The Young Ones: Episode Five

The Dylan thing was fine but nothing significant.

No, Madness -- though that episode did have Rik writing to "the lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen" since he couldn't write to his MP, being an anarchist.

It's funny that Sean mentions the deal about the Damned doing "Nasty," because that was in fact my introduction to the group and, via my purchase of The Light At the End of the Tunnel, punk rock in general (I'm not counting my hearing the Clash circa 1982 because "Rock the Casbah" sucked then and sucks now). I've never seen the Dylan supergroup cover, though -- for rights reasons it didn't surface on the videotape versions I've got, though maybe the DVD will take care of it.

But thanks for the tip. Maybe once I am finished with school I can splurge on something like that.

D'oh! ;-)

But thanks for the tip. Maybe once I am finished with school I can splurge on something like that.

It would be no less than you deserve as a reward for dealing with The Endless Slog of Doom.

Wasn't this "I'm a Glaswegian?" Spoken by Viv's hamster, SPG, in a thick Scottish brogue?

"No, operator, Qaddafi."

Ned is officially ILM's Young Ones Uber-Spod! Well done Ned.

"It was not me, it was the other three..."

The show hit the States thanks to MTV of all things -- they picked it up in the late eighties and started screening all twelve shows (they were on a Brit comedy kick; they also broadcast all the Monty Python episodes regularly -- and to their credit, without commercial breaks). So that's how I got the bug. ;-) When all the episodes came out on tape a while back, I just had to get them, by default...

Yes - and what was it that then got put on the record player ? Wasn't it something from the Human League's 'Dare' ?
Mind you, I recall Rik's dancing to it being better than that of the HL Gurls..

Blast this ageing memory! I have this horrible feeling that I'm going to spend a lot of time on ILM being corrected by you Ned . . .

"Get Down And Groove..." was from "Time" as mentioned above. "Hey Vyv, you dancing?" "You asking?" "I'm asking!" "Well, pi$$ off!"

"Listen, man, sleep gives you cancer, EVERYONE knows that!"

Actually, wait, I missed this. So I must hear it...

Question: Hello from the United States. My friends and I are huge TYO fans, and we've been working on collecting information about the musical acts that appeared on it for a fan WWW site. (Accuracy and completeness is the ultimate point here, so we're going to great lengths to dig up information.) Madness had the distinction of being the only double appearance, so they're of particular interest.

I'm sure the guys are often busy, but we would love to hear comments from them about their appearance on TYO. Other acts have been quite helpful, offering juicy little tidbits about their involvement with the show, and we're hoping the guys could follow suit. Some points we especially would love comment on include Suggs' line to Rick ("You hum it, I'll smash your face in") which appears to be the only line spoken by any musical act, and the fight scene during "Our House". Of course, any information they would care to provide would be most appreciated. Thank you for any assistance you can provide. C. Lance Norman Chris' Answer: This programme was going to be called "House of Fun". When it was changed to the "Young Ones" we were asked to record a version of the "Young Ones" Which we didn't. Because we couldn't be arsed. Anyhow,the writers Richard Curtis and Ben Elton really liked us. We were actually going to do a Madness TV show which they had written. There were some great gags in the pilots which I was glad to see recycled in the later work of the two authors. We made two ten minute pilots but couldn't get the backing (as an incidental aside, we were rehearsing some new songs at about this time and were all fired up at the possibility of becoming TV stars when Mike made the decision that broke a thousand young girls hearts and decided to tell us that he couldn't commit himself to doing a TV series or in fact, the band anymore). The line "you hum it, I'll smash your face in " was originally planned for the two budding thespians in the band the most aggressive pair, that is to say, Lee or Chas, who both had a "hard" image. However, after a day of them walking around trying the line out in various vocal styles, wigs costumes etc. I suggested that Suggs should say it. Because you wouldn't really expect him to. I think we got it there don't you?

No, it was included. I can see how missing that would make the logic of the episode fall apart a bit!

i once saw american python fans recreating the parrot sketch perfectly on a documentary about the group -- a moment of documentary i would not have been surprised to see as a gag on python

young ones has drama and depth but it still feels like a sub carl barks comic, courtesy of cliff richard

having had re-runs and friends' recorded copies pop up here and there over the years, the idea of buying a dvd of the young ones seems a truly pythonesque use of money (as does impatiently enduring ben elton's music hall stand up comedy)

I'm sure plenty of other people have similarly disinteresting stories about location shoots, and that some people actually have interesting ones.

i got it when it came out. watched it a few times, enjoyed it greatly, had my fill of it, and sold it on amazon for $40.