Nasty (The Young Ones)

Last updated

"Nasty"
The Young Ones episode
Episode no.Series 2
Episode 3
Directed by Paul Jackson
Written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer
Produced byPaul Jackson
Featured music Peter Brewis
Original air date29 May 1984 (1984-05-29)
Running time34:56
Guest appearances
Featuring
The Damned
With
Mark Arden, Helen Atkinson Wood, Chris Barrie, Paul Bradley, Arnold Brown, Vikki Chambers, Ron Cook, Dawn French, Stephen Frost, Hale and Pace, Damaris Hayman, Daniel Peacock, Barry Stanton, Andy de la Tour, Peter Wear and Terry Jones
Episode chronology
 Previous
"Cash"
Next 
"Time"

"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. [1]

Contents

Plot

The episode begins with a man playing chess against Death. After losing to the man, Death declares "Bollocks to this!" and attacks the man with his scythe. The horror movie-themed opening credits are followed by Mike, Rick, Vyvyan and Neil carrying a coffin through a local cemetery. The coffin is brought to a freshly-dug grave where a passing woman asks a spade-holding Neil if he digs graves, to which Neil replies, "Yeah, they're all right." After encountering a drunken vicar and two gravediggers, the episode then takes a flashback to events leading up to the burial. It is bath night, and while Neil jumps into the muddy bathwater used in the three others' previous baths (inadvertently finding his long-lost bicycle in the process), Rick locks himself in his room and gets on his bed for a sneaky read of Cosmopolitan - only to nearly get cut in half by Vyvyan's cleverly placed circular saw. Mike and Vyvyan spend the time trying to set up the new video recorder they have secured, in order to watch a video nasty. A scene-stealing postman then arrives to deliver a human-shaped package from the Transvaal. After falling out of the bathroom window and having his bedroom boarded up, Neil arrives downstairs wearing a dress he found in Rick's room (with Rick's name tagged in the back). Neil briefly gets the video machine to work by plugging it - but suffers a sustained electric shock in the process - and the group is shown a commercial for a women's pain reliever set in Hell.

After the video stops working once again, the package delivered earlier has opened. This turns out to be a vampire, who claims he is really just a driving instructor from Johannesburg. The vampire chases the boys, but stops to use the toilet. Locked in the toilet, the vampire's driving instructor ruse fails when he incorrectly answers Vyvyan's Highway Code question about what to do when crossing a humpback bridge. When the four realise that vampires only attack virgins, it leads to them all unconvincingly denying their sexual purity. But when the vampire returns downstairs, he is hit by sunlight streaming through the window (as he still has his wristwatch set to South African time) - and he is placed inside a dual-purpose sofa-coffin. The scene flash-forwards back to the graveyard, where Mike realises it is half-past nine. The vampire then comes out from the coffin and reveals himself to be Harry the Bastard, an employee from Rumbelows from whom they rented the video machine. Harry announces that their deadline for returning the machine has just elapsed and they now owe him £500 in late fees. As the closing line of the episode, the entire gang at the grave site turn to the camera and say, "Well, what a complete bastard!" The closing credits play over Death and the man from the chess match (who is now a ghost) arguing at a golf hole.

Characters

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). Alexei Sayle starred as the South African vampire-slash-driving instructor. Monty Python alumnus Terry Jones makes a cameo as a drunken vicar and comedy duo Hale & Pace appear as a pair of gravediggers that the lads tell their story to. Arnold Brown appears as the man in the opening scene playing chess against Death. Dawn French and Helen Atkinson-Wood appear in the pain reliever commercial set in Hell.

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.

Christopher Ryan is a British actor best known for his roles as Mike TheCoolPerson 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 played Sontaran General Staal in Doctor Who in 2008.

<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.

"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 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.

"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">The Black Seal</span> 6th episode of the 1st series of Blackadder

"The Black Seal" is the sixth and final episode of The Black Adder, the first serial in the BBC Television Blackadder series. Set in late 15th-century England, the episode concludes the alternate history of the last years of the House of York with the final adventure of Prince Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh, son of the fictional King Richard IV. The story follows a conspiracy by Edmund to overthrow the King and seize the Throne of England for himself, assisted by a band of violent mercenaries.

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.

Dancing Queen is a 1993 British television film starring Rik Mayall and Helena Bonham Carter. The romantic comedy follows the misfortune of Neil (Mayall), a bridegroom trying to get back to his bride with the help of his newfound friend Pandora/Julie the stripper. It was the third episode of the first series of the Granada Television series Rik Mayall Presents.

<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" Nasty (1984)". IMDb. Retrieved 1 May 2009. Original Air Date: 29 May 1984 (Season 2, Episode 9)