房企的下一个增长极在哪里
- Awards And Honors:
- BAFTA
Who were the main actors in the British sitcom The Young Ones (1982–84)?
What was the premise of The Young Ones?
How did The Young Ones incorporate music into the show?
What was the legacy of The Young Ones ?
What happened in the series finale of The Young Ones?
The Young Ones (British television series), TV sitcom starring Rik Mayall, Adrian (“Ade”) Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan, and Alexei Sayle. The show ran on British television on the BBC Two channel from 1982 to 1984. It is credited with being highly influential in British comedy, winning one British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) TV award, and it was ranked 31st in a 2004 BBC “Best Sitcom” poll.
Premise
The Young Ones focused on four mismatched university students—punk rocker and medical student Vyvyan (played by Edmondson), pessimistic hippie Neil (Planer), the “cool guy” and group leader Mike (Ryan), and poet and political upstart Rick (Mayall) who frequently switched allegiances—all attending the fictional Scumbag College. Sayle played multiple supporting characters, including the students’ landlord. The plots revolved around how they dealt with ordinary roommate difficulties, such as paying the rent and responsibility for household chores, punctuated by non sequitur tangents and violent slapstick humor. The show’s juvenile, gross-out comedy was mixed with sociopolitical references about life for young people in England during the era of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a time of high unemployment and inflation.
Background and creation
Mayall and Edmondson met at the University of Manchester in 1975. The two found common ground in their appreciation for bawdy slapstick comedy, and they formed a stand-up comedy duo called 20th Century Coyote in 1976. While at university Mayall and Edmondson met Lise Mayer and Ben Elton, both of whom Mayall would partner with to write The Young Ones episodes.
After university Mayall, Edmondson, and several other comedians on the London stand-up circuit established a comedy club called the Comic Strip, where they met Paul Jackson, the future producer of The Young Ones. The Comic Strip became a breeding ground for comedy stars, including Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, and it was there that Mayall, Edmondson, Sayle, Planer, and Jackson connected. The Young Ones characters were based on stand-up routines the cast performed at the Comic Strip. Mayall created a character who was an anarchistic poet. Vyvyan was based on one of Edmondson’s characters from 20th Century Coyote. One of Planer’s routines involved a depressed hippie folk singer, who became the morose hippie Neil. The character of Mike was developed by Peter Richardson, Planer’s comedy partner.
Jackson, who worked with the BBC, gave Planer, Mayall, and Sayle an opportunity to bring their acts to television on a 1980 show called Boom Boom, Out Go the Lights, which was not a great success. “They had to edit it so much that it lost the excitement of the live shows,” Mayer told The Guardian in 2022. Mayall and Mayer felt that this kind of material would work better in a situation-comedy format. Mayall gave Jackson a script for a pilot, but it was met with a less-than-enthusiastic response at the BBC. However, after Five Go Mad in Dorset—a show with similar comedy starring Edmondson, Saunders, French, Richardson, and Robbie Coltrane—aired on BBC competitor Channel 4, the BBC gave the go-ahead for a series.
Broadcast history
Mayall, Mayer, and Elton wrote scripts around the characters that Mayall, Edmondson, Planer, and Richardson had honed at the Comic Strip. Richardson was offered the part of Mike, but when he declined, the part went to Ryan. Sayle, a more established comedian who had already appeared on television, played multiple supporting characters, including the roommates’ landlord, Jerzei Balowski.
The Young Ones debuted on BBC Two on November 9, 1982. The show’s theme music and name came from the song “The Young Ones” by British pop star Cliff Richard; the theme was performed in character by the four main actors. The show had characters break the fourth wall (speaking directly to the audience) and featured such surreal elements as flashing subliminal messages, talking puppets, and Vyvyan making an entrance by crashing through a wall. Later episodes featured a talking hamster named Special Patrol Group (a reference to a division of London’s police department, with the voice provided by Mayall), a giant eclair falling from the ceiling, a nuclear device, a vampire, and other elements of absurdist humor.
The Young Ones differed from other comedy shows by featuring musical acts; this allowed the BBC to put it in the category of an entertainment program rather than a sitcom, as entertainment shows got more funding than sitcoms at the BBC. Bands that appeared on the show included Mot?rhead, Madness, the Damned, and Dexys Midnight Runners.
The show ran for only two seasons with six episodes each. In the series finale, “Summer Holiday,” which aired on June 19, 1984, the roommates are evicted from their flat by their landlord. After a desperate bank heist, they steal a bus and, as they drive away, crash through a billboard of Cliff Richard and plummet off a cliff. They survive the fall but the bus promptly explodes, ending the series.
Legacy
Despite the series ending, The Young Ones’ popularity continued. In 1985 the show won a BAFTA TV Award for best comedy series. The same year MTV picked up The Young Ones; it was the first non-music program on the American music channel. The Young Ones also later aired on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Comedy Central, and BBC America.
Mayall had the most consistent post-show success among the main cast, appearing regularly in TV shows and film until his death in 2014. In 1984 Planer, in character as Neil, had a number two hit on the U.K. charts with a cover of Traffic’s “Hole in My Shoe.” Mayall and Edmondson teamed up for a series of TV shows and live comedy, most notably the TV sitcom Bottom (1991–95). Ryan also appeared in Bottom and had a recurring role on the internationally successful sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, created by Saunders. Edmondson and Saunders married in 1985.
In 1990 an American pilot of The Young Ones called Oh, No! Not THEM! aired on Fox TV. The show featured Planer reprising his role as Neil and former child actor Jackie Earle Haley. The show was not picked up.