None of the writers had ever done anything for television before and simply wrote what they thought would be funny, not giving any thought to how it would actually be filmed. When they arrived on set the first day they realized how much work the crew had gone to for what were, in a lot of cases, throw-away jokes with no real connection to the plot. They apologized and promised to write things that would be easier to film, but the crew told them they had enjoyed the challenge and to keep writing as they had and they would find a way to film it.
Rik Mayall once remarked in an interview that The Young Ones were designed to be a nuclear family, with Neil as the mother, Mike as the father figure, Vyvyan as the rebellious young son and Rick as the daughter (complete with pigtails).
According to Ed Bye, the show was surprisingly popular with policemen, a fact which upset Rik Mayall greatly.
Madness made two guest appearances in the sitcom performing two of their hit songs. "House of Fun" in Boring (1982) and "Our House" in Sick (1984). The reason they made two appearances was that the BBC was considering giving them a series in the same vein as "The Monkees". This never happened.
The reason for including a performance by a live band in each episode was that this caused the BBC to categorize the show as "Light Entertainment" rather than "Situation Comedy", which meant it got a budget, as no budget was available for further sitcoms.