The absolute very first time I saw the Young Ones was the absolute very first episode in Nov 1982. Pretty much everyone at my school must’ve seen it, even the teachers, because everyone was doing impressions of the characters the next day at school, even the teachers. I guess with only 3 channels (Channel 4 had literally been launched only a week beforehand so we hadn’t got used to it being an option) it wasn’t difficult to promote a new show to a teenage audience when there was bugger all for them to watch otherwise.
On BBC2, the nearest thing they had to youth culture was the test card with that young girl who, for some reason known only to her and the BBC producers, had decided to play noughts and crosses on a blackboard with the clown who'd turn up in Stephen King’s It. On a wet day in the holidays, once you’d read Smash Hits and pulled your Rubik's cube apart in an effort to cheat, there was literally nothing else to do except watch telly. If the test card was the only thing on telly, you watched that.
Clearly in a world before smartphones, we all found our own ways of keeping amused. Mine was crawling behind my mum’s vacuum as she pulled it from room to room because it blew hot air (presumably unfiltered and full of dust and mites) out of the back and into my face. I also used to eat frozen yoghurt by defrosting it in front of the electric fan heater (these were pre-microwave days) so my spoon wouldn’t bend and I'd pour fairy liquid into the bath instead of Matey because it created bigger bubbles even if it did give me eczema. We’ve all got our weird habits though, am I right? I can't speak for all of you but at least mine were pretty harmless.
Anyway, back to Scumbag College. It’s hard to explain just how different and refreshing the Young Ones was for anyone under the age of 25 at the time. Sitcom offerings, up to that point, had been Terry & June, George & Mildred and The Good Life plus a few racist and homophobic options if you wanted something old school (Love They Neighbour, Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Are you Being Served). They were all sexist – even the non-racist and non-homophobic ones – but this was the 70s so only to be expected. Burn the tapes I say.
Porridge and Fawlty Towers were obviously funny but my parents would watch and laugh at them so they couldn’t have been aimed at people my age. If they got a snigger out of me, it was a bonus for them. The Young Ones, on the other hand, felt like the only programme specifically for young people which wasn’t actually broadcast in the kids teatime slot before the early evening news. I don’t suppose my mum and dad ever watched the Young Ones but, if they did, I can be absolutely certain that the chances of them stifling a snigger were about as likely as staying in their chairs once the national anthem came on at the end of the evening programming (about 10:30pm in those days).
I know no one watches telly anymore except on catch-up but, in the 70s & 80s, it was the glue which cemented a family together (presumably UHU - great brand name). There was only one television set in a house and one telephone line which your older brother or sister was likely to be using for a large part of the evening. Sitting together in front of the TV - all of you actually watching the same programme at the same time as it was broadcast - was a real bonding experience. It gave you something to talk about as a family. Usually this was arguing over who shot JR or Dirty Den but, thanks to Blankety Blank's formulaic seating plan, we also took turns guessing who'd be the 'zany celeb' in the middle of the bottom row (usually Kenny Everett). We got to practice our Mike Yarwood impressions as well. Frank Spencer and Dick Emery were my forte and, if somehow the family managed not to crack up when I launched into my signature "hmmm Betty, the cat's done a whoopsie on the carpet", I'd definitely have them in stitches with a pitch perfect "ooh, you are awful but I like you".
Whilst my Dad seemed content to stick with Dick Emery impressions from then on (he still does them today at 90, much to the bewilderment of the young care home staff who wouldn't know Dick Emery if he shoved them in the chest - here), I moved on to quotes from the Young Ones which, unlike Frank & Dick, didn't prove quite so popular with my parents.
There were only twelve episodes in total, all of which were forensically dissected at school the following day. I particularly remember the flash frames in series 2 stirring up a few mass-brainwashing conspiracy theories. Other topics of interest were Rik, Vyvyan & co breaking the 4th wall (although, in those days, the concept of numbered walls was yet to catch on so we called it "talking to the camera") and their obsession with Cliff 'oh ffs he's got the Xmas No.1 AGAIN' Richard. Am I alone in secretly loving the Comic Relief single of Living Doll? Probably.
One nice move was to incorporate the typical light entertainment device of the ‘musical interlude’ into the actual set for the cast to interact with (Madness, Motorhead, Dexy’s etc) because, apparently, that got them a bigger budget from the BBC box-tickers (god knows what they spent it on - fake snot I assume). I particularly liked Amazulu in the first series but the single they played on the show - Moonlight Romance - never even charted so I was clearly the only one who did.
I watched a few episodes again recently and was delighted to find one with video nasties as the main focus. I’ve not heard that expression since the 80s and have just checked with my kids and they've not come across it at all. Video nasties were a comprehensive record of all the obscene or violent films which the DPP felt ought to be banned in the UK, thus providing an invaluable shopping list for young people to take to their local video shop and hire them out. You could simply go onto the DPP website and print.......ohhh wait, it was 1982 so you couldn't.
I wanted to avoid filling up this blog post with quotes from the series but I have to mention the exchange in the opening scene of that episode when an old woman (ie someone over the age of 40), pushing a corpse in a wheelbarrow through a cemetery, asks Neil the Hippy whether he digs graves. ‘Yeah,' he replies, 'they’re alright.’ Even my folks might have laughed at that one.
Next: ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME......NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE
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