Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Beane’s of Boston, which aired on CBS in 1979.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, we take a look at an attempt to bring a British show to America.

Episode 1.1 “German Week”

(Dir by Jerry Paris, originally aired on May 5th, 1979)

Beane’s of Boston is a venerable department store, a landmark of Boston.  The store is housed in a multi-story building and it is run by the elderly but still horny Frank Beane (Tom Poston).  Frank takes a break from ogling his secretary and sneaking off to the strip club to demand this his nephew, Franklin Beane (George O’Hanlon, Jr.), explain why the 4th floor — which houses the Men and Ladies’ Wear Department — is losing money.

Franklin admits that sales have been off but he has a plan.  What if the store only sold German products for a week?  And what if the employees dressed in lederhosen and did German dances?

The 4th floor employees are not particularly enthused.  The head of Ladies’ Wear, Mrs. Slocum (Charlotte Rae), served as a WAC during World War II and once found herself with a German soldier on top of her after a landmine went off.  Mr. Peacock (John Hillerman), the stuffy floor manager, feels that he looks like an idiot dressed in a German outfit.  Meanwhile, in the Men’s Department, elderly Mr. Granger (Morgan Farley) sleeps while the flamboyant Mr. Humphries (Alan Sues) answers the phone in his most “masculine” voice and Mr. Lucas (Larry Bishop) hits on the just-hired administrative assistant, Ms. Brahms (Lorna Patterson).

German week is a disaster, bringing in a profit of $12.94.  But, fortunately, old Frank Beane is dating a German woman and she loves the idea.  So, no one loses their job….

If this sounds familiar and if you’re reading this in America, you’ve probably seen an episode of the infamously terrible British sitcom Are You Being Served? on PBS.  Beane’s of Boston was an attempt to do an American version of that sitcom and, just as The Office would do decades later, the pilot essentially took a script from the British series and populated it with American actors.

Setting aside the question of whether or not the world needed more than one version of Are You Being Served?, the idea of transporting that very British sitcom to Boston was not, in itself, a terrible one.  Boston is one of our oldest cities and, while it may be best-known today for its robust blue collar culture, there were still enough stuffy Protestants around to make it believable that a store like Beane’s could survive.  That said, the pilot still falls flat, largely because everyone but John Hillerman seems to be miscast and even Mr. Peacock is considerably less amusing once you take away his title of colonel.  While the British original was known for its broad comedy, it appears like a model of subtlety when compared to the performances of Alan Sues as Mr. Humphries and Larry Bishop as Mr. Lucas.  As well, why would any store do a German week in a city that is best-known for its strong Irish community?  Why not do an Irish Week?  It perhaps made sense in Are You Being Served? but, in Beane’s of Boston, it just makes Franklin seem like such an idiot that you almost feel like he deserves to lose his job.

Beane’s of Boston did not have the same success as Are You Being Served?  German Week would be the only episode aired.