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'Allo 'Allo Myth

Maybe the klop-sters could try an experiment. Record yourself saying 'tler in a comedy German accent and see what it sounds like to you?
 
Didn't Gordon Kaye nearly die when a tree crashed through the roof of his car? I only recall this because at the time I used to motorcycle a round trip of 38 miles and was blown from kerb to central reservation and surrounded by tumbling lorries that same afternoon. Somehow I got home, thinking I was a gonner and saw the headline and ever since I assume he died but have to do a protracted, did-he, didn't-he calculation without being 100% sure of the outcome.

By similar mental gymnastics Kenneth Williams survived his OD and will take up his rightful place on the Just A Minute panel any day now. Well perhaps that's wishful thinking but he does straddle death like a Colossus, if the Rhodian giant kept telling sailors not to look up his skirt, the bloomin' impertinence.
 
he didn't die, though he was very ill for a while. i saw the stage version of allo allo in blackpool cira 1991 (or was it 1992) which kind of miffed me 'cos i think he rejoined the cast (as the only original member) about a month later...
 
gncxx said:
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.

Doesn't matter what he says he says. We know what we hear and it's not 'tler'.
 
SameOldVardoger said:
Doesn't matter what he says he says. We know what we hear and it's not 'tler'.
I think maybe at this stage, we're all hearing what we want (or at least, expect) to hear, so perhaps we will have to agree to differ on this one. However, if we must argue (and we'll all remain friends, I'm sure, so why not?):

Part of the issue, I think, is that what is present on the soundtrack is a hard letter, followed by an "L", followed by a vowel sound ("Another consonant please, Carol"), and then nothing else. The "P" is deduced purely from the closing of the mouth at the end, and IMO, because no English word begins with "TL", we imagine a "KL" instead.

I confess that, when I first watched the show, I imagined the word as "Klau" for the reasons above - I never heard a "P" at the end. Once the "Tler!" suggestion was put forward, I never really took the word as anything else.

Blimey, but we're a sad bunch, aren't we...
 
I always thought it was 'tler.. but I can hear 'klop' on that Youtube klip.
 
Peripart said:
IMO, because no English word begins with "TL"....

In Canada we do say "Tlingit" exactly as it's written - unless you are Tlingit in which case you say the "Tl" with the same sound as the "Ll" in Welsh.
 
theyithian said:
That was a Klop.

It was a short, clipped "TLER!"

Think about the way we clip some words, for instance "twat", we don't pronounce the T, or at least not up here.

He is saying it sort of like "TLOH", with the OH sound resembling a "OP".
 
Nice to see the Big Endians and the Little Endians still have much to discuss! ;)
 
...

Jeez...
I remember my little sister and my dad loving this show and I always thought it was 'klop', but from that clip, listening for 'tler', I think it's that...
:roll:

(I can't believe my first post here has ended up being about 'Allo 'Allo...God the shame...)
 
Re: He says KLOP

SameOldVardoger said:
Listen very carefully from 1:06:

Hans Gruber saying Klop (Youtube).

Finally PROVEN!

Without little mind rubbers to remove the context from my brain, I sadly can't say if I would have heard "Klop!" without prompting... But I definitely hear "Klop!"

And what's more, it made me laugh. Audibly.
 
...and my experimental subject (or "flatmate") has just made matters more complex by identifying the sound as "Plop!"
 
I don't speak any german and nor do most british people.. so why would they have him saying 'klop' when to 99% of the population it wouldn't mean 'ditto' and therefore wouldn't be funny?
It's interesting though that this has created such discussion and people feel so strongly about it..
 
Well, it may not be up there with the tangled mess surrounding the meaning of Kemo Sabe (or if that's even what Jay Silverheels is saying)... But it passes the time to ponder.
 
So I was watching a program about 'Allo 'Allo tonight, (why I don't know, I never liked the damned show) when the actor himself explained it.

He said that it was because the character wasn't really into the whole nazi business and couldn't be bothered to say Heil Hitler all the time. So he just said the end of Hitler. Tler. He said that he is getting a little fed up with people telling him what he said.
Also it costs him a fortune in stamps answering peoples letters asking him about it.




In other news, I was sure that there was a thread on this, but the search thingy couldn't find it, so I had to trawl through the UL board. I've now spent about an hour reading old posts I've missed.
 
I thought that character said 'klop' or something like that.
 
Sorry to burst any bubbles, but he DEFINITELY does not say, "Tler!" He ends with a P or a B. Watch his mouth, in this clip. (I played the bit umpteen times, and he most certainly ends with those consonants, and not "R" or "A". I'd say he was shouting, "Tlap!" (Or, for arguments sake, "KLOP!") :)
 
Well, that's that settled then.

(Discussion continues for 94 years :roll: :) )
 
coaly said:
I'd say he was shouting, "Tlap!"

Don't start thinking that kind of half-arsed syncretism is going to wash here. If we give so much as an inch to the 'tlerists it'll be linguistic pandemonium before we know it. I hate to come over all Manichean, but the fact of the matter is there are only two diametrically opposed possibilities: 'tler and klop - and of those only the latter is correct. I'll bet you're the kind of chap who has one slice of toast with jam and one with Marmite in the morning because he '...just can't decide'. ...kind of people who lost us the Empire...

And while I'm on the subject, do please try not to swallow any of this nonsense about 'the actor himself' claiming that he 'knows' he said 'tler. We used to 'know' there was a God, and 'good' and 'evil' and look where that got us! :roll: (You're not a Catholic are you? :sceptic: ) Wake up, people! This is the 21st century! The intentional fallacy was demonstrated 60 years ago! Hello! Authorial authority is dead! Accepting his claims to know all about something just because he 'said it' is tantamount to invading Poland. Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?

Sam Kelly's probably in on the whole thing. Think about it. Where did he get that uniform? Eh? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Warning: paragraphs written in this mood may not bear any particular congruence or demonstrate any concerted and coherent argument.
 
Just to confuse things further, here is what he says at normal speed, half speed, 1/4 speed and 1/8 speed:

Super klop

Still sounds like klop to me :lol:
 
But it sounds like "'tler!" to me! If Sam Kelly says he said "'tler!" then why would he lie? I bet he wished he'd said the whole "Heil" now...!
 
The program will still be on iPlayer.

He says that he says Tler and he is fed up with people questioning it.

I think that must be an end to the matter. I agree is sounds like Klop, but if he says he says Tler than there is no more proof needed.
 
That clip sounds like "tler" to me as well, particularly at 1/4 speed.
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
Just to confuse things further, here is what he says at normal speed, half speed, 1/4 speed and 1/8 speed:

Super klop

Still sounds like klop to me :lol:

It certainly wasn't tler. :hah:
 
http://www.marktv.org/aa/faq.html#q1

We now have the definitive answer. No more mystery, folks - at last! It's true: Hans says "TLER". He says it very fast and very loud, so it sounds kind of like "klop". Hans is too lazy a fellow to say all of "Heil Hitler", so he tries to make it sound as though he was saying it, by joining in at the end of the ritual and just saying the last syllable. It's the same principle as just saying "cher" instead of "Good Morning, Teacher" with the rest of the class at school.

We have now confirmed this in two ways: first, the subtitles in some of the foreign editions show it as "Tler". Since the subtitlers often are working from the scripts, we suspect they know what they're talking about. And secondly, and even more definitively, Sam Kelly himself wrote me to say that he said "Tler".

The endless rumors about what he was saying ("klop" or "klach") were wrong, as were the rumors about why. He said the rumor about him refusing to say it because he was Jewish was particularly silly - he said that's part of being an actor. He wouldn't get very many roles if he went around refusing to say lines because they were offensive. The other theories ("it sounds like boot clicking", "he's saying 'gleich' which means 'same' or 'me, too'", etc) never really made a lot of sense to me, but until we had proof, I listed them all. Now that we know what's what, I'm happy to post this final, definitive answer for everyone to know! Hans says "TLER"!
 
Well there we go, he really is saying tler but it really does sound kind of like klop.

Apart from for the people it doesn;t sound kind of like klop for. :lol:
 
I always thought it was 'tler'.

I loved the first 4 series of allo allo...

... got a bit naff after hans and maria left
 
colinbaker32 said:
I always thought it was 'tler'.

I loved the first 4 series of allo allo...

... got a bit naff after hans and maria left

I thought it was naff from the start.
 
Perhaps we should set up a poll and then tell Sam Kelly what he said as opposed to what he thought he said . Then maybe a parliamentary investigation into the conspiracy that forced him to say he was saying 'tler' when really he was saying 'Klop'. Personally I think 'Klop' was a coded message to the Bilderbergers to start the preparations for their world takeover in 2015. :rolleyes:
 
I think it's his cod German accent which causes the confusion.
 
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