The Young Ones

This is my favorite show of all time... no questions asked. My mother introduced it to me last year when she bought a video called "The Very Best of The Young Ones" which featured 5 episodes. They were Bomb, Boring, Bambi, Interesting and Summer Holiday. I was so hooked on it! I gave the video away to someone else... not before getting the complete series of season 1 and season 2 on DVD. It's absolute kick@ss and stuff and I can't help but watch it all of the time. I blooming love it.

I love Vyvyan the most out of them all, followed by Rik than Neil and of course Mike TheCoolPerson. But they're all hilarious. My favorite episode was probably Bambi... but they're all good.

Alexei Sayle would have to have been recognized as the funniest man in the whole entire world during this series.

The musical guests are fantastic as well with Madness, Motorhead, and so much more.

Hilariously written, wonderfully over the top acting, very original the whole way. Great... great... great... great show! This is proof that the British do comedy 100,000,000,000,000,000 times or better than the United States of America. Sorry Yankees... bow down before the Oxford graduates, Cambridge graduates and gifted high school dropouts!

... How fortunate that on this one project the nations foremost figureheads in alternative comedy were gathered together and allowed to give their imaginations free reign. I don't think you'll ever see a sitcom as gleefully silly or unconventional as this one, partly because of the personalities involved in making it and partly due to the regular musical interludes that were thrown in purely to give the team more cash.

Incidentally, "Cash" from series two is my favourite episode, and Neil my favourite member of the gang. What can you say about a scenario where Vyvvian (a bloke) learns that he's pregnant, except that it's utter genius?! Neil's whole demeanour seals it for me; he doesn't even have to say anything, and Nigel Planer's mournful expression will still crack me up, without fail.

It's the absolute opposite of those cosy, easygoing shows where everybody likes one another really. You can't really call it 'The Good Life' when you're living in what most would describe as 'a hole'... As it happens, I don't really have any objection to such a nice '70's comedy, although listening to Vyvvian launch into a verbal tirade against it almost changed my mind, delivered as it was with such unchecked outrage. You can always trust "The Young Ones" to offer some biting political comment, unless you're talking to Rick, that is... !

With few exceptions, today's comedy scene is abysmal. Canned laughter and absolutely nothing funny. No-one seems able to write a funny script now. The Young Ones didn't have to try too hard to be entertaining-it just was, period.

It was set in a student household and didn't really have plots-just craziness. Margaret Thatcher was UK Prime Minister at the time and the characters made frequent digs at her and her regime. Rik Mayall played Rick who was the craziest of the lot and always picking on Neil who was played by Niger Planer. Neil was the hippy who cared about everyone, man and beast but was bullied constantly. Adrian Edmondson played punkrocker Vivyan who was violent at times and simply didn't give a toss. Then there was Mike played by Christopher Ryan. It is hard to define Mike-I challenge anyone to give a character description to Mike. He wasn't as crazy as the rest of them but he was weird. And that is what I liked about The Young Ones.

As I said earlier, don't expect any plots because there are none. And as for them being students, well I never saw them revising in their spare time. There were some great scenes throughout the show and some very surreal scenes as well. Items of food in the fridge spoke on the state of things at times and there was the two speaking rats. Alexi Sayle as the landlord Balowski popped in from time to time.

Expect the crazy when you watch this. Great scenes throughout the show included a nuclear bomb landing in the kitchen, Vivyan eating the TV to escape prosecution by the TV Licence man, the students fighting and Neil being planted like a seed in the ground and spouting other Neils.

A fantastic cartoon-like comedy which had some impressive cameo appearances throughout it's run. If you're fed up with the boring tripe that tries to pass itself off as comedy nowadays, then check this out.

I remember watching The Young Ones back around 1982-83 on Public TV in Gainesville Florida while attending college at U of Florida. There were only 2 TV stations in this smallish city/town, ABC and the local public television station. It pretty much sucked for television except when they aired the BBC comedies like The Two Ronnies, Dave Allen at Large, Benny Hill and my favorite TYO's! I marveled at their total lack of respect for everything and everyone, especially stuffy english royal types. Back in those days, we in America rarely got to see a show where the characters showed total disregard for authority. Saturday Night Live was about as close to raunch and outrageous as it got. So I loved the 4 lads from england! It reminds me of my youth and the fun times I had back in college. To this day, I haven't seen the Young Ones on TV anywhere! I miss all these great BBC shows!

The definitive post-punk sitcom is a wild watch in these future times, it seems dingy, grotty and cheap but the sheer relentless energy of it is breathtaking. It respects nothing, not least the conventions of television sitcom, and takes no prisoners. Certainly the second series is a great deal more consistently funny (as consistent as the Young Ones could ever be at least) but the entire endeavour is foolish, otherworldy and extraordinary. During a recent rewatch I discovered the house where the exteriors were filmed was right around the corner from me, and I went there to look, but that made it seem all the distant and strange. Could this have ever really taken place? Was any of this madness ever real?