The Young Ones (TV series)

The Young Ones is a British sitcom, first broadcast in 1982, which ran for two series on BBC2. Its anarchic, offbeat humour helped bring alternative comedy to television in the 1980s and made household names of its writers and performers. Soon afterwards, it was shown on MTV, one of the first non-music television shows on the fledgling channel.

The main characters were four undergraduate students sharing a house: violent punk Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson), pompous would-be anarchist Rick (Rik Mayall), long-suffering hippie Neil (Nigel Planer), and the suave and diminutive Mike (Christopher Ryan). It also featured Alexei Sayle, who played various members of the Balowski family—most often Jerzei Balowski, the quartet's landlord—and occasional independent characters, such as the train driver in "Bambi".

The show combined traditional sitcom style with violent slapstick, non sequitur plot turns, and surrealism. These older styles were mixed with the working and lower-middle class attitudes of the growing 1980s alternative comedy boom, in which all the principal performers except Ryan had been involved. Every episode except one featured a live performance by a then-up-and-coming pop band, including Madness, Motörhead, and The Damned.

The show was voted number 31 in the BBC's Best Sitcom poll in 2004.

History

The series originated on London's comedy club circuit during the late 1970s. Most of the cast gained popularity at The Comedy Store. Alexei Sayle was the prominent act, drawing attention as the manic, aggressive compere. Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall worked as the double act 20th Century Coyote, which later became The Dangerous Brothers. Nigel Planer was in a double act with Peter Richardson called The Outer Limits.

As The Comedy Store became popular, Sayle, 20th Century Coyote, and The Outer Limits, with French and Saunders and Arnold Brown, set up their own club called The Comic Strip in the Raymond Revue Bar club in Soho.^[1] The Comic Strip became one of the most popular comedy venues in London, and came to the attention of Jeremy Isaacs of Channel 4. Peter Richardson then negotiated a deal for six self-contained half-hour films, using the group as comedy actors rather than stand-up performers. In response, the BBC began negotiations with Edmondson, Mayall, Richardson, Planer and Sayle to star in a sitcom in a similar style. Paul Jackson was installed as a producer. Richardson's project, The Comic Strip Presents..., aired on Channel 4's opening night on 2 November 1982, with The Young Ones following a week later on BBC2.

The series was written by Mayall, his then-girlfriend Lise Mayer, and Ben Elton (who had attended the University of Manchester with Mayall and Edmondson). Richardson was originally set to play Mike, but clashed with Jackson. He was replaced by Christopher Ryan, the only member of the group who was not a stand-up comedian.

Synopsis

Stories were set in a squalid house where the students lived during their time at Scumbag College. It can be classified as a comedy of manners.

When it was first broadcast, the show gained attention for its violent slapstick. Though new to mainstream audiences, Mayall and Edmondson had been using it in 20th Century Coyote for some time. The show also featured surreal elements, such as puppets playing talking animals or objects. Confusion was added with lengthy cutaways with no relation to the main plot.

Throughout the series, the fourth wall is frequently broken for comedic effect by all characters at various parts of the show. The wall is usually broken as either a punchline to a joke, or to make a plot point more obvious. Alexei Sayle breaks both the fourth wall and his character to address the audience in his real life Liverpudlian accent.

The series featured a wide variety of guest cameo appearances by comedians, actors, and singers, including co-creator Ben Elton, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Hale and Pace, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Mark Arden and Stephen Frost (The Oblivion Boys), Jools Holland, Monty Python alum Terry Jones, future Red Dwarf co-stars Chris Barrie and Norman Lovett, Lenny Henry, David Rappaport, and Emma Thompson.

Episodes in the second series sometimes included "flash frames" (three frames, equivalent to one eighth of a second), but these were edited out of some repeats. These were included as a mockery of the British and American public's fear of subliminal messages in television and music. Unlike original flash frames, which lasted only one frame, these were long enough to be noticeable without actually being identifiable. The images included the end caption of Carry On Cowboy, a rusty dripping tap, a leaping frog, a dove in flight, a skier, and a hand making pottery.

The episodes ran 35 minutes, and episodes were very often edited to a standard half-hour running time when repeated on the BBC or satellite channels.

In the United States, The Young Ones started airing on MTV on June 5, 1985.^[2] The show also ran on PBS, USA Network's Night Flight, Comedy Central in 1994, and BBC America in the early 2000s.

Music

The series' theme song featured the cast singing Cliff Richard and The Shadows' UK No. 1 song "The Young Ones". Throughout the series there are many references to Richard, as Mayall's character is a fan.

The theme over the end credits was written by Peter Brewis, who also created the incidental music on many episodes.

In 1984, after the second season, Planer (in character as Neil) reached No. 2 in the UK charts with a version of Traffic's "Hole In My Shoe". The accompanying Neil's Heavy Concept Album, a loose collection of songs and spoken comedy, included appearances by The Young Ones alumni Dawn French and Stephen Fry.

In 1986, the cast sang "Living Doll" with Cliff Richard and Hank Marvin for Comic Relief. The song, a reworking of his 1959 hit, reached the top of the UK and New Zealand Charts.

Eleven of the twelve episodes had a musical guest performing in the house or street. By including the groups, the show qualified as variety rather than light entertainment by the BBC and was allocated a bigger budget than a sitcom. This helped introduce several British bands to American viewers, such as Dexys Midnight Runners, Motörhead, The Damned, and Madness. The latter appeared in two episodes; they were under consideration for a Monkees-style show at the time. The one episode that featured no musical act still fulfilled the variety criteria by including a lion tamer, whose presence also directly contributed to the plot.

Some of these performances were omitted from DVD release for copyright reasons. Some musical acts were also edited out for similar reasons on some satellite reruns.

Characters

Mike "The-Cool-Person"

Played by Christopher Ryan, Mike is the assumed leader of the group and does not involve himself in the battles between the other three. He makes puns, which are either deliberately cheap or humorous but over-celebrated.

He frequently utters confusing, profound-sounding phrases which baffle the others (for example, when asked by Rick if he stole his apple, Mike replies; "Well, if you're gonna sin you might as well be original.") Mike is supposedly the 'ladies' man' and often brags of his prowess with women, although he is shown to share his bed with an inflatable Sex doll and almost admitted his virginity to the others in "Nasty". He makes every attempt at wooing the opposite sex, being both forward and unsuccessful. During "Boring" however he has an encounter with (and also instigated by) Vyv's mother, where, until a comment made by Rick, he makes progress—although her direct approach initially worries Mike.

A con artist, he always has some kind of plan to make quick money such as renting out Rick's bedroom as a roller disco and soliciting bids for the unexploded Atomic bomb that fell into the house. Mike attends Scumbag College only nominally as he has blackmailed his tutor and the Dean of the school for grants and apparently passing grades, although this is contradicted by the title sequence of series 1, in which he is seen to pay a bribe in exchange for a qualification. In "Summer Holiday" he muses; "I think I'll ask for one of those PhDs next year."

While Mike often does things at the expense or detriment of his housemates, he rarely expresses the sort of open hostility that the others do, and seems to cause them trouble only when it benefits him, rather than out of sadistic joy. He has shown to be helpful to the others occasionally, such as trying to teach Vyvyan how to tell time in "Bambi". He has, however, managed to nail his own legs to a table, and knocked Neil out during a game of cricket, albeit unintentionally. We only see violence inflicted on him four times:

• At the end of the "Living Doll" video, Vyvyan knocks him unconscious with a hammer.
• In "Interesting", he is thrown to the couch and kneed repeatedly in the crotch by an evangelical Christian, played by Dawn French.
• During a dream sequence in "Summer Holiday" Neil transforms into the Incredible Hulk, picks up Mike and throws him to the ground.
• In "Time" Helen Mucus (the psychotic murderess played by Jennifer Saunders) attempts to suffocate him with a pillow—Mike, however, mistakes her actions and intentions for foreplay.

Mike's surname is ambiguous – The Bachelor Boys book refers to him as "The Cool Person" several times, but in different styles including quotes. This could imply that "The Cool Person" is not a surname but instead a title—similar to Steve "Interesting" Davis the snooker player or Earvin "Magic" Johnson the basketball player—however the matter is never clarified one way or another.

Rick

Played by Rik Mayall, Rick is a self-proclaimed anarchist who is studying sociology and/or domestic sciences (depending on the episode). Rick writes bad poetry and calls himself "The People's Poet", believing himself to be the "spokesperson for a generation".

He is a hypocritical, tantrum-throwing, attention-seeking Cliff Richard fan, or, as Vyvyan describes him, "The classic example of an only child!" Rick tries to impress the others with his non-existent wit, talent and humour. He insults Neil at every opportunity, fights and bickers with Vyvyan and attempts to impress Mike. He is portrayed as being so self-absorbed that he believes he is the "most popular member of the flat" despite being disliked by virtually everyone he knows; even though his housemates hate him, he says that they "really are terrific friends". He cannot say the "R" sound correctly and instead enunciates a mixture of a "W" and "V" sound. In the episode "Bomb" he dictates his name to a woman who looks up in confusion and repeats it back as "Wick?" Vyvyan describes Rick's name as being spelled "with a silent P," as it is written on Rick's name card during the University Challenge against Footlights College in the episode "Bambi".

Rick's political beliefs vary, depending on how they benefit his particular situation, but can usually be categorised as radical. While Rick sees himself as both a revolutionary and follower of Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, in reality he has little understanding of the political ideals he purports to follow. He claims to dislike Margaret Thatcher, as is noted by his threatening to blow up England with an atomic bomb in the episode "Bomb" if she "doesn't do something to help the kids, by this afternoon," and from negative references to Thatcher and the Conservative Party mentioned in The Young Ones tie-in book Bachelor Boys. However, Rick sometimes displays an incredibly conservative mindset — contrary to the image he has adopted — as, again in "Bomb", while talking to an old man at the DHSS office (which he has mistaken for a post office).

Rick is vegetarian, agnostic,^[3] and wishes all men to love each other like brothers, except for Neil, whom he hates. Nonetheless, nearly everything he does is hypocritical and self-serving.

Rick exaggerates or lies about his political activism and class background and is exposed in the final episode "Summer Holiday", when it is suggested he comes from an upper class, Conservative background. He seems to also be a closet transvestite, as Neil finds a dress in Rick's closet with his own name stitched on it in the episode "Nasty". In the episode "Cash" Rick admits to Mike that he is unable to tell time, a trait that both he and Vyvyan share.

In an interview for the BBC series Comedy Connections, Ben Elton described Rick's character as the "try-hard wanna-be Leftie" typically found on university campuses.

Vyvyan Basterd

Played by Adrian Edmondson, Vyvyan is a psychopathic punk metal medical student. He has orange-dyed & spiked hair and four metal stars seemingly embedded into his forehead. In the episode "Interesting", he drinks a pint of blue liquid which makes his hair fall out and the number 666 is visible on the side of his head. He is extremely violent and regularly attacks Neil and Rick with pieces of wood, cricket bats and other large objects. For some reason he looks up to Mike, whom he never attacks and often addresses as "Michael". He despises Rick more than he does Neil; for example when Rick, Mike and Neil meet his mother at a bar in the episode "Boring", he calls both Neil and Mike his friends, but refers to Rick as "a complete bastard." Ironically, this antagonistic relationship between Rick and Vyvyan makes them virtually inseparable, as the two spend by far more time together than with the other housemates. Unlike Neil and Rick, Vyvyan appears to come from a working class background (something Rick incorrectly believes himself to have).

Vyvyan owns a Glaswegian hamster named Special Patrol Group ("SPG" for short) of whom he is very fond, although SPG is also frequently subjected to Vyvyan's extreme violence. This is usually provoked, such as when SPG bit Vyvyan and made him destroy his cardboard submarine in "Flood" or plugging in the TV after Vyvyan swallowed it in "Bomb". His mother is a barmaid and former shoplifter, who before "Boring" had not seen Vyvyan in ten years and has no idea who his father is.

Vyvyan occasionally displays feats of superhuman strength (surviving a pickaxe through his head, moving entire walls with his bare hands, lifting Neil above his head in a fight with Rick, biting through a brick and even being decapitated and re-attaching his own head) and eats just about anything: televisions, dead rats, caviar and cornflakes with ketchup.

In "Bambi" Vyvyan displays impressive mathematical talent (working out instantly that he has worn his three pairs of knickers 269 times each since their last wash), yet also that he cannot tell the time from a watch.

In the episode "Flood", he develops a potion to transform a person into an axe-wielding homicidal maniac. He claims "it's basically a cure... for not being an axe-wielding homicidal maniac... the potential market's enormous!". He has more friends than the others but "...apparently he doesn't like any of them." He frequently causes havoc or damage such as wiring the doorbell to a bomb to "pep it up a bit" and adding a small car engine to the vacuum cleaner as previously it "looked a bit on the tentative side"—which then proceeds to suck up the carpet, the floorboards and a friend of Neil's. The vacuum also prompted one of the few clashes between Vyvyan and Mike; when Mike admonished Vyv not to use it anymore, Vyv replied by calling him a "poof".

Vyvyan is the only member of the group to own a car – a yellow Ford Anglia with red flames painted along the sides, although he is not the only house member who can drive; during "Summer Holiday" Rick is briefly seen driving the stolen double decker bus.

Neil Wheedon Watkins Pye

Played by Nigel Planer, Neil Pye, the hippie, is a clinically depressed, pacifist, vegetarian and environmentalist working toward a Peace Studies degree. He is victimised by other housemates and forced to do the housework, shopping, cleaning and cooking. He is never acknowledged for it unless it goes wrong. He normally provides tea to drink and cornflakes or lentils for his housemates to eat.

Neil is a pessimist and believes everyone and everything hates him, although he does have three hippie friends—one also named Neil, one named Warlock and a female hippie named Stonehenge.^[4] This actually makes him the second most sociable character behind Vyvyan and also the only character to have a female friend. He dislikes most forms of technology except for TV and Video (a VCR in the US). He is also an insomniac, believing that sleep causes cancer, yet Neil has been shown to be asleep on at least a couple of occasions.

Neil wants the others to feel sorry for him, or just acknowledge his presence. He claims "the most interesting thing that ever happens to me is sneezing"—the force of which is sufficient to blow a door off its hinges.

In the pilot episode "Demolition" Neil is shown to have suicidal tendencies—attempting to kill himself at least three times—however this was not carried through for the rest of the series, with the exception of the episode "Boring", in which he attempts to kill himself in a desperate attempt at relieving boredom.

In the second series episode "Sick", Neil's parents are revealed to be upper middle class Tories who look down on Neil for starring in such a disreputable comedy series. His father wonders why his son cannot be in a nice comedy, such as the ones Neil's mother likes ie The Good Life .

As established in Neil's Heavy Concept Album, Neil comes from Twickenham (his name punning on Eel Pie Island). His middle names are revealed in Neil's Book Of The Dead.

Neil also says 'heavy' frequently. He is a fan of Hawkwind, Marillion, Genesis, and Steve Hillage. More information about his musical tastes, etc. was revealed when the character 'guest v-jayed' on the still young MTV network in ca. 1985, playing several videos (e.g. T. Rex, "Get It On"), including his own hit "Hole in My Shoe", as well as a few Young Ones' Episodes.

Balowski Family

Throughout the two series, Alexei Sayle routinely appeared as many different characters, interjecting his own material into the programme in ways that emulated his stand-up comedy routines. His main role was that of the flat's landlord Jerzei (Jeremy) Balowski, which was the only character he reprised, appearing in "Demolition", "Flood" and "Summer Holiday". The rest of the time, he was billed as playing various male members of "The Balowski Family", including nephew Alexei Yuri Gagarin Siege of Stalingrad Glorious Five Year Plan Sputnik Tractor Moscow Dynamo Back Four Balowski (a protest singer), son Reggie Balowski (an international arms dealer), brother Billy Balowski (a lunatic who believed he was a taxi driver), cousin Tommy Balowski (a drunk), escaped convict Brian Damage Balowski, and a medieval jester "Jester Balowski" (with Helen Lederer as his sidekick).

Jerzei was apparently Russian, however several times during the series he would break character, or in one case the fourth wall and declare directly to the camera "I'm not really foreign, you know—I just do it to appear more sophisticated!" Also during a discussion between the guys about his nationality Vyv comments "He certainly knows a lot about the Mersey Sound."—implying he is in fact from Liverpool, although he is so worried when Mike lies about a visit from Moscow Dynamo that he allows the gang to renege on their monthly rent.

In the second series, Sayle's characters also included a train driver, a Benito Mussolini look-alike (by day the head of the local police force, by night an entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest), "Harry the Bastard" (manager of the local Rumbelows store, disguised as a South African vampire) and, very briefly in an aside sketch that deliberately bore no relevance to the plot, a man in a bowler hat asking if he was in a cheese shop (a reference to the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch).

In-house relations

Mike is the natural "leader" of the house. Always trying to make himself appear more important and exciting than he really is, he does appear to have done some of the things he claims to have done (such as getting Bambi the "Babycham" commercial in "Bambi"). He experiences little hostility from the other members of the house. If there is any "fruitful" or amicable relationship in the house it is between Mike and Vyvyan. Vyvyan accepts Mike's role as the house leader whereas Mike needs Vyvyan's physique and willingness to act forcibly to enforce his own authority (as was literally shown in "Oil" when Vyvyan became 'Col. Vyvyan', the right-hand-man to Mike's 'El Presidente').

Neil is the third most popular of the four, although he is the only one who performs any kind of household chores and is therefore needed by the other three.

Rick is the most disliked. Rick thinks very highly of himself. He tells poor jokes and stories (but finds them hilarious himself), is a would-be anarchist (although deep-down he is quite conservative) and frequently acts like a child when he does not get his way. He generally vents his frustration (when trying to impress the others) on Neil, since Neil never sticks up for himself and is ignored by the others. The majority of his anger is generated in endless battles with Vyvyan, which he invariably loses.

Rik Mayall has opined that the characters in The Young Ones form the basis of a classic nuclear family, comprising Neil as the mother figure, Mike as the father figure and Vyvyan and Rick as the children.^[5]

Finale

In the final episode, the four students steal a red AEC Routemaster after robbing a bank, only to drive it through a billboard with a picture of Cliff Richard on it and then over an actual cliff, which the bus rolls down until it comes to rest at the bottom, completely upright—at which point they proclaim—in unison—"Phew! That was close!", after which the bus bursts into flames. The fact that the Young Ones would reappear in the future (such as at Comic Relief in 1986) surmises that this experience did not kill them.

Setting

Although the series was set in North London, many external scenes were filmed in Bristol, namely the suburb of Bishopston, where the student house is situated. All four characters attended the fictional Scumbag College. As one of the characters (Neil) sometimes wore a University of London T-shirt, it seems likely that Scumbag is one of the University of London's constituent colleges, although they were never seen attending the institution and were rarely seen studying.

After the series

The end of the series was not the last appearance of The Young Ones. For the British charity television appeal Comic Relief, the four recorded a song and video for Cliff Richard's "Living Doll", accompanied by Richard and Shadows guitarist Hank B. Marvin. Alexei Sayle was not involved, as he felt collaborating with Richard was against the alternative ethos of the show, but had already achieved chart success in 1984 with "'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?".

In 1984 Nigel Planer released an album of music and skits in character as Neil, entitled Neil's Heavy Concept Album. Musical direction was by Canterbury scene keyboardist Dave Stewart. It featured Stewart's alums Barbara Gaskin, Jakko Jakszyk, Pip Pyle, Gavin Harrison, Jimmy Hastings and Rick Biddulph. "Hole in My Shoe", a single taken from the LP, reached number 2.

At the 1986 Comic Relief stage show, The Young Ones performed "Living Doll" live (following a short skit which involved Rick doing a comic song about showing his underwear and bodily parts, before being ejected from the group by Mike, and Vyvyan supposedly having backstage sex with Kate Bush with Neil as his contraceptive). The skit climaxed with Neil claiming Cliff Richard could not perform with them and John Craven had been booked as a replacement, only for Cliff Richard himself to appear on stage.

In 1986 MTV aired edited versions of the episodes.

Mayall, Planer and Edmondson reunited in 1986 for the Elton-written Filthy Rich & Catflap. The series had many of the same characteristics as The Young Ones as did Mayall and Edmondson's next sitcom Bottom. Ryan, for his part, was regularly recruited to play roles on associated series (such as Happy Families, Bottom and Absolutely Fabulous). Mayall, Edmondson and Planer have also appeared in episodes of Blackadder.

Both series were repeated consecutively over twelve weeks in early 1985, but went unrepeated for four years, when the second series was shown on BBC2. In the mid 1990s all twelve episodes of The Young Ones were shown on BBC2 in a 30 minute revised format, missing scenes and dialogue. The series was also shown on digital channel UK Gold throughout the 1990s. A mix of both the edited and unedited versions was shown in the 2000s on UKTVG2.

In 1999, Mayall and Edmondson starred in their co-written film Guest House Paradiso wherein Richie and Eddie are in charge of the worst hotel in the UK which is situated beside a nuclear power plant.

DVD releases have been somewhat basic: only the U.S. "Every Stoopid Episode" edition featured documentaries and no extra footage was included. Musical references proved difficult to clear so "The Sounds of Silence" (one line) and "Subterranean Homesick Blues" were excised from the U.S. editions. A "bloopers" tape made for the amusement of cast and crew has, according to a BBC employee, gone missing from the BBC archives.

A new DVD release of all episodes ("Extra Stoopid Edition") was launched in November, 2007, containing new documentaries and two commentary tracks^[6] (pilot and final episodes only). This edition restores the line from "The Sounds of Silence" and "Subterranean Homesick Blues".

The UK 25th Anniversary box set also features documentaries and claims to have the full uncut episodes.

American pilot episode

A pilot episode was filmed of an American version of The Young Ones, titled Oh, No! Not THEM! It featured Nigel Planer as Neil and Jackie Earle Haley,^[7] and had a claymation opening credit sequence. Fox did not pick up the series. It was produced by David Mirkin.^[7]

Robert Llewellyn wrote in his book The Man in the Rubber Mask (1994):

The Young Ones was taken over the Atlantic in the mid eighties, and Nigel [Planer] was the only member of the British cast to go. He had experienced a fairly hideous time, worried sick that he was going to have to stay there for six years with a group of people he hated who managed to make The Young Ones into a sort of grubby Benny Hill Show. He was hugely relieved when the pilot was a flop and he was released from his contract.

Links to other series

In the episode "Bambi", the housemates appeared on University Challenge, where they played against Footlights College, Oxbridge, a reference to Footlights drama club at Cambridge University. The Footlights College team was played by show writer Ben Elton and three actors who were once members of the real Cambridge Footlights: Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, and Stephen Fry, the last of whom had actually appeared on the quiz show while at Cambridge. The episode title is a reference to the show's presenter, Bamber Gascoigne, impersonated by Griff Rhys Jones.

Mayall and Edmondson elaborated on some of the series' concepts later in their sitcoms Filthy Rich & Catflap (written by Elton, with additional material by Mayall) and Bottom (written by Mayall and Edmondson).

Most of the regular cast (and several of the guests) also appeared in Channel 4 and BBC2's comedy films, The Comic Strip Presents. All four main actors have since gained reputations as dramatic, as well as comic, actors.

In 1990, ITV puppet series Spitting Image made reference to The Young Ones when four members of the Margaret Thatcher cabinet reminisced about their younger days, with all four playing one Young Ones character each – Cecil Parkinson as Mike, Douglas Hurd as Vyvyan, Michael Heseltine as Rick, and Geoffrey Howe as Neil.

Episode list

When originally broadcast, episodes were shown on BBC2 Tuesdays at 9 pm.

Series 1

Series 2

DVD releases

Series 1 & 2 of The Young Ones have both been released on DVD individually and in a special edition boxset in both regions 2 and 4. Region 1 has released just two boxsets, one being just series 1 & 2, the other being series 1 & 2 special edition.

Video game

Further reading

• Ben Elton, Rik Mayall & Lise Mayer (1984). Bachelor Boys: The Young Ones Book. Sphere Books ltd. ISBN 0-7221-5765-7. 

References

External links

• The Young Ones at The bbc.co.uk Guide to Comedy
• The Young Ones at BBC Programmes
• The Young Ones at the British Comedy Guide
• The Young Ones at the Internet Movie Database
• The Young Ones at the BFI's Screenonline