The Young Ones

[DrGreggles]

The 5th housemate thing has been around for ages.
I'm siding with the theory that it's just a running gag of how student houses would always have people crashing out there. That was certainly the case with my uni days.

[Ambient Sheep]

YES WE'VE GOT A VIDEO KNEW ABOUT THE FIFTH HOUSEMATE!!!

[MuteBanana]

The 5th housemate thing has been around for ages.
I'm siding with the theory that it's just a running gag of how student houses would always have people crashing out there. That was certainly the case with my uni days.

Yeah or just the housemate that doesn't join in with the rest of the house.

I wonder if this is where Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong got the inspiration for the mysterious housemate in Fresh Meat.

[the ouch cube]

For whatever reason, the amputee pop singer from 'Flood' always sticks in my mind:

"My music's all about 'urban alienation', apparently."

Re racism: pretty sure the vandalising grannies in 'Bomb' have spraypainted "Wogs Out" (and "Fuck Off") on the phone box.

[Sydward Lartle]

"You know who's going to get the blame for this, don't you? THE KIDS!"
"Good! Perhaps that'll stop them raping old ladies!"

I wonder if those elderly vandals were a nod back to Python's Hell's Grannies?

[Sydward Lartle]

I'm tying my dog to the railroad track
Choo-choo train's gonna break his back
I used to call him Spot, yeah, but now he's called Splat
That's the kind of person we are...

[bomb_dog]

...oh baby won't you come home with me...
(Punch)...(stagger)...

[Sydward Lartle]

Which are the best musical performances? I'd have to go with the obvious ones - Madness with House of Fun and Our House, Dexy's Midnight Runners with Jackie Wilson Said, Motorhead with Ace of Spades and Amazulu with So Much Love (I think it's called). The clear winner, though, is the Damned with Nasty - it just fits the episode like a glove.

[Dr Rock]

Was going to ask the same question - and yup it's The Damned for me, Motorhead second.

That version of Subterranean Homesick Blues by Lord Jools Holland's Rockin' 11 or whatever they were called was the first time I'd ever heard any version of the song. Jolly catchy I thought.

[Autopsy Turvey]

The Damned were the only band to write a song specially for the episode, weren't they? It's not as good a song as Ace Of Spades, and they're not as good a band as Motorhead (and if I remember correctly Lemmy played bass at a few early Damned shows), but that 'Video Nasty' performance is definitely a more organic part of the episode than any other.

I worked out a tracklist once for a hypothetical Young Ones House Party Tape, with all the songs from the episodes rounded out with other tunes and bands mentioned in the series (Steve Hillage, Echo & The Bunnymen, Hawkwind, Human League, Cliff etc). This now strikes me as the sort of thing someone on this forum must have already uploaded to sendspace years ago.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Which are the best musical performances? I'd have to go with the obvious ones - Madness with House of Fun and Our House, Dexy's Midnight Runners with Jackie Wilson Said, Motorhead with Ace of Spades and Amazulu with So Much Love (I think it's called). The clear winner, though, is the Damned with Nasty - it just fits the episode like a glove.

And an early Neneh Cherry appearance with Rip, Rig & Panic.

[Sydward Lartle]

I really wish John Otway had chosen another song besides Body Talk. Headbutts, for example, or even Cheryl's Going Home.

[DrGreggles]

John Otway can do whatever he bloody likes!

[Sydward Lartle]

John Otway can do whatever he bloody likes!

Indeed he can. I've seen him live a couple of times now, he always puts on a good show and he's a genuinely warm, humble, self-deprecating performer, but Body Talk is pretty dispiriting stuff when you consider the ragged, off-kilter genius of Cor Baby That's Really Free.

[Harry Badger]

John Otway's sister once removed a verrucca from my foot.

[Sydward Lartle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf6apOhAHzU

[Sydward Lartle]

Christ, Adrian Edmondson is sixty now. I mean, what?!

Obligatory quote - "Told THATCHER about OUR BOMB. You bunch of lavatory bowls!"

[the science eel]

My favourite episode from the 1982 run is 'Interesting'.

Just watched it. I don't normally notice these kinds of things but the dialogue for most of the last ten minutes is close to inaudible because of the loud party music!

Some great stuff earlier on, tho'. Rik's 'pop music - let's go!' line is arguably the most famous in the whole show.

[Sydward Lartle]

The look on Neil's face at the very end of the show where he's about to get his head kicked in is priceless. "Oh well, here we go again!"

[Sydward Lartle]

"Far out! Really great! Wood-stock!"

[Sydward Lartle]

Original Radio Times synopses for the episodes...

9 November 1982 Demolition
A new series of six comedy shows of which this is the first. Be there or be square!

16 November 1982 Oil
Witty, rich, priceless, side-splitting, light, comic, mock heroic, farcical, clownish, knockabout (Roget's Thesaurus).

23 November 1982 Boring
As Schtenker said, 'music will buy the paint'. He never said what colour...

30 November 1982 Bomb
Mark and Samantha decide to have a tea party, and the vicar tries out his new chain-saw with side-splitting results!

7 December 1982 Interesting
Heinrich Schtenker, the little-known but much hated amateur philosopher, famous for his epithet 'I exist therefore I am', was run over by a tram in Vienna in 1893. Good job too.

14 December 1982 Flood
Disaster looms: in the last few days of a desperate government, riots spread as the economy collapses and the threat of nuclear conflict grows. Despite this, the BBC screens the final episode of the Young Ones.

8 May 1984 Bambi
A psychological British war film set in the Sahara desert. Hugh Freganotte's sombre Western is diversely episodic but the locations admirably sustain the journey. Like an old favourite shoe: not brilliant but sturdy. Pauline Melville makes a splendid quiche.

15 May 1984 Cash
'Whizz Bang' - the new youth programme. Roger Dingo talks live in the studio to Screaming Leppard. On film, Barry Coathanger Smith talks to Minty from Broken Chair about his new cooker. The weekend starts somewhere over there in the comer.

22 May 1984 - Sorry spotty! No Young Ones this week, it's the Eurovision Young Musician of the Year. FASCISTS!

29 May 1984 Nasty
This week a video head helically scans the high coercivity medium taking full advantage of the inherent wide hysteresic characteristics and fully saturating the magnetic structure of the oxide emulsion with predictably hilarious results.

5 June 1984 Time
This week the man who writes the listings in Radio Times, which is actually a very difficult job at which he works very hard and he is not getting home very much because he is out earning money to keep his family, comes home late one night to find his wife in bed with another man and has a nervous breakdown ... wakka wakka oooooooh aaaaaaah.

12 June 1984 Sick
A plane-load of funsters crashes in the African jungle; the souffle still won't rise; a former model charges through the plot like a tornado; anything can happen and probably will.

19 June 1984 Summer Holiday
Final programme in the series written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer. Blah, blah, blah. Bottom burp!

[Sydward Lartle]

Fluffy hair on a polar bear
Means more to me than a lavatory
You won't go far in a motor car
With my front door key!

[Dr Magus]

My favourite bit has to be in Summer Holiday when Neil realises someone has rented out his room to a family of slobs.  The sound of the punch then seeing him stagger back onto the landing checking his nose for blood. Then vyvian idly walks by and smacks him on the head with a cricket bat! Wonderful slapstick and the sound effects added so much to the hilarity.

Also loved the sound of vyv hitting rick with the hammer in Sick.

[Dr Magus]

Bollocks

[Morrison Lard]

Sunday 29th April 11:15am - Radio 4- The Reunion -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b0m2lk

Sue MacGregor is joined by original Young One Nigel Planer who played depressed musician Neil;
Chris Ryan who played Mike "The Cool Person";
Alexei Sayle who played members of the Balowski family;
Lise Mayer who co-wrote the series with Ben Elton and her then partner actor Rik Mayall; and Stephen Frost

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Hmm Ade seems to have detached himself from his old work. Shame.

[Glebe]

Hmm Ade seems to have detached himself from his old work. Shame.

[petril]

Hmm Ade seems to have detached himself from his old work. Shame.

and they can't even get Rik in to play his part, like that bit in Bambi

[wooders1978]

Which are the best musical performances? I'd have to go with the obvious ones - Madness with House of Fun and Our House, Dexy's Midnight Runners with Jackie Wilson Said, Motorhead with Ace of Spades and Amazulu with So Much Love (I think it's called). The clear winner, though, is the Damned with Nasty - it just fits the episode like a glove.

I was just pondering how that never caught on, having a current chart topper appear in your madcap sitcom, it was a great idea - I guess it would be copying the young ones to do it again

Anyway - I'm going for Amazulu purely for the "is that right? AMA Glaswegian" gag from their pet hamster (natch) - still one of all time fave bits

[DrGreggles]

I was just pondering how that never caught on, having a current chart topper appear in your madcap sitcom, it was a great idea - I guess it would be copying the young ones to do it again

It was because it was budgeted as a entertainment show rather than a comedy show. So they got more to spend on talking matchboxes/socks/carrots/etc and have music on.