.

And, now I know the background, I'm even less likely to lose sleep over it! :D
 
I distinctly remember him saying 'klop', so I'm baffled about the 'tler' explanation.
Mind you, I was never really that interested in 'Allo 'Allo, so like Rynner, I won't be losing any sleep over it.
 
Show a little interest, people! How often can you identify with certainty the origins of an urban legend? :)
 
more to the point

why was gavin richards' character capt bertorelli completely ignored throughout the program?

whatta mistake-a to make-a!

(edited to correct spelling mistake-a!)
 
Even more to the point, why does Gordon Kaye now look like Margaret Rutherford, whereas Richard Gibson and Guy Siner don't seem to have aged. Siner (Lt Gruber) doesn't look that different to the way he did in "Genesis of the Daleks" in 1974.

I'm quite happy to accept Sam Kelly's explanation of "Tler!" Probably we all heard it as "Klop" or "Klau" because the English language doesn't have many words beginning with TL, and we were just trying to make something intelligible out of a very short syllable.

Gavin Richards wasn't as big an omission as Carmen Silvera - or did she die? I know Richard Marner is gone, but - ah, quick Google tells me she died in 2002, so that answers that one.
 
I distinctly remember him saying 'klop', so I'm baffled about the 'tler' explanation.
Click to expand...

I remember the discussion at the time and I was baffled as to why everyone thought it was "klop". I thought the point was that he was late saying "heil Hitler" every time so always finished after his boss (whose name escapes me).
 
Quake42 said:
I thought the point was that he was late saying "heil Hitler" every time so always finished after his boss (whose name escapes me).
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Col. Kurt von Strohm (I had to look that up).
 
I have to say:

1. I always thought it was "tler"

2. I didn't know anyone thought it was "klop"

3. I had absolutely no idea there was a discussion about which it was.

Funny old world ;)
 
I like 'allo 'allo a little... However was it supposed to be a joke when he said "tler"?
Because I know from my own mum who was young in those days [and german] that most people said this because nobody could be bothered to say the whole line "Heil Hitler" so people just walked past each other, making a little hand gesture over their right shoulder and said "tler".
In the same way you'd say "anks" instead of thanks...or is it just me???
 
It's not just you, that was the joke, such as it was.
 
Mighty_Emperor said:
I have to say:

1. I always thought it was "tler"
Click to expand...

Since I was never a fan, and it was only watching the Connections that made me think about it, the confusion comes from his 'comedy' German accent. His voice was - in character - quite hollow. Thus, closest to sounding , it would not be spelled as " 'tler! " (as is the intention) but " tlor!" The only way I can explain is that his fake accent extended the vowels. Thus "er" becomes "or". If Sams character had said the name Hitler, using his immensely funny fake German accent, it would have sounded like Hi (pronounced as in HIt) and Lor. Hi-Tlor.

You bugger, Emps! You've started me thinking about this!

You owe me a pint at UnCon!
 
Making 'Allo 'Allo! into Guten Tag
By Steven Rosenberg
BBC News, Berlin

In a Berlin dubbing studio, actress Irina von Bentheim is getting rather excited. Her long blond hair is waving about all over the place, her arms are flying up and down.

"Ah! Rene! Rene!" she cries into the microphone.

To Germans, Irina is better known as the dubbed voice of Carrie from Sex in the City.

But today she is voicing the character of Yvette from 'Allo 'Allo!. And she is enjoying every minute.

"Her voice comes from deep down, like a wild tiger," smiles Irina, pointing to her own stomach.

It is 25 years since 'Allo 'Allo! first aired in Britain. The sitcom set in Nazi-occupied France became a smash hit.

Translation woes

It has been sold on to 40 countries. But only now has a German TV channel bought the series and it is doing all it can to make sure that nothing is lost translation.

"In this comedy there are many jokes with words," script editor Katrin Kabbathas explains. "Words which have two meanings in English - one normal meaning and one dirty. And I have many difficulties finding words in German that mean the same thing, where one meaning is normal and the other dirty." 8)

In the German version, the famous catchphrase "Good Moaning" becomes "Guten Magen" (which means 'Good Stomach' in German).

Oh, and the "Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies" - well that is "Die gefallene Madonna mit den prallen Moepsen".

I'm introduced to the actor who does the voiceover for Herr Otto Flick - the grotesque Gestapo officer in 'Allo 'Allo!. (I'm told he also does the voice Leonardo di Caprio).

What will Germans make of all of this?

People here are not used to seeing comedy shows about the war. But von Bentheim believes 'Allo 'Allo! will have a positive effect on the German audience.

"I think for Germans it is very hard to laugh about the Second World War. It's obvious why, because we all feel as if we were the bad ones. I grew up with this thought. But I think it's a very good way of dealing with this time because now it's so long ago. We have to forgive ourselves and we have to forgive each other."

Mixed reactions

That is all very well, but will Germans find it funny? To find out, we conducted a little experiment.

We invited a group of Germans to watch the first episode of 'Allo 'Allo! and tell us what they thought of it. Reaction was decidedly mixed.

"I feel it is very British humour, but I can't say why!" one man tells me.

"From the story and the structure, I don't think it was very amusing," says a woman.

Well, they did only watch one show.

Perhaps once German viewers have sat through all 85 episodes of 'Allo 'Allo!, they'll be laughing just as loud as the rest of us.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7368058.stm
 
I distinctly remember him saying 'klop', so I'm baffled about the 'tler' explanation.
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strangely enough, it always sounded like 'club' to me, but i remember hearing the klop story back then too.

i seem to remember hearing too that the germans apparently liked the serial, because it was the first show to have nazi's that were idiots rather than, um, psychopathic bastards...
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
i seem to remember hearing too that the germans apparently liked the serial, because it was the first show to have nazi's that were idiots rather than, um, psychopathic bastards...
Click to expand...

They must have loved Hogan's Heroes!
 
I went to school with a girl who's father was in 'Allo 'Allo. He played General Vonklinkehoffen (no idea how to spell that). His name is Hillary Minster. Unfortunately he died a few years ago though. His daughter now works for the banbury guardian, I won't name her for privacy reasons.

Anyway, that's my contribution. I have no idea if it's "klop" or "tler", but in the grand scheme of things, it's not that important is it?
 
Wow ... Of all the trivial memories to have been triggered ...

Over the course of the last dozen years or so I've seen 'Allo 'Allo from end to end in multiple public TV syndication runs.

I'd noticed there was a shift in Sam Kelly's comical 'latecomer-to-the-salute' response in some episodes toward the latter parts of the series. Early on, I finally figured out he was saying '-tler', thus emulating an old tactic for catching up and masking one's lack of attention.

... But on occasion later in the series he *did* sometimes respond with a terse / tightly-punctuated response that was different from the usual one and sounded like a barked-out 'ah' or 'oh' vowel sound. I noticed the apparently distinct response, but never figured out what it was supposed to be ...

Don't want to stir things up again, but ... My own observation was that there were at least 2 discriminable responses. Maybe they were simply variations on the '-tler' pronunciation, but I clearly recall there being two (to my ears, at least ...) ...
 
there's a whole bunch of allo allo on youtube if someone wants to go through and fish out an example... personally i can't face it this early in the day...
 
The way he closes his mouth at the end of the "'tler" makes it look like a "klop", but he's still saying "'tler". Ask the man himself if you don't believe me.
 
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