Are You Being Served? sharp-tongued, witty responses, along with his trademark catch-phrase "I'm free!", were enthusiastically embraced by many audience members, and the character evolved into a gay icon in popular culture. Despite this, Inman pointed out that Mr Humphries' true sexual orientation was never explicitly stated in the series, and David Croft said in an interview that the character was not homosexual, but "just a mother's boy". In an episode of the spin-off "Grace & Favour", the character is further described as neither a "woman's man" nor a "man's man" and as being "in limbo". The characters (Mr Humphries especially) sometimes broke the
Are You Being Served? declared the play to be worthless except for the final line, though he admitted he'd never seen the television show. The play has occasionally been run at other theaters since, including in 2012 at the Manifest Theater in Manningtree. In 1979, Garry Marshall, in the midst of success producing and directing "Happy Days" and its spin-offs, produced a pilot for an American version of "Are You Being Served?" At the time, Americanized versions of British series, including "Three's Company", "All in the Family", and "Sanford and Son" were doing well in the ratings, and Marshall hoped to capitalize on this