Hippies (TV series)

Hippies
Genre Sitcom
Created by Arthur Mathews
Graham Linehan
Written by Arthur Mathews
Directed by Martin Dennis
Starring Simon Pegg
Julian Rhind-Tutt
Sally Phillips
Darren Boyd
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language(s) English
No. of series 1
No. of episodes 6
Production
Running time 28–29 minutes
Release
Original network BBC 2
Picture format PAL 16:9
Original release 12 November 1999 (1999-11-12) – 17 December 1999 (1999-12-17)

Hippies is a six-part British television comedy series broadcast from 12 November to 17 December 1999. It was created by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, the writing partnership most famous for Father Ted, but the scripts were written by Mathews alone. It starred Simon Pegg, Sally Phillips, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Darren Boyd.

Synopsis

Hippies is set in 1969 in 'Swinging London' and is set around Ray Purbbs (Pegg), who is the editor of a counterculture magazine called Mouth (a parody of Oz, International Times, Frendz and other underground magazines of the time), which he produces in his flat in Notting Hill Gate. He is aided by Alex Picton-Dinch (Rhind-Tutt), Hugo Yemp (Boyd) and Jill Sprint (Phillips), Sprint is also Purbbs' girlfriend, or he thinks she is his girlfriend.

The series delves into late 1960s culture and involves the characters in various embarrassing situations in this setting.

Episodes

# Title Original air date
1.1 Protesting Hippies 12 November 1999
1.2 Hairy Hippies 19 November 1999
1.3 Sexy Hippies 26 November 1999
1.4 Hippy Dippy Hippies 3 December 1999
1.5 Muddy Hippies 10 December 1999
1.6 Disgusting Hippies 17 December 1999

Critical reaction

The series was Mathews and Linehan's immediate follow up to the hugely popular and highly successful, Father Ted. As such it received a significant amount of pre-release hype which viewers felt let down by after watching the first few episodes, as it did not meet their expectations. In general it was badly received by critics.

A second series was commissioned, but was never written after Mathews was put off by the negative critical reaction.

Hippies has never been repeated on any terrestrial BBC channels, although it has been repeated on Paramount Comedy 2, the now defunct UK Play, and Gold.

BBC America aired the series in the United States in 2000.

The series was released on Region 0 DVD in the UK in March 2008.

External links

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