Young Ones: US pilot

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

This British Comedy Library site (http://start.at/britcomlib) contains a very vague and rather unconvincing report on an unsuccesful US pilot of The Young Ones.

This is complete bollocks, isn't it?

Apologies if this has been discussed before.

[alan strang]

This British Comedy Library site (http://start.at/britcomlib) contains a very vague and rather unconvincing report on an unsuccesful US pilot of The Young Ones.

This is complete bollocks, isn't it?

Apologies if this has been discussed before.

'Oh No, Not Them' - never seen it but a copy of the shooting script purportedly turned up on eBay a while back.

From:       annna - view profile
Date:      Sat, Jan 15 2000 12:00 am
Email:       a...@great-big-monkey.whee
Groups:       alt.fan.chris-elliott
Not yet rated
Rating:   
show options
Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse | Find messages by this author

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=235321032

"This is a COPY of the script from the produced but never aired TV pilot
"Oh No, Not Them." This was the American version of the cult British TV
show "The Young Ones." The pilot starred Nigel Planer from the original
show. The script was written by David Mirkin, who later created "Get a
Life" and ran "The Simpsons." It is a Final Draft dated October 6, 1989
and is 69 pages long."

Okay, so that's not really related, just interesting.  

My father told me once that the reason GaL didn't do well was because
there wasn't any character the audience could _like._  I pointed out
that that didn't stop "The Young Ones," and he in turn pointed out that
that was in Britain.

Boy, I'd like to see that pilot.

Annnnna

[Bert Thung]

American pilot?
---------------
According to Slogan (slo...@i-link.net) :

   "There was a pilot episode shot and aired of an American version of The
   Young Ones, called Oh, No! Not THEM!, and featured Nigel Planer as
Neil,
   and it had a claymation opening credit sequence. Obviously, FOX didn't
make
   the series...

   In the pilot, they were all sleeping in one bed and Rick (not Mayall)
was
   having a dream about a hot punk girl and woke up and Neil asks him why
he
   didn't kiss her. Weird huh?"

Young Ones faq

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Ah, I see. Ta for that. Had no idea this was ever made. Just when you've fooled yourself into thinking you know it all...

[Morrisfan82]

Robert Llewellyn mentions it in his book The Man in the Rubber Mask. He said he talked to Nigel Planer about his concerns over going to America to be in the intended US version of Red Dwarf, as Planer had had a similar experience doing a US pilot of TYO. The only snippets of detail mentioned are that Planer hated the cast and had a really bad time doing it, and, according to Llewellyn, they 'turned it into a sort of grubby version of The Benny Hill Show'.

[Bert Thung]

In the meantime, here's a Young Ones curio for you all

Young Ones Computer Game Advert 1984

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I used to love that game. Hard as fuck-toffee though. You really had to know every single episode inside out in order to complete it which, if you didn't have 'em all on video (which I didn't in the late 80s), made it nigh on impossible.

Anyway, that really is a curio - cheers. Voice-Overs are terrible, though - Vyv sounds more like Zippy from Rainbow. And surely that's The Moog from Willo the Wisp at the end?

[Purple Tentacle]

In the meantime, here's a Young Ones curio for you all
Young Ones Computer Game Advert 1984

Dear christ, the voice-over.

Hehe, show that to those young people today with their Grand Theft Autos and their Night Traps, and they'll burn their Playstation 360s in shame.


'Coming soon on MSX' ... I'm guessing that it never did...

[Marv Orange]

indirectly related.

[alan strang]

"Do Not Sink The Belgrano..."

[RFT]

I remember that game turing up as a free giveaway on the cover of Amstrad Action in it's declining years. It was bloody awful.

[Purple Tentacle]

The Young Ones game?

It certainly looks like a very poor man's Skool Daze. But let's face it, I'm going to be trying it out tonight. For all of 5 minutes.


I love the long silence in that advert while we watch the piss-poor game trundle along. You wouldn't get that now, eh? Eh?

[neveragain]

'Did the game consist entirely of people picking things up, then?'

Mister Six on the YouTube page. Class.

[Ghost of Troubled Joe]

I've played the board game version of Ade Edmondson's "How To Be A Complete Bastard"- great fun, especially when a mate of mine had to rub his hair in a tub of butter.

[Bert Thung]

Kevin Turvey live stand up for Nicaragua benefit 1983

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoMH5BOolSE

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Yeah, I had the HTBACB board-game, but never had the guts to play it. Especially not with my mother. And she was the one who bought it for me.

The computer game was top fun, though. Putting manure in people's slippers and cellophane over the toilet seat - what larks.

Surely the true measue of  a comedy show's greatness is whether it would make a good computer game or not? A League of Gentlemen game would surely be a winner? And what about Partridge, trapped in the Linton Travel Tavern? Anyway, I digress.

[waste of chops]

And what about Partridge, trapped in the Linton Travel Tavern?

Quick bit of advice for anyone planning on playing the game of How To Be A Complete Bastard tonight; if you're asked whether you want to reset a computer, don't do it. It's mildly frustrating in this day and age but when games took 5 minutes to load...

(PS. Thanks to World of Spectrum and the ZZSpectrum emulator, you can play the Speccy versions of The Young Ones and HTBACB by clicking the little Java icon next to each version of the game.)

[Antiseptic Poetry]

Some actor has a copy of the Young Ones US pilot script and is re-making it for the internet!

https://facebook.com/armedandstupid/

[Squidy]

"In the '80s [the US] made a version of The Young Ones. The only actor they retained was Nigel Planer as Neil, and in the press shots they had him standing by a pool surrounded by Hollywood glamour girls." - Rob Grant, pages 20 to 21 of Time Out, 24th February to 3rd March 1993.

Nigel Planer talks about this in his interview with The Sitcom Club podcast, revealing that the theme tune was written by Danny Elfman, and sounded like an early version of The Simpsons theme.

[great_badir]

The only actor they retained was Nigel Planer as Neil, and in the press shots

One of the first videos I ever saw on YouTube (in the days when all that was on there were commercials for local US businesses, film trailer spoofs and the video of that fat guy demolishing his PC in anger) was a compilation of press shots and stills from the pilot itself (no video or audio).  It was quickly taken down, and I've never seen it again since.

This post obviously for info and interest only, as there wasn't really any way to ascertain anything from those shots, however this (which was not part of the aforementioned video) claims to be the original opening - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5ewaeWiPgc

[momatt]

I was about to ask if the US version of Peep Show ever surfaced, when I found it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yredc3ayOE

Anyone seen a better[nb]as in better quality video/audio, it'll still be shit obviously[/nb] version?

[Glebe]

In the meantime, here's a Young Ones curio for you all

Young Ones Computer Game Advert 1984

That sounds more like Terry Jones than Vyv.

[Replies From View]

When this thread was started, some of the people now posting on CaB were only about five years old.

Makes you feel young, dunnit.

[Glebe]

When this thread was started, some of the people now posting on CaB were only about five years old.

Makes you feel young, dunnit.

Oh shit, yeah.... I would have been 30 (going on 31).

DEAD SOON.

[Phil_A]

I was about to ask if the US version of Peep Show ever surfaced, when I found it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yredc3ayOE

Anyone seen a better[nb]as in better quality video/audio, it'll still be shit obviously[/nb] version?

I like how they didn't bother with the central conceit of the British version, e.g. the first person POV, which basically just leaves it a generic sitcom about two idiots in a flat.

[momatt]

They really just could not be fucked in any way to make a decent job of that pilot.

I was surprised at how identical the Post-It notes cartoon they drew were to the UK originals.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

They really just could not be fucked in any way to make a decent job of that pilot.

I was surprised at how identical the Post-It notes cartoon they drew were to the UK originals.

A bit cheeky to have "written by (name of two American writers)", when the whole episode is clearly cobbled together from bits of the first British series, with huge swathes of dialogue more or less quoted verbatim. There are one or two original bits, like when the Amerijez thinks he's written 'Axel F', but not many.

[Ignatius_S]

I was about to ask if the US version of Peep Show ever surfaced, when I found it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yredc3ayOE

Anyone seen a better[nb]as in better quality video/audio, it'll still be shit obviously[/nb] version?

There have been two US pilots of Peep Show - that's the first one but a third one is on the cards...

[momatt]

There are one or two original bits, like when the Amerijez thinks he's written 'Axel F', but not many.

I was looking for the "Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain" credit, but couldn't see one.

The Axel F bit was actually pretty funny I thought!

[Steven]

I was about to ask if the US version of Peep Show ever surfaced, when I found it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yredc3ayOE

Anyone seen a better[nb]as in better quality video/audio, it'll still be shit obviously[/nb] version?

Went over that in the Peep Show thread a bit ago.