Boring (The Young Ones)

Last updated

"Boring"
The Young Ones episode
Episode no.Series 1
Episode 3
Directed by Geoff Posner
Written by Ben Elton
Rik Mayall
Lise Mayer
Original air date23 November 1982 (1982-11-23)
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
← Previous
"Oil"		Next →
"Bomb"

"Boring" is the third episode of The Young Ones , a British sitcom. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first aired on BBC2 on 23 November 1982. [1]

Contents

This episode is rarely repeated uncut on television because of its racial content, including two uses of "coon", one use of "sambo", and one use of "nigger". All three words are spoken in a scene by a Caucasian policeman in sunglasses unaware that his interlocutor is white until he removes them, satirising the severe racial issues that affected the police at this time. When it is shown on television, it is edited to remove these references.

Plot

The quartet are bored to exasperation, despite the fact that there are roller skating vegetables in the kitchen sink. Several other remarkable and unlikely phenomena occur around them throughout the episode, entirely unnoticed by the characters, as they attempt to find something to relieve their boredom. The song "Good Day Sunshine" by The Beatles is playing as dawn comes up. Even a televised siege parodying the 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege that spills into their living room goes unnoticed.

A visit to the local pub, where Vyvyan meets his long-lost mother, and Rik and Neil both reveal that they don't drink, fails to provide entertainment. Madness make an appearance at the pub, renamed the Kebab and Calculator, and perform their current hit at that time, "House of Fun". At one point Neil suggests they go to lectures, but the idea is met with incredulity by his housemates. The exterior shots of the pub scene were filmed at the Westbury Park Tavern in Henleaze, Bristol.

In reference to the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks rejects the lentils that Neil has prepared (she dismisses it as "bloody hippie food"), and the Three Bears also reject the lentils and opt to "go to McDonald's" instead.

As they drift off to sleep for another night, a spaceship lands on their roof, with Neil still obliviously sitting on his windowsill.

Characters

As with all episodes of The Young Ones, the main four characters are student housemates Mike (Christopher Ryan), Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson), Rick (Rik Mayall), and Neil (Nigel Planer). Alexei Sayle stars as Billy Balowski, an eccentric taxi driver and brother of the students' landlord Jerzei.

Mark Arden and Stephen Frost play a pair of rather stupid policemen who deliver a series of gags separately from the other characters. They are then revealed to be the subject of an article on the front of The Guardian with the headline "Police I.Q. Shocker".

Also in this episode is David Rappaport, playing Ftumch the devil. This is one of his two appearances in The Young Ones, the other being as a different character in Flood .

The episode also features a performance of House of Fun by ska band Madness. In addition, lead singer Suggs has a line of dialogue in the episode. When Rick asks if the band knows "Summer Holiday" by Cliff Richard, Suggs replies, "You hum it, I'll smash your face in!"

Actress and writer Pauline Melville appears as Vyvyan's mother.

Related Research Articles

<i>Bottom</i> (TV series) British TV sitcom (1991–1995)

Bottom is a British sitcom created by Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson that ran for three series on BBC2 from 1991 to 1995. It focuses on Richard "Richie" Richard (Mayall) and Edward Elizabeth "Eddie" Hitler (Edmondson), two unemployed, crude, and perverted flatmates living in Hammersmith, London, who aspire to better themselves. Bottom became known for its chaotic, nihilistic humour and violent slapstick comedy. In 2004, Bottom was ranked 45th in a BBC poll for Britain's Best Sitcom.

<i>The Young Ones</i> (TV series) British sitcom

The Young Ones is a British sitcom written by Rik Mayall, Ben Elton, and Lise Mayer, starring Adrian Edmondson, Mayall, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan, and Alexei Sayle, and broadcast on BBC Two for two series, first shown in 1982 and 1984. The show focused on the lives of four dissimilar students and their landlord's family on different plots that often included anarchic, offbeat, surreal humour. The show often included slapstick gags, visual humour and surreal jokes sometimes acted out by puppets, with each episode also featuring a notable selection of guest stars and musical numbers from various performers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rik Mayall</span> English comedian (1958–2014)

Richard Michael Mayall was an English comedian, actor and writer. He formed a close partnership with Ade Edmondson while they were students at Manchester University, and was a pioneer of alternative comedy in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suggs</span> English musician

Graham McPherson, known primarily by his stage name Suggs, is an English singer-songwriter, musician, radio personality and actor.

"Oil" is the second episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first aired on BBC2 on 16 November 1982.

"Bomb" is the fourth episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first aired on BBC2 on 30 November 1982. The episode notably satirises the then-current anxieties of a potential nuclear war, and features references to the Protect and Survive pamphlets intended to be distributed in the UK in the event of such a conflict.

"Flood" is the sixth episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first aired on BBC2 on 14 December 1982 and was the final episode of the first series.

"Bambi" is the seventh episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was broadcast on BBC2 on 8 May 1984, as the first episode of the show's second series. It parodies University Challenge. This scene also showcased the two emerging sides of British comedy at the time: The Young Ones, representative of the new British 'Punk' Alternative Comedy scene, against comedians who represented the new "Oxbridge" Comedy Scene.

"Cash" is the eighth episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first broadcast on BBC Two on 15 May 1984. This particular episode is unusual in that it is filmed to enable the wall with the fireplace, which would usually be 'behind camera,' to be in view during internal scenes. In this case, the wall with the living room window becomes the fourth wall.

"Nasty" is the ninth episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first aired on BBC2 on 29 May 1984.

"Time" is the tenth episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first aired on BBC2 on 5 June 1984.

"Sick" is the eleventh episode of British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson. It was first aired on BBC2 on 12 June 1984. The episode features the song "Our House", performed by Madness, the only band to appear on the show twice.

"Summer Holiday" is the twelfth and final episode of the British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, and Lise Mayer, and directed by Paul Jackson and Ed Bye. It was first aired on BBC2 on 19 June 1984.

"Demolition" is the pilot episode for British sitcom The Young Ones. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, and it was directed by Paul Jackson. Although made as a pilot episode, the five subsequent episodes had been commissioned and recorded by the time of broadcast, so "Demolition" was promoted to the ordinary first episode of a series and has remained as so. It was first aired on BBC2 on 9 November 1982.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Our House (Madness song)</span> 1982 single by Madness

"Our House" is a song by the English ska and pop band Madness and was written by second lead vocalist Chas Smash and guitarist Chris Foreman. It was released as the lead single from their fourth studio album, The Rise & Fall, on 12 November 1982. The song charted within the top ten in several countries, and it was the band's biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It won the category Best Pop Song at the May 1983 Ivor Novello Awards.

Bottom Live 2003: Weapons Grade Y-Fronts Tour is the fifth and final live stage show based on the UK TV series Bottom. It ran in 2003 and was recorded for VHS and DVD release at the Cliffs Pavilion Theatre in Southend-on-Sea. It was written by and starred Rik Mayall as Richie and Adrian Edmondson as Eddie. This was the final show where Mayall and Edmondson play their characters.

<i>The Young Ones</i> (video game) 1986 video game

The Young Ones is an 8-bit Home Computer game based on the British comedy television series, The Young Ones. The game was published in 1986 by Orpheus Software, based in Hatley St George in Bedfordshire, UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian Edmondson</span> English actor, comedian, musician and writer (born 1957)

Adrian Charles Edmondson is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer and television presenter. He was part of the alternative comedy boom in the early 1980s and had roles in the television series The Young Ones (1982–1984) and Bottom (1991–1995), which he wrote together with his collaborator Rik Mayall. Edmondson also appeared in The Comic Strip Presents... series of films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. For two episodes of this he created the spoof heavy metal band Bad News, and for another he played his nihilistic alter-ego Eddie Monsoon, an offensive South African television star.

References

  1. ↑ ""The Young Ones" Boring (1982)". IMDb. Retrieved 1 May 2009. Original Air Date: 23 November 1982 (Season 1, Episode 3)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.