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? known as "Are You Being Served? Again!"). The cast performed in character for a stage sketch on the BBC1 programme "Variety" on 19 June 1976. Although the pilot was produced in colour, the videotape was wiped in the 1970s leaving only a 16mm black-and-white film telerecording, which was made for international syndication to countries where colour television broadcasts had not been adopted. In 2009, the pilot episode was restored to colour using the colour recovery technique previously used for the "Dad's Army" episode "Room at the Bottom". The restored colour version was first shown on BBC2 on 1 January 2010