The Young Ones

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.

The Young Ones may be an obscurity in the USA, but here in Australia its fondly remembered. We first heard rumours of it back in about '82, then someone sneaked in a crappy tape of 'Bomb'. We sat and watched it in awe. This was The Great British Surrealist sitcom; the logical next step from The Goons and Monty Python. It was appallingly, daringly head and shoulders above everything else from the 80's (oh, alright, except Black Adder. Especially Black Adder II).

Four students: a hippy, a punk, a would-be anarchist who secretly loves Cliff Richard, and... Mike, 'the cool person' - who appears to be throughly normal. Except he isn't. In fact, when you really take a close look at him, Mike is actually stranger than all the others put together. Half of his lines make little or no sense. He said something once about a sheepdog, which struck me as one of the strangest lines I've ever heard on television. But anyway, he is still nominally the anchor of normality around which all the madness rotates.

Using Python's rapid-cut technique, and employing a similar lack of concern for continuity, a Young Ones episode is a rollercoaster of surrealism, violence and squalor (the latter two elements taken to even greater extremes by Mayall and Edmonson in 'Bottom'). Episodes are suddenly interrupted by the appearance of Benito Mussolini, singing a song called 'Stupid Noises', or by various other manifestations of Russian landlord Alexai Sayle, who is inclined to go into stand up comedy routines and address the audience, much to the confusion of everyone else on set. Images of garden taps or insects are flashed on screen for a fraction of a second, scenes cartwheel off in all directions: a family of peasants in the adjoining room sit huddled round a lamp, a wardrobe leads into the realms of Narnia, an unexploded atomic bomb lands in the middle of the kitchen, vegetables in the fridge talk to each other, and Motorhead just happen to be in the loungeroom, performing 'Ace of Spades'.

Someobody else said that this series hit Britain like bombshell. It's effect was similar in Australia. It never spawned any imitators - the rest of the 80's seemed to be given over to dreary political satire, but it is undeniably one of the great English sitcoms - even if, now and then, it drags its feet just a little.

Like Fawlty Towers, it ran for only two series, but when they were over, it had breached countless boundaries of bad taste and absurdity, introduced the writing talents of Ben Elton, the careers of Rik Mayall, Alexei Sayle, Nigel Planer, Dawn French and Adrian Edmonson, and made the godawful, bland, mid 80's bearable for a few people like me.

Absolutely brilliant describes this show. I have never laughed so hard in my entire life that was until I saw one episode of "The young ones" a while back. I couldn't stop laughing! Such funny characters like Rick, Vyvyien, Mike Thecoolguy, and Neil the hippie have never made me laugh until I cried. It has a lot of silly, and funny moments as well as some of the best memorable quotes ever to be written on a script. All I can say is to those who have never seen this show, and have a good opportunity to see it, CHECK IT OUT!!! 10/10.

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!

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!