This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2015) |
"Demolition" | |
---|---|
The Young Ones episode | |
Episode no. | Series 1 Episode 1 |
Directed by | Paul Jackson |
Written by | Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer |
Original air date | 9 November 1982 |
Guest appearance | |
Nine Below Zero | |
"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. [1]
Four dissimilar male students studying at the fictional Scumbag College go about their day-to-day life, sharing rooms in a squalid house. Neil cooks a lentil casserole that no one wants to eat, then becomes so depressed that he attempts suicide twice. He first tries to suffocate himself in a gas-filled oven but stops upon seeing how filthy it is; next he tries to hang himself, only to find that he has left too much slack in the rope. Vyvyan brings home an amputated human leg from the college morgue, planning to mount it on the bonnet of his car instead of writing an essay about it for anatomy class. Rick, who becomes extremely agitated whenever he perceives any slight against Cliff Richard, begins smashing saucers and uses Neil's guitar to attack a pair of joke-telling rats. Jerzei Balowski, the group's landlord, visits to ask that they pay the rent they owe, but Mike distracts him until he agrees to settle accounts with them later.
Vyvyan announces that the four have received a letter from the council informing them that their house is to be demolished the next day, and each one devises his own plan to fight the decision. Vyvyan tries to destroy the house himself; Neil considers hiding inside a wall cavity, then places his head in the path of a workman's sledgehammer; and Mike tries to seduce a female council representative. Meanwhile, Rick ties himself to a large cross in front of the house and begins to read a protest poem he has written, but switches to singing a snippet from Richard's song "Living Doll" after he drops his notebook. None of their strategies is successful in deterring the council, but the demolition order becomes moot when an airplane suddenly crashes into the house and destroys it.
As with all episodes of The Young Ones, the main four characters were student housemates Mike (Christopher Ryan); Vyvyan (Adrian Edmondson); Rick (Rik Mayall) and Neil (Nigel Planer). However, there are several telltale signs of this being the pilot episode; the characters' individual personalities are not as fleshed out as in later episodes, Rick's outfit is different, and he and Vyvyan sport shorter haircuts. The episode also introduces their landlord Jerzei Balowski (Alexei Sayle), a character who would only appear once more during the first series and twice more in total. Sayle, however, featured in every episode of the dozen made. Ben Elton appears as the host of a teenager-oriented BBC2 show called Nozin' Aroun'; Rick kicks in the television screen upon watching it, ridiculing the on-air personnel's "hippie" traits and preference for flared trousers.
The opening theme music is an arrangement of the 1961 song "The Young Ones", performed by the cast. This recording was used for the opening of all six episodes of series one and four of the six episodes of series two.
The musical interlude for this episode was provided by the band Nine Below Zero, performing "11 + 11."
The original edit of the episode featured an arrangement by Peter Brewis of "The Young Ones" title song that was ultimately unused, although the music was reconfigured into the opening music of the second series episode "Time." The broadcast version of the episode features closing theme music by Brewis that would be used for most of the series' episodes.
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.
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.
The Comic Strip are a group of British comedians who came to prominence in the 1980s. They are known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents..., which was labelled as a pioneering example of the alternative comedy scene. The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Jennifer Saunders, with appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane, Alexei Sayle and others.
Christopher Papazoglou, known professionally as Christopher Ryan, is a British actor best known for his roles as Mike The Cool Person in the BBC comedy series The Young Ones, Dave Hedgehog in the BBC comedy series Bottom, Tony Driscoll in the BBC comedy series Only Fools and Horses, and as Edina Monsoon's ex-husband Marshall Turtle in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. He has also appeared as the McKendrick twins in One Foot in the Grave, and in Doctor Who played the Mentor Kiv in Trial of a Time Lord in 1986 and Sontaran General Staal in 2008 and 2010.
Richard Michael Mayall was an English actor, comedian 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.
Filthy Rich & Catflap is a BBC sitcom produced in 1986 and broadcast in 1987. The series featured former The Young Ones co-stars Nigel Planer, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson as its three titular characters. It was written by Ben Elton, and produced and directed by Paul Jackson, with film sequences directed by Ed Bye. The show's music was written by Peter Brewis. One series consisting of six half-hour episodes was produced. Despite the continuity announcer saying that the show would return the following year, only one series was ever made due to a fall-out between Mayall and Elton over creative control.
"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.
"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.
"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 BBC2 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.
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.
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.
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.
Original Air Date: 9 November 1982 (Season 1, Episode 1)