back to article Mrs Slocombe's pussy vanishes from Twitter

Even in death, Mrs Slocombe’s pussy continues to excite controversy. Following a heated exchange here at Vulture Central as to the relative comedic merits of Mollie Sugden, John Inman and Sid James, we were impressed beyond belief to discover not only that MrsSlocombesPussy had gained the accolade of a hashtag on twitter – but …

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  1. Chris 89

    I'm free!

    "It probably also has something to do with Mrs Slocombe – and her inimitable pussy – being not very well known on the US side of the pond."

    I dunno about that. I fondly recall the Louis Theroux programme where he investigated various white supremacist groups in the States. While visiting one groups camp, he asked their leader if he was familiar with British TV, to which the guy stated that he loved "Are You Being Served". Louis then asked him who his favourite character was, to which the answer was Mrs Slocombe. Louis asked him if he was sure it wasn't John Inman's (incredibly camp) character, before launching into an impression of him.

    I don't know what was better - the fact of the neo-Nazi's crush on Mrs Slocombe or Louis Theroux's breathtaking audacity at taking the piss out of him in the middle of his forest compound.

  2. Patrick 17

    non-story

    Isn't this just because the hash tag is too long in length? You can't search any hash tag over a certain length ..

  3. Peyton
    Flame

    Who says it's not well known?

    Are You Being Served? is a standard in the PBS lineup.

    This article leaves me with two questions

    1)Twitter is censored?

    2)And the outcome of the heated exchange???

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Ahhh... the memories...

    Mrs. Slocombe's pussy has always brought a smile to my face. Even now, it has made my day a little brighter.

    I miss watching the reruns of "Are You Being Served?" =O(

    Paris, 'cos she's got one very naughty pussy.

  5. Adrian 19

    Classics in the US of A

    I'm surprised by the remark that the wonderful Ms Slocombe would be little known across the pond. It's been my impression that Americans love these old-fashioned Brit comedies ... oftentimes more than we do.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Correct me if I'm wrong

    But AYBS was quite popular in the US, so I'm sure they "got it".

  7. John Ozimek

    Heated exchange

    Hmmmm. Whilst hesitating to name names...my own personal comedic preference tends more toward the camp. At least when in this neck of the woods.

    So Sugden and Inman over Sid James any day.

    And of course, the much missed Kenneth Williams and his immortal line: "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!"

  8. Aaron Gilliland
    Heart

    Ground floor: Perfumery,

    Stationery and Leather Goods,

    Wigs and Haberdashery,

    Kitchenware and Food, going up...

    I remember seeing that show as a child and thinking "Do/did the Brits actually find this funny?" I also tried desperately to find Wendy Richard attractive.

  9. Terence Eden
    WTF?

    The hastag is too long

    The reporter hasn't bothered to check his facts. No hashtag over 15 characters (I think) is searchable. Go on, try it.

  10. D 13

    I'm ashamed at my immaturity

    reading this list put me on my knees

    Our Figures are Slipping -- "It's very short notice--there's my pussy to consider. Who's going to let it out?"

    Cold Comfort -- "You're lucky to have me at all, Captain Peacock. I had to thaw me pussy out before I came. It had been out all night."

    The Think Tank -- "Well, if I'm not home on the stroke of six, my pussy goes mad."

    Hoorah for the Holidays -- "Oh, Mr. Rumbold, I hope this isn't going to take long. My pussy's been locked up for eight hours."

    The Hand of Fate -- "You know, animals are very psychic. I mean, the least sign of danger and my pussy's hair stands on end."

    German Week -- "You know, this sort of thing just isn't fair on my pussy. She has a go at the furniture if I'm not there prompt."

    New Look -- "It's a wonder I'm here at all, you know. My pussy got soakin' wet. I had to dry it out in front of the fire before I left."

    Christmas Crackers -- "I hope we're not going to be late tonight. Because I've left Winston clinging to the curtain ring--he refuses to come down. The mere sight of my pussy drives him mad."

    No Sale -- "Having a bath at 6 o'clock in the morning played havoc with my pussy."

    Forward, Mr. Grainger -- "Well, speaking personally, I never have any trouble getting up in the morning. My pussy's just like an alarm clock. Every morning at 6:15 it drops its clockwork mouse on my pillow."

    Fire Practice -- "Can we get on with it? I can't bear the sight of my pussy, standing at the door with a tin-opener in its mouth."

    Fire Practice -- "Oh, I don't need a fire alarm. At the first sign of smoke, my pussy rushes into the garden and it sits on the concrete tortoise in the middle of the goldfish bowl."

    The Father Christmas Affair -- "Well, I hope it's not going to take long. If I'm not home on the stroke of seven, my pussy starts clawing at my busy lizzy."

    Mrs. Slocombe Expects -- "Well, the central heating broke down. I had to light the oven and hold my pussy in front."

    A Change is as Good as a Rest -- "But they're all dogs! Is there no demand for mechanical pussies?"

    The Old Order Changes -- "I hope this isn't going to take long, Captain Peacock. The last time I was late, a fireman had to climb out of my bedroom window and risk his life on a narrow ledge tryin' to grab hold of my pussy."

    Goodbye, Mr. Grainger -- "Oh, look! It's a diamante collar for my pussy."

    The Club -- "Well, if I'm to spend an evening in this club, there'll have to be accommodation for my pussy."

    Shedding the Load -- "She went right up to the sergeant at the desk, and she said, 'Have any of your constables reported having seen this lady's pussy?'"

    A Bliss Girl -- "What about this fog? My pussy's been gasping all night."

    Happy Returns -- "Well, I can't stay too late. The man next door is popping in every half-hour to keep an eye on my pussy."

    The Junior -- "I've got to get home. If my pussy isn't attended to by 8 o'clock, I shall be strokin' it for the rest of the evening."

    The Apartment -- "Well, you know how clumsy those removal men are. I'm not havin' 'em handlin' my pussy."

    The Apartment -- "Mr. Humphries! Leave my pussy alone!"

    The Hero -- "Today's the day my pussy comes of age!"

    Anything You Can Do -- "If there are any leftovers, my pussy gobbles them up in a flash."

    Is It Catching? -- "But at 7 o'clock tonight, my pussy's expectin' to see a friendly face."

    Closed Circuit -- "Is that Mr. Ackbar? Mrs. Slocombe here, your next-door neighbor. I wonder, would you do me a favour? Would you go to my front door, bend down, and look through the letter-box? And if you can see my pussy, would you drop a sardine on the mat?"

    Roots? -- "I've got a sculptor coming this evening. He's going to do my pussy in clay."

    Roots? -- "It's at a very critical stage. All last night, I had to keep it on the table covered by a wet flannel. And tonight at 9 o'clock, all the neighbors are comin' in to watch him pour plaster of paris all over it...and then put it in a very hot oven."

    Sweet Smell of Success -- "I inadvertently dropped some on my pussy, and there were tomcats throwin' themselves against my cat-flap all night."

    Calling All Customers -- "I ought to ring my neighbor and ask her to look in on my pussy."

    Calling All Customers -- "They're for my pussy...d'you know, it wins a prize every time I show it."

    Monkey Business -- "But then they spotted my pussy and were off."

    Lost and Found -- "I suddenly realized he means more to me than anything else in the world...except my pussy, of course."

    Goodbye, Mrs. Slocombe -- "Twenty minutes later my pussy was in a basket on its way to Scotland."

    The Night Club -- "Look, I'm trying to get my pussy on the phone!"

    Friends and Neighbors -- "My only problem is, will my pussy feel at home in a strange place?"

    Grace & Favour (Are You Being Served? Again!) #1 -- "Mr. Humphries, would you hold my pussy while I alight?"

    Grace & Favour #1 -- "Somebody help me, please! That naughty goat has got hold of my pussy and won't let go!"

    Grace & Favour #2 -- "He won't be so confident when he sees my pussy."

    Grace & Favour #2 -- "They're not having my pussy! And I am unanimous in that!"

    Grace & Favour #5 -- "I'll put my pussy in front of the hole, and the next time he comes out, he'll get a nasty shock."

    Grace & Favour #5 -- "Captain Peacock, have you seen my pussy?"

    Grace & Favour #7 -- "My pussy was very agitated."

    Grace & Favour #9 -- "He was devoted to me...and to the pussy I had at the time."

    Grace & Favour #10 -- "I've never seen one of those before...a two hundred year-old pussy."

    Grace & Favour #10 -- "I have a pussy of great antiquity, and I'd like him to take a look at it."

    Grace & Favour #11 -- "He'd have raised a pussy."

    Grace & Favour #12 -- "Do you know, I found my pussy trapped in my drawers."

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    RIP Molly, but...

    Maybe it's just that the joke wasn't all *that* funny?? I mean a snigger a few times, but by the end of the series it had been well and truly flogged to death!

    All the same RIP to a great actress ;-)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Yes it is

    Indeed well known to a certain sub section of the population (as evidenced by how many of us Americans here on El Reg know about it and loved the show) here in the U.S. However the above comments are ignoring the fact that those of us that frequent El Reg are not the majority of the population. I can guarantee you that the percentage of people in the U.S. who have never heard of or know anything at all about Are You Being Served is far and away larger than the number of people who have not only heard of it, but were fans and would get the joke. So if it was indeed censoring on Twitters part then yes John's assumption in the article that it's due to them not understanding the joke stands to reason.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    The real question is ...

    ... who is #virgilioanderson ?

  14. Tony Sweeney

    Actually very well known in the U.S.

    I lived in the States from 1995-2002, and I can assure you that not only does this show play on the cable channels in the U.S., at one point in the last decade or so, you could catch a different rerun every goddamned night. Don't get me started on Benny Hill -- for some reason they eat that up as well.

  15. Kati

    Ignorance

    Unfortunately, we Americans are a bit uptight, or at least all the regulatory agencies are about language. And since they are, and because people are more than willing to sue anyone for anything, I'm not surprised if Twitter is mucking about with it. I rather enjoyed Are You Being Served growing up. Even my mom, a fairly religious and strict person when I was growing up enjoyed it. Mrs. Slocombe's pussy will be missed at my house at least.

  16. Richard 102

    Very well known

    Are You Being Served?, as has been stated, has played regularly on PBS for over 15 years in the US. What's more, it has proven very popular among older viewers (which makes sense, given the comedy style) and people who aren't anglophiles.

    And while I'll take Blackadder and Yes (Prime) Minister any day of the week, AYBS did have its moments. Certainly anyone who's worked retail can appreciate it.

  17. Ian Noble

    Eponymous

    "You keep using that word. I do not think that it means what you think it means."

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    AYBS in the USA

    Anglophiles in the US are a _tiny_ minority. A vocal minority though. We'll gush about how much we love AYBS, will rabbit on about how we love your TV programmes and humour in general - but the vast majority of our fellow citizens have not a clue. Seriously, none.

    The word pussy is just never used for a moggy of the feline persuasion. Never. Not ever. Maybe 50 years ago. Maybe. You can still say "pussycat" but if you drop the "cat" you've dropped yourself in it.

    Fanny though is perfectly fine. Just don't ask to bum a fag though, that's right out.

    What I'd like to know is why Ricky Gervais is so down on AYBS. Can't he do his own thing without tearing down a classic? It's from a different era, from the mysts of time, like. John Inman may as well be Saint John. Why's Ricky gotta piss on a saint... Bastard. Why's he think he's so funny? He does jokes about nursery rhymes. "Why would you send _all_ the king's horses and _all_ the king's men. What if the French attack?" Is that supposed to be funny? What a git.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Wiki

    Just checked, there's no Wikipedia page for Mrs Slocombe's Pussy.

    I think we need to post her pussy for posterity.

    Paris, her pussy is famous all over the internet.

  20. Mark Milaszkiewicz
    FAIL

    you can find all the tweets

    if you search without the preceeding #

    didn't you try that before writing an article?

  21. WhatWasThat?
    Thumb Up

    Mr. Humpries, are you free?

    Indeed. Oftimes being the first (and sometimes only) introduction to the homosexual community in the Redneck Midwest(tm) of the US, many nights were spent staying up watching Col. Peacock trying to maintain some semblence of order on the shop floor.

    Good grief, forget Mrs. Slocombe's pussy (we didn't know that was a "bad word" then!) - we got our laughs as youg'ens when we saw the elementry teacher's face when we would talk about "Pee - cock". Oh my.

    But, I truly admired (loved? perhaps too strong for someone you never physically met...) Wendy Richard (Miss Brahms). I cried like a baby when she died.

  22. StooMonster
    WTF?

    American Pussy

    In an article entitled 'Mollie Sugden: Her career in clips' The Guardian reports that AYBS was popular in the US but was pulled from the schedules post-Nipplegate moral panic of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction".

    The irony that the Americans continue to insist it is the British who are prudish is obviously lost on them.

  23. Rob Dobs
    IT Angle

    Not really well known in US

    I consider myself relatively informed about the world, and not a too untypical American.

    I've seen re-runs of Absolutely Fabulous (which I really hated) played ad-nausea on Comedy Central.

    I've seen a ton of British shows I loved too, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Mr. Bean, The EastEnders, etc)

    Other than recent references regarding this affair on El Reg, i have never heard of AYBS before, nor seen the show, or listings for it.

    Sound like a funny premise though, but what else did you expect from us ancestors of Puritans..... San Francisco usually is one of the Cities in the US that has a sense of humor though, odd this is coming out of there.

    Oh and of course your must be cult religious nut if your an American and you haven't heard of (if not watched) something from Monty Python or Benny Hill.

    IT angle?...obvious reasons

  24. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Re:Non-story

    If you actually bothered to read the article properly, and not just skim it, you would notice that the tag was apparently highly ranked then suddenly dropped to the bottom. If the length was an issue surely it would have never been so highly ranked to begin with, and certainly wouldn't have dropped to nowhere for no special reason?

    Or maybe that would require too much logic for you.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ AC 15:26

    Now I have Are You Being Served Are Belong To Us going round in my head.

    I hate the Internet.

  26. Dale Differential

    Hey!

    Some of us on the other side of the pond are quite intimate with Mrs. Slocombe's pussy, thank you.

    Wait... did that come out right?

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are You Being Served...

    ...was fantastic. A great introduction to the British obsession with social class - it took me (as a 15-odd-year-old watching reruns on PBS) a while to figure out why everyone was so concerned about semi-detached vs. fully-detached houses. Are things still that bad, or have you moved on to only differentiating between Chavs, Not-Chavs, and Royalty rather than dividing society up based on every 5k of yearly income?

  28. jake Silver badge

    Agree with other commenters.

    AYBS has been re-run to death on PBS here in the states.

    Probably the best line connected to Mrs Slocombe's pussy would be Mr. Harmon telling Capt. Peacock that the coffee pot was "bunged up wiv sentiment" ... One of the few lines that still makes me laugh from that show :-)

  29. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Surely...

    "Twitter goes down on Mrs Slocombe's pussy"?

  30. Chris King
    FAIL

    @Adrian 19

    They love our old comedies, then they try to remake them. That's the trouble.

    Imagine Dad's Army with a thin Mainwaring and a fat Wilson... That was "The Rear Guard". They took one of the most famous episodes ("The Deadly Attachment", you know, the one with the captured U-Boat commander writing down all their names) and completely butchered it. "Don't tell 'em your name, Henderson !" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

    And DON'T get me started about what they did with Red Dwarf. What's worse is that they made TWO attempts at it. The FAIL icon isn't big enough or red enough to convey how bad it was, but it will have to do.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    I would like to know how Twitter staff respond...

    ...to being asked what is their position on Mrs Slocombe's pussy?

  32. Martin Owens

    Never Stops

    Are You being Served never seems to stop playing in America, if it's not BBC America it's PBS. Thank god I chucked the TV away (well not really we use it for the Wii, but no tv reception of any kind)

  33. Petrea Mitchell

    Not very well known???

    Even my local PBS station, which has to be the least Brit-friendly one in the US, showed AYBS? for many years.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Heart

    Your article made all the hairs on my pussy stand straight up!

    Now I best get home before my pussy goes wild...

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mollie Sugden

    I naively assumed she'd died years ago - after all you didn't see her at all after the Queen Mother died.

    Coincidence???

  36. proto-robbie
    Unhappy

    @ D 13 & David W.

    Well done D 13 on a bally fine collection of pussies.

    David W., don't be silly, the pound is so devalued we're currently operating at circa £10k social bandwidth. Also one aspires to be en-suite as well as detached, but en-suite is better than nowt, mush.

    I also must say (per icon) that I am very unhappy and wish to express my discontent: Rest in Puss, dear Mollie Sugden.

  37. frank ly

    @David W re. Are You Being Served

    "..dividing society up based on every 5k of yearly income?"

    Income, or how much money you have has very little to do with it. It's a mixture of family/social background and connections, career, education and lifestyle; more or less in that order. Very similar to the rest of the world in fact, but perhaps more rigid and more intensely thought about that in some countries.

    Many Brits will deny this and tell you that society is far more egalitarian than 30 years ago; they are talking wishful bollocks.

  38. Charles Osborne
    Coat

    Even on the west side of the pond...

    ...at the place where I work when we need assistance moving a heavy payload most of us ask, "Are you free?" with the proper intonation.

    Mine's the one with the coat because I it purchased it in Mens Wear

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @ AC "AYBS in the USA #"

    You see you're making the mistake of thinking Ricky Gervais is a talented comedian. He did one masterful piece of work (The Office - the UK one that is), which to be honest was something of an ensemble piece but *will* stand the test of time as an all-time classic. However he's been playing the same character ever since. I've come to the conclusion that he pretty much *is* David Brent/Andy Millman, and well it's just painful and not funny to watch now.

  40. mrs doyle

    I got a screen grab

    I have the evidence it was trending even if twitter chooses to ignore it!

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