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A documentary created by Gold on the creation of The Young Ones.

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'The Story of The Young Ones' - To celebrate the 25th anniversary of this classic comedy series, Nicola and Anthony made three documentaries to accompany the DVD release. These documentaries, included a 50 minute making of, exploring the origins of this landmark show and an exploration of the alternative comedy scene from which it came.

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Commentary on how the Young Ones shifted humour on television.

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A surrealistic, irreverent, and often violent exploration of four college students sharing a seedy house, "The Young Ones," the first BBC series to debut on MTV, became a cult sensation that has kept its popularity for decades, gave audiences their first look at British comedians later to become worldwide stars, and predicted some of the shows that MTV made famous.

Much as stand-up comedy in America saw a sea change in style and attitude during the '70s counterculture boom, England in the '80s was also in the midst of a shake-up in who would be creating comedy and how it would be done.

Oddly enough, both groups were getting noticed at clubs called The Comedy Store, though England's had no connection to the famous Mitzi Shore-operated landmark aside from inspiration.

This new breed of British comedians were determined to stand out in direct, punkish contrast to both old traditionalist comedians, white males making cheap and often derogatory jokes about women and minorities, and newer comedians that had more progressive ideas, but were still from affluent backgrounds and thus having a certain detachment from the working class. These were educated but not posh individuals who wanted to shake up the audience, either through confrontational jokes or unconventional behavior.

Among the performers who earned a following from The Comedy Store were Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, who performed unpredictable improv-style sketches under the name 20th Century Coyote, Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson, who did genre lampoons often featuring escalating comic violence as The Outer Limits, and the club's house M.C., Alexei Sayle, who mixed physical gags with directly left-leaning political material.

Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders, Nigel Planer, Arnold Brown, Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, Dawn French, Ade Edmondson

These five performers, along with some other promising talents, ultimately decamped and created their own club in Soho, The Comic Strip. Their reputations grew even larger to the point where two TV networks eagerly sought them out to put them on the air.

Channel 4, not yet broadcasting, signed them to a series of six half-hour programs under the umbrella title "The Comic Strip Presents." As this show was being assembled, the BBC, with producer Paul Jackson, also offered them a series, which would be ostensibly a conventional sitcom, peppered with all the comedians' strengths, which became "The Young Ones."

"The Comic Strip Presents" debuted on the night of Channel 4's first broadcast, November 2, 1982, with "The Young Ones" launching on BBC2 a week later on November 9.

The concept of the show came from Rik Mayall, Lise Mayer - who was dating Mayall during production - and Ben Elton, a college friend later to embark on his own stand-up career.

They figured that for a sitcom setting, the actors needed to be in the same room for long stretches of time to play off each other, and while they initially considered making the characters unemployed, thought that notion would be too political.

Instead, Mayall decided to flip the script, and make them college students, saying, "I wanted them to be privileged, and for people to hate them."

Much of the show's characters emerged out of existing material the actors had previously worked out on stage. Mayall had created a vain, pompous, and easily angered poet character in his act which evolved into Rick, the posturing political agitator with an incongruous love of Cliff Richard.

Similarly, Planer had been playing a dim, earnest hippie character in his act which became the base for Neil, the glum and easily dominated pacifist. Edmonson had frequently used over-the-top violence in his sketches with Mayall, which was channeled into punk rocker Vyvyan, whose solution to most issues with people and things was to batter them with heavy blunt objects. Sayle effectively served as a human non-sequitur, showing up in an episode, doing something odd, and then leaving the scene.

Mike, the smooth semi-straight man and official "Cool Person" of the house, was the only character that didn't have an antecedent from the Comic Strip days. It was also the only character not portrayed by a Comic Strip alumnus.

While intended for Planer's partner Peter Richardson, Richardson clashed fiercely with BBC producer Paul Jackson and exited the series before filming, to be replaced by actor Christopher Ryan.

The Young Ones on location in Bristol, UK, August 1982, left to right: Chris Ryan ("Mike"), Rik Mayall ("Rick"), Nigel Planer ("Neil") and Ade Edmondson ("Vyvyan")

Together, this character group allowed Mayall and the writers to tweak the template of the traditional family sitcom. "If you look at 'The Young Ones', it was a nuclear family. Mike was the dad, Neil was the mum, Vyv was the little boy and Rick was the little girl, complete with pigtails."

In order to obtain the extra budget they anticipated to include special effects, location shoots, and the other wild items that added to the show's individuality, the creators decided each episode would feature a musical performance from a band, because this automatically changed the network's classification of the program from "comedy" to "variety," and thus allocated them more funds.

The bands tended to be left alone to perform their songs, though occasionally they were integrated for humorous effect, as in the episode "Sick", when Madness prematurely stopped singing "Our House" and fought amongst themselves.

The series quickly became a destination for other comedians, some friends of the show creators, others established elsewhere. Perhaps the most retroactively star-stuffed episode of the series was "Bambi", which featured appearances by Mel Smith, Griff-Rhys Jones, Robbie Coltrane, Tony Robinson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and Emma Thompson.

Since many of these performers had come from more affluent circumstances than the show regulars, the casting was fraught with some class tension, as Alexei Sayle recounted for The Guardian in 2013:

"I turned up for the recording to find several generations of Cambridge Footlights were in the show. 'I thought these people were the enemy!' I railed at the writers. 'The whole point of what we were doing was surely to challenge the smug hegemony of the Oxford, Cambridge, [privileged]-schoolboy comedy network, as well as destroying the old-school working men's club racists!' 'No, that was just you,' the writers replied. 'We never subscribed to your demented class-war ravings. We think all these people are lovely...Mel Smith's going to take us for a ride in his gold Rolls-Royce, and Griff Rhys Jones has been screaming abuse at minions to make us laugh.'"

The series ended for good after its second season in 1984.

Creator Mayall had observed, "If there were only twelve [episodes of] 'Fawlty Towers', why would I presume to do more?"

The cast had already moved on to other projects when MTV picked up the U.S. rights to the show and began airing it Sunday nights in June 1985.

Plenty of other British TV comedies had received exposure in America around that time, but most were relegated to selected PBS stations, and, aside from "Monty Python's Flying Circus," appealed to an older demographic.

Shows like "Are You Being Served," and "The Good Life," with their middle-aged casts and cutesy innuendos and general distance from everyday realities had little appeal to the rock 'n' roll crowd.

"The Good Life" was directly slagged by Vyvyan in the "Sick" episode as he ranted, "I hate it! It's so bloody nice! [Those characters are] nothing but a couple of reactionary stereotypes confirming the myth that everyone in Britain is a lovable middle-class eccentric!"

"The Young Ones" quickly became a U.S. hit. John Sykes, then-VP of programming for MTV, told Billboard magazine in November 1985, "Even though there are only fourteen episodes, we find viewers getting more and more excited about the show," and also suggested the network would commission new episodes.

While that idea did not pan out, MTV later acquired U.S. rights to "The Comic Strip Presents" from Channel 4, and ran those episodes after "The Young Ones" for fans eager to see more of the cast's work.

Planer's put-upon hippie Neil became the favorite of U.K. and U.S. viewers alike. A tie-in book, Neil's Book of the Dead, presenting his musings and poetry, was published in England in 1984.

A companion record followed, Neil's Heavy Concept Album, featuring prog rock covers and sketches produced by Eurythmics' Dave Stewart. Its first single, a cover of Traffic's "Hole in My Shoe," went to #2 on the UK Singles chart in July 1984.

In late 1985, based on the success of the MTV run, Book of the Dead " received a U.S. release, and though the album did not, Planer appeared on MTV as Neil to do a Guest V.J. segment where "Hole in My Shoe" was aired; the video received repeat airings for a short time after.

Though a few years later " The Young Ones" would be gone from MTV, its impact upon the channel was large. Seeing that the music video crowd also craved comedy, MTV would add reruns of shows influential to "The Young Ones": "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "The Monkees."

Moreover, many of the original shows that MTV launched, as they began their move away from music video programming, can trace their roots to recurrent themes of "The Young Ones."

A house full of diverse individuals with caustic personalities that don't get along? Here's "The Real World"! Dim youth watching the telly and making rude observations? Hello "Beavis & Butthead"! Reckless guys subjecting each other to escalating pranks and grievous bodily harm? Welcome to " Jackass"! Self-centered narcissist with bad poetry demanding attention from people who don't like them? Come to " My Super Sweet Sixteen."

While allusions to other MTV hit shows may be stretching a point, it's clear that "The Young Ones" tapped into many primal interests and instincts of a generation, and MTV noticed what those were and exploited them ingeniously.

It's also notable that afterward, the next British sitcom to take America by storm would be "Absolutely Fabulous," created by and starring Jennifer Saunders, who was also a member of The Comic Strip collective, a two-time guest star on "The Young Ones," and since married to star Ade Edmondson.

Saunders' protagonist, Edina Monsoon, got her name by reworking his last name.

Though her husband had only minor impact on the series - singing its theme song, Bob Dylan's "This Wheel's On Fire," and appearing in two episodes - much like his earlier show, "AbFab" also dispensed with the politesse of the stereotypical British comedy and ventured to outrageous, vulgar possibilities that appealed to younger viewers. It too bypassed the traditional PBS route and debuted in the states on MTV's sister channel Comedy Central.

"AbFab" also featured "Young Ones" alumnus Christopher Ryan in a recurring role as Edina's first husband, Marshall.

All of the stars of "The Young Ones" continued to create more TV series and other works that fans should definitely seek out. And chances are still very good if you are at a party and happen to reply to someone by saying, "Don't be all heavy and uncool man" or snapping, "Well LA-DI-DAH, Neil!" there's an excellent chance you'll have a bonding opportunity with a fellow '80's malcontent.

It's clear that "The Young Ones" mayhem will be enjoyed by young ones for years to come.

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"The Young Ones": The '80s British sitcom helped define the MTV generation's sense of humor

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A surrealistic, irreverent, and often violent exploration of four college students sharing a seedy house, The Young Ones, the first BBC series to debut on MTV, became a cult sensation that has kept its popularity for decades, gave audiences their first look at British comedians later to become worldwide stars, and predicted some of the shows that MTV made famous.

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Production context of the state in which The Young Ones emerged.

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Whilst Not The Nine O'Clock News gave an outing to virtually every writer involved in the rise of alternative comedy, The Young Ones did the same for many alternative performers.

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General facts about the show.

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The Young Ones was one of the weirdest, strangest, oddest, yet funniest comedy shows of the 1980s. To say that it had a unique sense of humour was an understatement and it really did know no boundaries, as one minute it would be fairly normal, then a devil would appear, or an alien spaceship, with no explanation!

It had a wonderful cast, including the amazing Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, and they realised their student characters perfectly, injecting humour, wit and real charisma in to them all! Let's take a look back at this classic show with some amazing facts...

1. It wasn't a sit-com!

In spite of what you may think, the show was not a Sit-com! Why not I hear you cry, well have you ever wondered why there would be random segments with music played by top bands of the time? This was to get the show classified as "Light Entertainment " as the BBC had no remaining budget for a new Sit-com!

2. Rik Mayall was upset by some of the fans

As you will know if you have seen the program, it has some jokes that poke direct fun at 1980s police men and their sterotypes, who are often either stupid, overly violent or racist. The fact that police men actually loved The Young Ones is said to have upset Rik Mayall greatly!

3. The Young Ones were a family... kind of!

Rik Mayall once said that the Young Ones were actually the definition of the Nuclear Family, with Mike as the father figure, Neil as the mother, Vyvyan as the rebellious teenage son and Rik as the daughter (hence the pig tails!).

4. Madness nearly had their own series!

There were many hit pop acts that appeared in The Young Ones over the series' run, but Madness appeared twice, performing both Our House and House of Fun. The reason they appeared twice was that the BBC were thinking of giving Madness their own TV show in the same vein as the Monkees, but this never ended up happening.

5. Rik Mayall had more than one role

Remember Vyvyan's pet hamster, Special Patrol Group? He ended up badly when Vyvyan crashed his car in to a lamp post and SPG had been asleep on the bumper, but did you know that SPG was actually voiced by none other than Rik Mayall?

6. This London show was not filmed in London

In spite of the fact that The Young Ones was set in London, most of the outdoor shots were not filmed in London at all, but were filmed in Bristol as that was where the show's producer, Paul Jackson, was living at the time. Even the house used in the external scenes was Bristol, on Codrington Road to be precise!

7. It had many up and coming famous TV faces

The Young Ones gave many opportunities for up and coming stars to appear in guest cameo roles, and some of these would go on to have glittering TV careers of their own. The likes of Lenny Henry, Hugh Laurie, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones all appeared on the show.

8. It also had some people who became huge hits in Hollywood

As well as many future TV faces, The Young Ones gave cameos to some stars who would make it big in Hollywood, including Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltrane who would both go on to star in the Harry Potter series of movies!

9. It was ended so it didn't go stale

Rik Mayall, Ben Elton and Lise Mayer could not think of enough new jokes and material in the vein needed for The Young Ones' unique sense of humour, and so they decided to end the show after its second series by killing off the whole of the main cast of characters instead.

10. One episode had to be cut

There are some very dodgy moments in the Young Ones, we see people in the bath, on the toilet, in some very strange situations and some fairly graphic (but very silly) violence for the time, yet one scene in the episode "Nasty" had to be cut, when they included a sequence in which two teddy bears are seen having sex!

The Young Ones was a true classic and redefined a genre by daring to do something very different, and very few series have ever managed to create the same kind of unique feel. Has this brought back loads of memories and made you want to re-watch the show? I know I'm now off to my DVD room to get the two boxsets and watch both series back to back, so I'll see you soon! In the meantime make sure to leave us plenty of comments on your favourite shows, characters and scenes from the series, there are plenty to choose from!

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Check Out These 10 Facts About The Young Ones!

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The Young Ones was one of the weirdest, strangest, oddest, yet funniest comedy shows of the 1980s.

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Brief guide to The Young Ones.

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BFI Screenonline: Young Ones, The (1982-84)

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Anarchic sitcom which launched a generation of alternative comedians

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The Young Ones social engagement and themes.

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Get to know them and know the 80s. BBC

In the cult 1980s sitcom The Young Ones, lefty sociology student Rick, threatens to commit suicide and berates his fellow housemates:

I feel sorry for you, you zeroes, you nobodies. What's going to live on after you die? I'll tell you - nothing, that's what! ...

This house will become a shrine! And punks and skins and Rastas will all gather round and all hold their hands in sorrow for their fallen leader! And all the grown-ups will say: "But why are the kids crying?" And the kids will say, "Haven't you heard? Rick is dead! The People's Poet is dead!" ...

And then one particularly sensitive and articulate teenager will say: "Why kids, do you understand nothing? How can Rick be dead when we still have his poems?"

With the sudden passing of Rik Mayall, who played Rick on the show between 1982 and 1984, we still have his comedy. Although Mayall starred in many sitcoms, such as Blackadder, Bottom, The New Statesman and Man Down, he will best be remembered as "right-on" Rick from The Young Ones.

The Young Ones was a ground-breaking show. It was this that really launched the alternative comedy scene into the mainstream and held a fractured and surreal mirror up to life in Thatcherite Britain. Other shows like Not the Nine O' Clock News, Spitting Image and OTT may have offered satirical takes on the news items of the day, but The Young Ones took these issues and weaved them into the sitcom narrative. This is the reason for the show's longevity and partly why it has occupied a firm place in the popular memory. It can now be read as a great insight into the concerns of young people in the early 1980s.

There had been portrayals of left-wing people in British sitcoms before The Young Ones. There was Robert Lindsay's Citizen Smith in the late 1970s for example, but this had been a parody of the left-wing youth. The Young Ones, conversely, was a show made by those alienated by Thatcherism; a group of young and left-leaning comedians, led by Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle. It threatened the middle class and suburban status quo that dominated British comedy in the 1970s, and so had enormous appeal to the British youth.

BBC

Most remember the show's barbs towards Margaret Thatcher, such as Rick's description of the country suffering under the "Thatcherite junta" or his rant against her "Victorian values": "Oliver Twist, Geoffrey Dickens. Back to Victorian values. I hope you're satisfied, Thatcher!"

But it also addressed other issues affecting young people. Unemployment rose to 3 million in 1982, and The Young Ones, which debuted in November of that year, referenced this heavily. In the first episode, they mocked "yoof" television and the glib advice given to the unemployed in the fictional TV programme Nozin' Aroun'. Then in the second series, Neil has to join the police because it is the only job available.

And then one episode makes reference to the racism of the police, which had been a key reason for the inner-city riots across the country in 1981 and was highlighted by the subsequent inquiry by Lord Scarman. In others, the police are depicted as violent and quick to anger, smashing up people's property, threatening violence and hitting Rick with a chair. The height of this satirical look at the police is the portrayal of Sayle as Mussolini, working for the Metropolitan Police.

The issue of class stratification under Thatcher was also referred to. Famously in the episode Bambi, Alexei Sayle ranted about the job prospects for those not graduating from Oxbridge:

I mean, they told me while at school, if I got two CSEs, when I left school I'd be head of British Steel. That's a lot of nonsense, innit? I mean, you look at statistics, right. 83% of top British management have been to a public school and Oxbridge, right? 93% of the BBC have been to a public school and Oxbridge, right? 98% of the KGB have been to a public school and Oxbridge.

All you get from a public school, right - one, you get a top job, right, and two, you get an interest in perverse sexual practises. I mean, that's why British management's so inefficient. As soon as they get in the boardroom, they're all shutting each others' dicks in the door! "Go on, give it another slam, Sir Michael!" BAM! OW OW OW! "Come on, Sir Geoffrey, let's play the Panzer commander and the millkmaid, EW EW EW EW! YOO HOO!"

Later in this episode we see the most explicit attack on the upper class, with the four students from Scumbag College taking on Cambridge Footlights, comprised of Lord Snot (Stephen Fry), Lord Monty (Hugh Laurie), Miss Money-Sterling (Emma Thompson) and Mr Kendall-Mintcake (Ben Elton), on University Challenge. When asked by Rick if they could win, the host Bambi simply replies, "the posh kids always win, everybody knows that".

The Young Ones offered the youth of 1980s Britain laughs in the face of severe changes in British society, brought on by the neo-liberalism of the Thatcher government. It struck a chord with many and the show has been a cult hit ever since. Mayall's portrayal of Rick, the left-wing "right on" student, has become an enduring symbol of youth in Thatcherite Britain. It is recognisable in contemporary British history as an icon of the post-punk culture that challenged the status quo in all sections of cultural world.

Rik Mayall may have died, but his character endures as a sign of laughing in the face of authority - which is perhaps an inspiration for young people in these austere times. And for anyone trying to understand the history of Britain's recent past and the impact of Thatcherism upon British society, one need look no further than The Young Ones.

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To understand Thatcherite Britain, all you need is The Young Ones

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In the cult 1980s sitcom The Young Ones, lefty sociology student Rick, threatens to commit suicide and berates his fellow housemates: I feel sorry for you, you zeroes, you nobodies. What's going to live on after you die? I'll tell you - nothing, that's what! ... This house will become a shrine!