Chapter One: Moving on Up

It all started innocently enough somewhere near the summer of 1969.

What a terrible opening line but it fits. It was all innocent. We were all innocent.

I think it is safe to speak for all of us and say what we were about to experience was never even the slightest flicker of a thought in any of our minds.

I had lived in the house on Justin Street for my entire life; all eight plus years. With my older brother and two older sisters I had heard the stories often about them growing up while it was being built. My industrious father built the house himself for his new wife, and as you can imagine an endeavor like that took time. I particularly recall one story about a rainstorm when the roof wasn’t quite yet finished which led to hijinks with the suddenly indoor slip and slide that appeared in the kitchen. All of their memories were there and so were all of mine.

I learned to walk there, cross a street there, ride a bike there. I started school while living there. All of my friends were there. It was my safe place and my refuge. So imagine the surprise when my father announced that we were moving.

The fear and uncertainty of the move was mitigated somewhat for me by the fascinating place we would be moving to. It was literally just down the road so it wasn’t all that foreign. It was also a brand-new tract house in a development of what were, for all intents and purposes, the 1970’s equivalent of today’s McMansions.

The large spilt level had been the model home for the development and as such was decked out to the max with all of the lavish touches of the day: a huge yard, built in gas barbecue on the spacious entertainment ready patio, an above ground redwood decked swimming pool, green, red and gold flocked wallpaper throughout the house and a Minute Man statue in the middle of the front lawn complete with musket. I was thrilled about the pool, of course, but I was equally thrilled and fascinated with the wallpaper. Oh that wallpaper! Velvet for Pete’s sake. Surely we were moving on up in the world.

Looking back, it’s easy to see the signs were there all along. But to us, the innocents, there was nothing untoward just the mayhem that moving house brings. Boxes gone missing that suddenly were there again, talking to the person you swear is there that really isn’t. The crazy door knobs that had no locks but sometimes would lock. Nothing strange that being in a new house and the stress that goes with it couldn’t explain.

If you counted the basement as a level we now had a four-level house. That’s a lot of space and a lot of stairs. Strange stairs. That goes for the hallways too. Normal looking hallways but strange nonetheless.

And then there were the shadows.

Are You Free?

Recently I started watching the old British sitcom from the 1970’s, “Are you Being Served?”

It isn’t the first time of course. Like many people, I first saw the thing when it was being run on PBS stations around the country in the 1980’s. I believe it was on around 6pm on Sunday evenings and was just about the only enjoyable things about Sundays at that time. It was a strange show, having an air of “cheese” about it even then. The harsh lighting, one cheap looking set…did upscale British department stores of the time really look like that? 

And that theme music?! Using the cash register’s operational noises as percussion and a female elevator operator’s announcements as lyrics at first it just horribly cheap but soon upon repeated listening it becomes a genius earworm that you challenge to yourself to “sing” along with.

“Ground floor: Perfumery, stationary and leather goods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food. Going up!”

There was uneven staging, cameras getting in the way of the actors, bizarre plots contrived to put the cast into bizarre situations, and a weekly change of flamboyant hair colors on Mrs. Slocomb to accompany her weekly “pussy” jokes.

“Oh I don’t need to set an alarm clock. My pussy wakes me every morning at 630 and drops a clockwork mouse on my pillow.”

On phoning her neighbor to say she is detained at work: “Please go to my door and peep through the letter slot. If you can see my pussy, drop a sardine on the mat.”

In case you haven’t guessed, she was talking about her cat “Tiddles”.

Oh the fun the writer(s) must have had devising those gags every week. Probably not as much fun as the prop designers  that were often tasked with coming up with some pretty amazing sight gags using mechanical devices that usually involved something rude with lady’s underwear.

My praise so far in no way indicates I am blind to the very dated norms of life that were acceptable of that time. Sexual harassment seems to be considered normal as does rampant “classism”. That and the representation of the lack of fair labor laws leave me appalled. If that’s the way it was, I’m glad to be rid of it.

Watching it again, I can see how it is all up to the stellar cast to make the whole mess work. For the most part these were consummate professionals who knew how to mine comedy while building the characters’ good will with the audience. By season four, you felt like you really knew these characters and looked forward to seeing what hijinks they would be getting up to with each show. Imperious Captain Peacock mellowed to show his weakness for women and conflating his war record and Mr. Grainger showed what a nasty old cur he could be, especially to Mrs. Slocomb. As you do with friends in real life, you still liked these people warts and all.

Coincidentally, while making my way through the series this time, I saw on social media that it was the birthday of the late, great, John Inman. With gray hair and crooked teeth, he played the mincing, effeminate, “is he or isn’t he” Mr. Humphries on the show. Always flamboyant and close to his mother, Humphries was always available to get a laugh from a crazy costume, outlandish story of the night before, or the ever present innuendo. Apparently his characterization was in the vein of a long time British stage tradition of the “camp” comedian. I realized I knew little of this man outside of this character so I did a little research.

I was happy to see that after the show he still made a career out of playing Mr. Humphries and apparently even travelled Down Under to play the character on stage in Australia. It seems his biggest career success after Mr. Humphries was in playing a “Pantomime Dame” in UK stage shows. He never married but had a lifelong male partner to whom he bequeathed a tidy sum of almost three million pounds. Camping it up pays!

I’m sure many in the modern audiences take a dim view of the character and the way it was played feeling that this type of entertainment needs to be left in the dustbin of history along with other “entertainments” like performances in black face.

I take a different view. Played by Inman, Mr. Humphries is an ever present ray of light. He is never sullen or morose. He never allows himself to be a victim. He is ingenious and outgoing and never seems to be anyone other than who he is. He certainly seems to have the most active, interesting and fun life outside of Grace Brothers Department store.

In some early episodes, the character was written as obviously gay. There is a moment at the end of one episode that sees him seize the hand of young Mr. Grace’s chauffer and lead him towards the men’s room for an implied romp. As the show went on, it became obvious that more humor could be had from making the character more enigmatic. In some of the things I read online the creator of the series asserts that Mr. Humphries wasn’t gay, but was always just meant to be a confused momma’s boy. I don’t buy it.

Played by Inman, I don’t see Humphries as anything but supremely self-aware. He knows that over the phone he could easily be mistaken for female and uses that fact when it benefits him.  Just as he knows to avoid confusion it is best to answer his department’s house phone with a melodiously fake baritone; “Men’s wear!”

As has been the case lately when viewing any movies or TV shows from the 1970’s I am reminded by how progressive some of the mainstream releases were, previously mentioned anachronisms notwithstanding. They are almost modern “pre-code” when compared to so much of today’s infantile mainstream entertainments. I doubt any of the people involved with AYBS had any idea that their work would be entertaining people over 40 years later but it does thanks to DVDs and streaming and we are all the better for it. Stream on!