The Young Ones

Produced in six-episode fits during 1982 and 1984, The Young Ones would have been relegated to the status of a historical curiosity if not for one simple fact - it is a lot funnier even today than a lot of the dross that has been put on television since. This show came long before Australia had pay television, a short while before eMpTyV, and a long, long time before Hollywood's standards fell so low that the likes of Jim Carrey or the brothers Farrelly were given jobs.

Focused upon the daily routines of four British college students, the show came out with all guns blazing, and it didn't let up for a single episode. The first episode pretty much sets the standard for all the others - while Rik is screaming his head off about things that mean very little, Neil is cooking a last supper, and Mike is being his usual bland self, Vyvyan crashes through the kitchen wall and announces that the council have decided to knock down their house. The council are reasoning that the lads are a health hazard, so while Rik is whining, Neil is thinking of hiding within the walls, and Mike is planning to get into the council representative's pants, Vyvyan plans to thwart them by knocking the house down himself. At one point, he even jumps through the wall that seperates the lads' house from their next door neighbours. Classic stuff, and it gets even more over the top in the next five episodes.

My favourite episode... well, it's a tie between Nasty and Bomb. Nasty is just so stupendously funny because Vyvyan is at his nastiest, but Bomb is by far more ridiculous in its premise - who could imagine a bomb landing in front of the fridge, then Vyvyan eating the TV in order to escape the TV license man? As if that last question doesn't date this show enough, Nasty sees Vyvyan and Mike trying to figure out how to operate a VCR that the latter has borrowed from Harry The Bastard. Not a gangster, mind you, but a guy who works at Rhumbalo's (sp?). In this age of DVD-Video, an imminent HD-DVD format, and a standards war between SDTV and HDTV, with Recordable DVD now out in force, those of us who were six years old, or older, when Nasty first transmitted should be experiencing flashbacks now.

The band appearances were quite something too, ranging from Radical Posture and Alexei Sayle doing a real crackup of a song about Dr. Marten's boots to Dexy's Midnight Runners playing Jackie Wilson Said in the dunny, it seemed that every collection of musicians eager for a start or some kind of exposure wanted to get on The Young Ones. It also served to prove that there was a lot more interesting music coming out of England during the 1980s than has come out of America during the entire twentieth century.

Given the political situation in most of the Western, so-called First World, and the advent of entertainment technologies that were considered science fiction when this series went to air, the time could not be better for a new version of The Young Ones, or something that follows in a similar style. The problem there is that The Young Ones set the standard so high that it's going to take a Herculean effort for a new series to simply not be destroyed by comparison to the original. Which is not bad considering some of the crap that was about to hit the airwaves later in the 1980s.

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!

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 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?

The Young Ones is simply the most wonderful sit-com ever. A mad combination of Monty Python's Flying Circus with the British punk scene, The Young Ones focuses on four hilariously demented student archtypes. I can't believe this doesn't have a larger cult following. I highly recommend this to any and everyone.